Chapter 37: Chapter Thirty-Seven

Without further explanation, Genevieve Accardi raced down the hall. Gloria stood there for a moment unsure if she was meant to follow. Would the woman come back carrying an armful of papers? Would she rush out with one hand holding a bottle of whiskey and the other holding two glasses? Maybe a bottle in each hand and a ‘screw it’ to the glasses? Geneveive peeked her head out from behind a door and waved for Gloria to follow.

Happy to have her answer, Gloria walked down the hall and entered what looked to have once been an office. The room was torn apart with one desk still in cellophane wrapping and the other pushed against a wall. Buckets of paint and unbuilt bookshelves lined the center of the room. She noticed Genevieve behind the main desk pushed against the wall. Her fingers expertly worked through a stack of papers. She sent Gloria a smile of reassurance and beckoned her forward with a bob of her head.

“I told you I was familiarizing myself with your case?” Gen asked. Gloria nodded. “Well, I’ve been familiarizing myself with all of y’all’s cases, actually.”

“All?”

Gen looked up. “You aren’t the only one who was signed over during the five-year buffer when my husband took over the Royale.”

“How many?” Gloria asked, interest piqued.

Gen sighed. “Eight,” she said with a shake of her head. “Eight, including you. These three here…” She sighed. “They’ve already been married off. I have a few personnel going to check on their situations.” She ran a hand through her hair and let out another sigh as if this situation had kept her up at night for weeks. “I just don’t know what we’ll be able to do for them. I mean, two of them already have children.”

“The women won’t leave their children and mafiasos aren’t known for letting their heirs walk away. It’s why, in these situations, the men tend to… be quick when it comes to conceiving,” Gloria agreed.

Gen’s blue eyes softened in a way Gloria didn’t think was possible considering their color. She placed a hand discreetly over her stomach. “Right.” Her hand circled her small bump where the Accardi heir grew. “But these girls,” Gen said, fanning out the various files of the women who still needed their help. “These four other girls.” She looked up. “And you, of course, we still might have a shot with.”

“Why are you showing me this? Isn’t it confidential?” Gloria asked, spotting a picture of Rita, the other girl Nora had taken in during her time in New York.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t know much about this stuff,” Gen said, putting her hands back on her hips. “My sister does but she’s…” Gen waved dismissively. “This isn’t her thing. I need help. I need someone who knows this world because, well…”

“She’s lived it,” Gloria finished.

“Plus, you’ll need a job in the organization soon, right?” Gen asked, her eyes brightening.

“I want to be a nurse,” Gloria admitted, feeling, for the first time, she was in a safe enough place to demand something of her future.

Gen smiled. “We can help you with that. But if you’d be willing to help me with this… Gloria, we could save all these girls and keep it from happening again.”

Gloria sighed and looked down at the files. She picked one up and flipped through it.

‘Dakota Herring contracted to Luis Salvatore.’

She stifled a shiver. Luis Salvatore was in his fifties for Christ’s sake and Dakota was six years Gloria's junior. She shook her head and went to the next file.

‘Marley Winsome contracted to Gerald McMillan.’

She smirked. She’d met Marley many times at various events. Unlike other women in this business, Marley was excited to marry the McMillan heir worth millions and who happened to be quite handsome. He was a player, but Marley didn’t care. “Less time he’ll spend with me,” she would always say. A true mafia princess.

“We can worry about her last,” Gloria said, setting her file aside.

Gen laughed. “See? Already helping."

Gloria moved to the next file. This one was far heavier than the others.

‘Gloria Rubanov contracted to Sergei Vasiliev.’

She swallowed as she set the other files down. Her hands shook as she opened to the first page. She felt something touch the back of her knees and mechanically sank down in the chair Gen had pulled up for her.

“It’s a large file,” Gen whispered.

Stinging started behind Gloria’s eyes and at the bridge of her nose. She gave a distracted nod.

“Have you ever read it before?”

Gloria shook her head, her voice completely lost as she started to read the terms of her contract to Sergei for the first time.

“I was worried about why the file was so thick… the medical file in particular. Gloria, I’m so sorry about what they did to you,” Gen whispered somewhere to her right.

“Frankie killed one of the men responsible,” Gloria finally said, finding her voice.

“But… he doesn’t know. He couldn’t,” Gen rationalized.

It was true. If Frankie Donati was aware of what they’d put her through, Accardi would have been on his back the moment he’d opened the door. Oswald would have been pumped with adrenaline to keep him alive while he was being dissected. Sergei would have never just walked away.

“No, he doesn’t know,” Gloria answered.

She’d gotten to the part of the contract that detailed her ‘wifely duties.’ They’d negotiated everything from the meals she’d cook, the annual parties she’d be required to attend, the clothes she’d wear, her accommodations, how she’d split her time between Moscow and Chicago… the number of kids she’d have… the times each week she’d be expected to pleasure her husband. Gloria flipped to the next page and swiped a tear from her cheek. This page was easier to read: it detailed her monthly allowance. $50,000. Not bad for a stay-at-home mafia breeding machine. She pictured her father sitting at a table across from Alexei Vasiliev, Sergei’s father, discussing the number of times his daughter would be required to have her weight checked each month to maintain the image of a beautiful Pakhan wife. Was Sergei there? Did he get to make any additions to the contract?

“Is Frankie treating you well?” Gen suddenly asked.

Gloria nodded, still reading.

“He really cares for you,” Gen added.

Gloria finally looked up. She’d gotten to the section in which her value was broken down like line items on a receipt at the end of a bad date. The last part of the contract was her medical records and she didn’t need to read those. She was there for them.

“You know him well,” Gloria surmised.

Gen laughed. “Oh, no, not at all. We actually didn’t get along when we first met.” Gen leaned forward. “He actually terrified me.”

Gen stood up and started to pack away the files, knowing her husband and Frankie would be back down any minute. Gloria guessed she hadn’t gotten her husband’s approval to bring Gloria into the fold yet.

“You don’t seem to be afraid of him now,” Gloria observed.

“Yeah, well, you go through a bunch of stuff with someone. They save your life a handful of times, they start to grow on you.”

“So does a fungus.”

Gen laughed again and it was a laugh that was hard to not fall into. Gen sat in the chair beside her and sighed. “Frankie is… Frankie. He doesn’t hide anything. He doesn’t feel the need to not be wholly who he is, you know?” Gen looked off into the distance as her hand settled back on her stomach. “There was a time I was in a hairy situation. Trauma-laced and shock-inducing. I was broken and bleeding and faced with these men who I knew but didn’t recognize. Then he was there, in all of his bored glory just wanting to get out of there. He was safety in that moment. His chaos and terror was safety for me.” Gen’s ice-blue eyes met hers. “He’ll always be there for me. He’ll always be at my back. And I belong to another man.” Gen picked up Gloria’s file and balanced the weight of it in her palm. “I breezed through your file, Gloria. I haven’t researched it like the others. Do you know why?”

“Too boring?” she tried to joke. She was spending too much time with Frankie.

Gen smirked, a challenging lifting of the right side of her mouth. “Because I don’t need to worry about your case. You have the angel of death himself by your side now and there’s not a single person I would trust more to bring vengeance to those who have wronged you.” She dropped the heavy file on the desk. “We’ll just try to keep him from reading this as long as possible though. Reading this would make a sane man go feral. I can’t imagine what it would do to Frankie Donati.”