“Look, look look!”

One of the guards standing inside the gate yelled to the others on duty, and they all looked as Mick walked out of his house and made his way toward the gate.  Another small army of men, his personal detail, hurried up and followed behind him.

“Shit,” another gate guard said, and assumed a military-like, at attention pose.

“Some of the guys say he ain’t as bad as we think.”

“Oh yeah?  Then how come I get the willies whenever he comes near me?”

“The willies?  What the fuck are those?”

Gio, who was tasked with running the grounds detail until the threat was over, smiled.  “Don’t say anything to him,” he warned the others.  “If he says something to you, just do what he says.  Nothing more.  Otherwise keep your traps shut.”

“What if he says hello to us, Gio?  We can’t speak back?” yet another guard asked.

“Geez,” Gio responded, shaking his head.  “Where do they get you clowns from?”

But it was par for the course.  Most men on guard detail weren’t the major players in the army.  They weren’t accustomed to dealing directly with their boss, and was therefore suddenly nervous.  They’d heard all kinds of horror stories about Mick.  They didn’t want to make any false moves.

When Mick made it up to the gate, he wasn’t interested in doing anything but getting out.  “Open it,” he ordered the booth guard, and the guard quickly complied.  When the gate opened, Mick and his men walked out, and headed across the street to a house Mick also owned.

When Mick entered the house, his men waited outside.  Teddy was waiting inside, in the separate foyer, for him.

“They’re trying to play dumb, Pop,” Teddy said.  “They’re trying to come at me like they don’t know what I’m talking about.  When I almost put Higgs head through a wall, he came to his senses.  But said he’d only tell it to you.”

Mick stood there momentarily, as if, Teddy thought, he was inwardly plotting his own strategy, and then he made his way out of the foyer, and into the living room area.  Teddy followed behind him.

There were five men sitting with Higgs, while Mick’s men stood guard behind them with guns in their hands.  There was a chair for Mick in the middle of the group, but Mick didn’t sit.  He walked in front of the group, opened his suit coat, placed his hands in his pants pockets, and focused his entire attention on Higgs, the leader of the pack.

“Talk,” he said.

Higgs sat erect, and didn’t hesitate.  “You’ve got to ensure us that you’ll have our backs,” he said.

Mick’s men couldn’t believe it.  Teddy couldn’t believe it either.  “Are you nuts?” Teddy angrily asked.  “You tried to kill our whole family, and you want us to have your back?”

“I don’t want you to have shit, Junior,” Higgs said, and Teddy tried to rush him to beat his ass.  But Mick pulled him back.

“Talk,” Mick said to Higgs.

“We have to have that assurance, Mick.  We can’t go down this road without it.”

Mick stared at Higgs.  He’d always known him to be a straight shooter.  But if Natalie was right, and Mick had no reason at this point to doubt her, he had ambushed his own boss.  That was a man Mick would never trust.  “Santo is dead,” Mick said.

He could see a changed look in Higgs’ eyes.  “So, he’s dead.  I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Mick said.

“But it’s the truth,” Higgs said.  “I didn’t kill Santo.”

“Who did?” Mick asked.  “Others members of his crew?”

Higgs hesitated.

“Answer my fucking question!” Mick yelled.

“Yes!” Higgs responded.  “Others did.  But not on my orders.  And not on the orders of any of the lieutenants here today.”

“What did you do to those men?”

“Killed them,” Higgs said.  “But I didn’t order that hit, Mick.  I wouldn’t do that to my own boss.”

Mick stared at him.  “Talk.  Tell me what you know.”

“You’ll have my back?” Higgs asked.

Mick hesitated, and then made a decision.  “Yes,” he said.

Higgs exhaled.  Mick’s word was good as gold in their world.  “Teddy Stefani owned Santo,” he said.

“Teddy Stefani is dead,” Mick responded.

“I know that.  You know I know that.  But that was his code name.  Why he chose that name?  I don’t know.  But that was his code name.”

“That was whose code name?” Mick asked.

“The mastermind.  The man pulling all of our strings.”

Teddy frowned.  “Who, motherfucker?  Spit it out!”

Although Teddy asked him, Higgs looked directly at Mick.  “The Hammer,” he said.

Mick and Teddy both stared at Higgs.  Was this man for real?  “The Hammer?” Teddy asked.  “Hammer Reese?”

“Yeah, Hammer Reese.  That crooked motherfucker.  Who else?”

“You’re telling us that Hammer Reese is behind all of these attempted hits on our family?” Teddy asked.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Higgs said.

Teddy, shocked, looked at his father.  Mick was as surprised as everybody else, but for a different reason.  “Hammer Reese is coding as Teddy Stefani?” Mick asked Higgs.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Are you saying he ordered the hit on Santo?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mick.  He ordered the hit on Santo, and ordered our men to carry it out.  I didn’t find out until after the fact.  And I only found out because the Hammer told me.  That’s when we took out every last one of those assholes who participated.  But then he came after us.”

Mick didn’t respond to that, so Higgs kept talking.  “He said we either do what he tells us to do, or he’ll kill every one of us, and our family besides.”  A wary look appeared on Higgs’ face.  “We’re talking the Hammer, Mick.  You know how he is!”

Mick continued to stare at Higgs. “Go on,” he said.

“He orders us to do all kinds of crazy shit.  First, we had to get Bella Caine on board.  He figured she would run to you and get you involved.  Then he wanted us to take out Natalie.  Then he wanted us to ambush you and your lieutenants first chance all of you were together.  He was even strong enough to turn two of your own guys, Mick.  But you took them all out: my men and yours beside.”

“Keep going,” Teddy ordered.

“I’m just saying it wasn’t me who was ordering this shit,” Higgs said.  “Hammer Reese is ordering this shit top to bottom.  It ain’t like we’re doing this on our own.  We’re doing it because he’s ordering us to do it.  And you know that asshole, Mick.  What choice we had?  Your ass is bad.  But at least you’re fair.  Hammer is just bad.  And when he put that hammer down, and said we take you out, and your family out, or we and our families will be taken out, what were we supposed to do?  We didn’t have a choice, Mick.”

“You had a choice,” Mick said.  “You could have come to me.”

Teddy nodded his head in emphatic agreement.

“But you don’t understand!” Higgs said.  “Hammer is the government.  We’re talking the former director of the C.I. fucking A.  You can’t fight the government!  It’ll be like shooting the moon.  Even you can’t shoot that high, Mick.”

Mick just stood there.  He wasn’t certain how to process this news.  “Why would Hammer Reese want to be code-named Teddy Stefani?” he asked Higgs.

“He said Teddy used to work for you, but you took him out.”

“Bullshit!” Teddy said.  “My dad didn’t kill Teddy Stefani.”

“That’s what he told me.  He wanted to remind you of your nastiness, he said.”

“If his ass is claiming I took Ted out,” Mick said, “his ass would have known I needed no reminders.  But if a reminder of my nastiness is what you need, then I’d better give you one.”  Mick pulled out his gun and then shot and killed all four of Higgs’ lieutenants.  One by one by one by one.

Higgs jumped up stunned.  “What the fuck?” he asked.

But Mick didn’t hesitate.  He handed his gun to Teddy and then grabbed Higgs, turned him around, and put him in a chokehold.

“But you said,” Higgs said, barely able to breath, “that you had my back!”

“I said I would have your back,” Mick said, “and I have it right now.  But I didn’t say I wouldn’t break it.”

And then Mick bent Higgs’ back with such force over his knee, and bent him so far back, that every man in that room could hear Higgs’ spine sever.  Higgs screamed out in pain and everybody in the room felt his pain.

But Mick didn’t feel shit.  He threw Higgs down on the floor and then started kicking him like the piece of trash he took him for.  “You sent men to kill my wife, and my daughter, and me and my sons, and you expect me to have your fucking back?  I got your back, alright, motherfucker,” Mick said as he began stomping on Higgs’ now broken back.  Higgs cried out in even more pain.  “I’ve got your fucking back!”  Mick’s men were too stunned to do anything but gawk.  They could only imagine the pain if they were in Higgs’ place.  Even Teddy was stunned by his father’s violence.

And Higgs wanted out.  He couldn’t take it anymore.  “Kill me,” he cried.  “Somebody kill me!  Kill me now!”

But Mick wasn’t about to let him off that easily.  He kept stomping him and stomping him until he was coughing up blood.  And then Mick stopped, just short of outright killing the man.  He wanted Higgs to suffer.  “Clean up this mess,” he ordered his men, “and then take this prick to the safe house on Robison.”

“Should we get Doc in to take a look at him?” one of Mick’s men asked.

Mick gave him a hard look.  “You call a doctor for that punk and you’ll be the one who’ll need him.”

The man smiled.  “Yes, sir,” he said.  And then Mick, followed by Teddy, walked back outside.

“What do you make of that, Pop?” Teddy asked.

“Not much.”

“You doubt what Higgs is saying?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“All of that shit about the Hammer?  I don’t get it, Pop.  What would Hammer Reese have against us?”

“I don’t know.”

“But why would he be coming for us?  What did we do to him?”

“I told you I don’t know,” Mick said in a snappish tone as they began walking back across the street.  “I’ll sure as hell find out, but I don’t know yet.”

“Where are you going to begin?”

Mick looked at him.  It was only then did Teddy get it.  “Oh, right.  Right.  The baby?”

Mick nodded.

“I’ll go with you,” Teddy said.

But Mick shook his head.  “No, you aren’t.  You supervise the cleanup and the move to that safe house.  Rosalind will go with me.”

Teddy looked at his father.  He knew how sensitive he was when it came to Roz.  “I didn’t mean any disrespect, Pop, when I told her she couldn’t come over to the house with us.  I was just trying to tell her that this could get messy. And it did.”

“Yeah, it did,” Mick said as he walked. “But you don’t tell her anything.  Not a damn thing.  You need to remember the chain of command in this family.  Me, then Rosalind, and then you.  In that order.  Just because everybody else calls you my number two, don’t you get that twisted in your mind too.  You know better.  Nobody usurps Rosalind’s authority in this family.  Not even you.”  He looked at Teddy with a look that brook no debate.

Teddy nodded.  “Yes, sir,” he said.