Bella Caine looked through the peephole of the hotel room.  When she saw that it was Mick standing there, she took a moment to spruce herself up.  She smoothed down her hair.  She made sure her skirt seams were angled side to side and not too far in front or behind.  And, given that she needed his help and still believed Mick’s attraction to her was still high, she unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse.  And then she opened the door.

When she opened the door, she saw Mick alright.  But then Mick moved Roz from the side of the door and placed her in front of him.  Bella’s heart dropped.  She and Roz weren’t exactly on any kind of good terms, although Gloria, Bella’s daughter, thought the world of her stepmother.

But Bella, who had been a professional model for many years and was now a successful fashion designer, knew how to shield her distaste.  She didn’t even bother to button back up her blouse.  “Hello, Mick.”  Her voice was professional.  Neutral.  “Hello, Rosalind.  Come in.”

She stepped aside and allowed the couple to walk in.  Mick placed his hand on the small of Roz’s back and moved her in front of him as they walked in.  Mick and Bella did hug, however, when Mick entered the room, and Bella gave him a soft kiss on his cheek.  To this day she still missed that man!  Which was a shame.  But given that he bought his wife with him, she knew he was still off limits; that he was still trying to be the good husband.  An experiment she knew was destined to fail.  She closed the door, and offered them both a seat.

Mick and Roz sat on the sofa inside the hotel suite, and Bella sat in the wingback chair in front of the sofa.  Although Roz leaned back and crossed her legs, Mick sat forward with his arms on his thighs.  It was obvious to Bella that he wasn’t interested in a prolonged meeting: he wasn’t going to give her a lot of his time.  Since he never did, anyway, not even when they were dating, not even when she had his daughter, she decided to get on with it too.

“Somebody’s trying to kill me,” she said.

Roz was surprised.  She didn’t expect to hear that.  Her first question would have been who.  But Mick, being Mick, had a different question.  “Why?” he asked Bella.

Bella would have preferred to answer the who question, instead, but she gave Mick what he needed.  “I owe money.  One of my stores, my fashion house in Paris, didn’t have as good a season as we had hoped, and I needed a quick flow of capital to get through the season.”

Roz couldn’t help it.  “Why didn’t you come to Mick if you needed money?” she asked.

Bella looked at Roz as if she should be seen and not heard, but she knew disrespecting Roz would get her nowhere.  She was a New Yorker, and a frequent dinner guest of theater types.  She heard about what happened to Joe Ranley.  She heard how Mick beat the shit out of that producer for disrespecting Roz.  “I’ve gone to Mick too often in the past,” she said.  “I was trying to keep him out of it.  I would borrow it, pay it back, no problem.”

“What went wrong?” Roz asked.

“I borrowed it, and was ready to pay it back, but . . .”

“But what?” Mick asked.

“He wouldn’t accept it back.  He said he preferred to partner with me.  He said he wanted half of my business.  I told him that was out of the question; was he insane?  He told me nothing was out of the question in his world.  Well, that was unacceptable for me, and I told him so.  I also told him he could kiss my ass if he thought he was getting half of my business.”

Even Roz knew that was a bad move.  “Then he threatened you?” she asked.

“He not only threatened me,” Bella said, “but he had some goon break into my Manhattan apartment and try to kill me.  He might have succeeded if my bodyguard hadn’t taken him out.  After that happened, I came straight to Philly.  To Mick.  I knew that fool wasn’t playing anymore.”

“Who is he?” Mick finally asked.

“This guy named Teddy.  Teddy Stefani.”

Roz was floored.  Teddy Stefani again?  She looked at Mick.

But Mick was staring at Bella.  “Did you ever see this Teddy Stefani?” he asked.

She thought about it.  “See him?  No, matter of fact.  I never saw him.  All of our communications were over the phone, or with his agent.”

“Who is his agent?” Roz asked.

Bella thought Roz was overstepping her bounds with all of the questions.  She didn’t answer.

But Mick didn’t care what she thought.  “Answer her question,” he said.

Bella found it rich that Mick would put this particular woman on such a pedestal, when he was so dismissive of everybody else, but she wasn’t there to fight old battles.  She was there to save her life.  “His agent is this guy named Acer Higlands.  He said everybody calls him Higgs.”

Mick let out a sharp exhale, which, Roz knew, meant that he knew that name.  But Roz wasn’t about to ask any questions related to his knowledge in front of Bella.

Mick stood up.  Roz and Bella followed suit and stood up, too.  “Will you help me, Mick?” Bella asked.  “If you could just go to him and tell him I belong to you, he’ll leave me alone.”

Roz didn’t like the way she referred to herself as “belonging” to Mick, but Mick didn’t seem to mind the characterization.  He, in fact, confirmed it.  “He already knows who you belong to,” he said to Bella.  “That’s why he tried to kill you.  Wanting half of your business had nothing to do with it.”

Bella hated to hear that it was complicated, but her entire life with Mick had been nothing but complication after complication.  “Are you going to help me?” she asked anxiously now that Mick appeared to be ready to go.

Mick looked at her.  “Stay here,” he said.  “Keep that door locked.  My men will come shortly and take you to a safe house.”

Bella frowned.  “Not another safe house, Mick!” she said.  She’d spent time in Mick’s safe houses before.  “You know how I hate those places!  You can’t go anywhere.  You’re always surrounded by such deplorable people.”

“Or you can take your ass back to New York and figure it out,” Mick said bluntly.  “Your choice.”

Bella glanced at Rosalind, wondering if she was enjoying her humiliation.  There was no outward indication of it, but Bella still figured she probably was.  But she had bigger problems than Rosalind Sinatra.  “Okay,” she said.  “I’ll go to your safe house.  But please get it resolved.  I have fashion week in Milan coming up.”

Roz could tell Mick cared about Bella’s fashion week about as much as he cared about eating spikes, but he didn’t go there with her.  He, instead, took Roz’s hand and escorted her to the door.  Bella followed behind them.

When Mick opened the door, Bella touched him on his sleeve.  “I didn’t want to get in touch with Gloria because I didn’t want them to connect her to me.  But if you’re right, and they’re really after you, they already probably made the connection, right?”

Mick nodded.  “Right.”

“So what are you going to do about it?  Put her in a safe house too?”

That wasn’t Bella’s business.  “I take care of her,” was all he cared to say.  Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out what looked like a business card, and handed it to Bella.  “Lock this door,” he ordered.  “Don’t open it unless the men behind it says that word.”  It was the word on the card Mick had handed her.  Then he stared at her.  He would always love her, but it wasn’t the same.  “You’ll be okay,” he said.

And then he and Roz left.

Once they made it downstairs, and got into Mick’s Ferrari, he had already ordered his men to move Bella to a safe house.  By the time they were driving off, Roz was ready to ask her own question.

“You know who this Acer Higlands is,” she said.  “Don’t you?”

Mick glanced at her.  He loved her intelligence.  “Yes,” he said.

“Who is he?”

“Everybody calls him Higgs, and he was Santo’s second in command,” Mick said.

“Santo Vichy?” Roz asked.  “The man who used to be your partner?”

“The man they just iced, yes,” Mick said.  “Since Santo died, he’s now in charge of Santo’s crew.  He’s now in charge of the syndicate that Natalie claims killed Santo, and probably fired those shots at she and I last night.”

Roz looked at Mick as he changed gears and drove steadily along the streets of Philadelphia.  “What are you going to do?” she asked him.

“Beef up security,” he said, “and meet with all of my senior lieutenants.  Shit’s going down,” he added, “and I’ve got to make sure it’s not coming for me and mine.  I can’t play the game right if I don’t know what game they’re playing.”

“And what about Teddy Stefani?  Why does his name keep coming up?  And why would this Higgs guy pretend Stefani is behind anything at all when he has to know that Teddy Stefani is dead?”

“I don’t know,” Mick said, as he continued to drive.  “I’m at war with a fucking ghost, just like I said,” he added.

Roz thought about it.  “There’s a funny thing about ghosts,” she said.  “Once you see them, you can kill them.”  She looked at Mick.  “You’ve just got to see them first.”

Mick looked at Roz and smiled.  There was something comforting for him to have her by his side.  Then he took her hand.