I was waiting for you
Waiting for all my life
And I've been crying for you
Dying for you all this time
- Lose You Tonight by HIM
Chapter 13 - Lose you tonight
Three days later
The members of the cartel including the Milkovich children had to gather in the court room.
"Do you know who this is about?", Mandy asked while they were waiting in the cold room. Mickey hated this room, the spot where so many people died... where Dimitri died in front of him.
"No clue. Ask Iggy"
Iggy and Collin each stood next to their father, Mandy looked at them and then just shook her head, "We'll see in a minute anyways, right?"
Mickey nodded, he looked behind him to Gallagher, who looked at him and for only a second let the smallest smile appear on his lips. Mickey smiled back and then turned around again.
Ian still owed him a final answer. Mickey had already talked to his father about leaving for college outside of Chicago, well, he had tried at least, Terry had only told him "I don't have time for your moods right now, make an appointment if you wanna talk to me"
Yes, Mickey had to make an appointment to talk to his own father – but if Terry and Ian would agree to his plan, it was worth every obstacle.
But Mickey wasn't prepared for the obstacle entering the room.
Angus Field, head of security, was dragged into the court room, his hands bound in front of him, he was shoved to the ground, so he was kneeling in front of Terry.
Mickey suppressed a gasp.
"You betrayed me, Angus", Terry growled, "Men", he shouted around the room, getting everyone's attention, "Mr Field has been my most trusted for two years but now he betrayed us!"
Mickey could feel guilt coming over him in waves, he shuddered. He almost felt the presence of Carl Gallagher in the lower ranks of members in the back of the room. Was Angus here because he got Carl out? Was this Mickey's fault? He knew the answer to it without Terry having to say it.
"You know about the border project. An alliance with a big cartel in Mexico, access to their sources, exclusive loyalty, all that for the mere price of one of my sons being married to a beautiful girl", Terry said and put his hand on Collins back, who stood up straight and looked over the crowd with a similar sense of authority their father did.
"And the negotiations went fine, didn't they? We almost made it and then Mr Field all of a sudden pulled a man out behind my back! Sabotaging the whole operation, you could have ruined this deal for all of us."
"Mr Milkovich please, it isn't ruined the negotiations are still-"
Terry punched him with the handle of the gun and made him fall to the ground, "Did I allow you to speak, rat?"
Mickey couldn't move, he had to tell his own brain to breathe because otherwise he would have just stopped.
Terry said some more words that just turned into one big noise for Mickey.
"On these grounds I sentence your to death for treason", Terry said in the end, without a doubt feeling like a king, "Now, speak your last words."
Angus looked up at him, looking for the right words, than his eyes shifted to Mickey, who stared at him, and his eyes turned hateful.
"My last words", Angus said and looked up at Terry, "Your son is the greatest evil in this room, more than you even. Your son kills everyone that gets close to him, he is a dirty fucking f- "
Terry shot him dead before he could finish his sentence.
Mickey stood there like he was made of solid marble.
Everyone was silent.
Terry ordered everyone to leave, "Except you three", he said to his sons, "You come with me."
Mickey swallowed hard and glanced at Ian, who was just as shocked as he was, Mickey quickly followed his brothers out of the room.
They gathered in a kind of conference room.
"So, who of you did Angus speak of?", Terry asked slowly.
The three men stared at the table in front of them.
"Really? No one? Was he addressing some bastard I don't know about? Collin, what did you have to do with Angus?"
"Nothing, dad. I mean... I talked to him because of some cartel things sometimes sure, because of his position. But that's it, I swear."
Terry grunted and looked at Iggy.
"You made me responsible for security matters. I had meetings with him all the time, talked about if the security details were doing their job, we talked about possible rats in the cartel and if the feds had anything on us. But we remained professional, I don't think he would perceive me as evil."
That only left Mickey. All three were staring at the youngest now.
"Mickey?", Terry growled, "What did you do?"
Mickey bit his lip and looked up, "Well... you know... people hate me", he tried to shrug it off, "I had him fire my security more often than you and made his job harder by always running away... I would hate me too if I was head of security."
Iggy and Collin found this quite reasonable.
"He's right, dad. Angus was just bitter in the end. He tried to sabotage our most important mission, he just wanted to talk shit.", Collin said.
"Mickey, did you have anything to do with Field pulling out this... whatever his name is out of my operation?"
"No", Mickey said quickly and then looked from his brothers to his dad, "Come on guys, I don't know anything about cartel operations. I only take your drugs, you don't let me into the big business... And that's good! I mean, you know me, no fucking responsibility, right?"
"Right... you're like your mother", Terry spat, and Mickey pinched the skin on his arm to stay calm when he mentioned his mother, "Good for nothing."
"Yeah... I mean, yeah, totally. I'm no use for the cartel. I'm even fucking bad for the cartel, right? Don't your men always talk about me as, ya know, 'rebel' and 'uncontrollable'? Do you want an uncontrollable kid around your drug business? Sure as fuck not, right?", Mickey rambled on.
Iggy was looking at him wide eyes, "Mick, what the hell are you doing?", he whispered.
"You are right", Terry says, "The only thing you can do in this cartel is using without paying."
"Yeah, I'm horrible for your business, but I have a solution", he said and scooted closer to the table on his chair.
His father seemed interested now, "Are you planning to get your shit together and work for me?"
"No, that wouldn't end good, no, uh-uh. Good for nothing and all that, your words. No, I was thinking more of... leaving."
Now all three stared at him like he had lost his mind.
"Like Sandy", Mickey added quickly, "I go to college or some shit, you send me money so I can live and I'm out of your way. No one will say that you can't control your son, ever again. Sell it as your idea: 'I said leave, so he left' – like that."
Terry leaned back in his chair.
"You leave and don't bother me again with your rebel-bullshit and all I gotta do is sent you an allowance."
"Great idea, dad, we should do that.", Mickey nodded.
"And you want to go to Sandy?"
"For example."
Terry was nodding slowly, he looked at the ceiling, thinking.
"I don't want cousin-inbreed grandchildren, like your cousin Remy."
"I... uhm, I don't want to go to her to fuck her, dad", Mickey said and shifted in his seat.
"Well, you can never know, you've always been very close."
Mickey pressed his lips together and brushed his knuckles against his nose to not answer this.
"So, what do you say? I leave, you can stop giving me parts of your valuable time and attention, you give me some money every month and everyone's fine?"
Terry looked at him, he looked at Collin, leaned towards him and mumbled something to him, Collin looked at Mickey, bit his bottom lip and nodded to Terry.
"Okay", Terry said, "I allow it, but it's my idea."
"Of course."
"And no inbreed grandchildren"
"definitely."
"When can you leave?"
Mickey smirked, "Three weeks tops."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mickey went back to his room where Gallagher leaned against his door.
"Mick are you okay?", Gallagher whispered when Mickey came to him.
Mickey just wordlessly opened his door and waved Ian inside.
Mickey let himself fall on the couch and took a deep breath.
"Mick?"
Mickey exhaled and then lay down on the couch in a foetal position and just stared into nothingness in front of him.
"Babe?", Ian sounded worried, kneeled down in front of him.
"He said this would happen", Mickey whispered, "I made him get your brother back and he said, he's gonna die for this"
Ian bit his bottom lip lightly and ran his hand through Mickey's hair.
"It's not your-"
"Don't say that. It is. It's just my fault, no one else's."
"Baby..."
Mickey shook his head, "Shit, fuck, I said it's gonna be the last time he had to do something for me. I said, he would be a free man after this. He's right... I am evil. I was the biggest evil in that room."
"No, you weren't. You are a good man."
"I'm not-"
"You are, Mick. You just wanted to help me and bring my brother back."
"No... that was completely selfish. Everything I do is selfish. I thought, the faster your brother is back, the faster you can leave the cartel and go away with me."
Ian sighed and kissed his cheek.
"I still think you're a good person, babes. You just want to live."
"He wanted to live too"
"He hated his life either way. He wanted to use his last breath to out you in front of everyone."
Ian looked at his boyfriend who was in the same shell-shocked guilty state he was when Angus was killed. With his dad he had been able to play it cool for a moment, but the shock was back now.
Ian pushed his hands under Mickey's body and picked him up from the couch bridal style, only getting a weak protest from the other man.
Ian carried him to the bed and gently lay him on the mattress, he took his shoes and jacket off and lay down beside him, spooning him and wrapping his arms around him.
"I love you so much and I will leave with you", he whispered, "I don't care if Angus Filed thinks you're evil, I disagree wholeheartedly. I want to leave with you, and I want to love you and be with you in every sense of the word. I want to have our own place and I want to take you on dates. And one day we're gonna get married and have children and a dog and buy a house with a garden and all those stuck-up straight neighbours there are gonna judge us so hard but we won't care because we will have awesome sex all the time while they're just bitter."
Mickey's heart beat faster, he turned around in Ian's arms.
"And the army?", he whispered hopefully.
"Fuck the Army", Ian looked into his eyes, "Why would I want to be away from you and our life all the time for shooting some people in a desert for a president that hates us? I'm gonna get a job where I can actually help people."
"Rehab nurse?"
"No, more like EMT or something like that."
"That sounds good"
Ian smiled and kissed his forehead.
"But no dog, though, I don't like dogs."
"You don't like dogs? Why don't you like dogs?"
"They're so much work and you always have to clean up after them."
"Okay, what about a cat?"
"No... little children and a cat? They're gonna scratch each other."
Ian grinned, "How about a hamster?", he suggested.
"What about Guinea pigs? We should get Guinea pigs."
Ian chuckled, "Okay, Guinea pigs it is."
Mickey smiled, "By the way, Terry agreed to let me leave."
"Really?"
"Yeah, so from now on, everything you say about this topic isn't hypothetical anymore. Are you ready to do this with me?"
Ian smiled and kissed him, "I'm fucking ready."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A junkie had depts.
That's how it starts for many men that end with a one-to-one with a Milkovich.
Depending on how big the dept was it ended with pain, kidnapping or death. Depending on the dept you would meet any kind of Milkovich from the lost case Remy Milkovich over Terry's sadistic nieces, violent nephews, bitter bastards to his brothers and sons. You would meet Terry if you a, really fucked up or b, he was in the mood to torture someone, to look someone in the eyes while inflicting all kinds of pain in them. Most of the time it was b.
It was b for Roger Spikey when he was dragged into a cold room, it was dirty, dimly lit, and soundproof. It smelled like all kinds of stuff no one wanted to think about, the stains on the ground and the walls could come from vomit, shit or blood, Roger tried to not look at them.
He was tied to a chair when Terry came in. He was in there for a day already, tied to the chair so he wasn't able to reach the bucket in a corner of the room.
"So, did something come to mind, Roger? How am I gonna get my money?", Terry growled.
"Please Mr Milkovich! I don't have any, I swear! Let me go and... I-I will think of something, I swear I will get you your money!"
"You already said that to my nephew months ago, and nothing happened. I don't like people that don't pay their depts Roger."
He was punching him across the face until Roger coughed and spat blood.
"Collin", Terry said to his room who stood by the door, "Bring the pliers."
"No, no!", Roger screamed, "Please no! I-I have information!"
"Information about what? The police? Feds?"
"no, b-but one of your bodyguards-"
"If it's not about the police or the feds, why would I care?",
"He's a queer!", Roger spat out.
Terry stopped.
"You have a poof working for you, even pay him money!", he said quickly.
"Collin", Terry grunted, "Leave the room"