Chapter 42: Chapter Forty-Two

“Hi,” Gloria replied, turning in her stool to face Nora fully.

“How are you?” Nora asked, setting down a glass of water.

Gloria sandwiched the glass between her hands. “Uhh, fine, I guess. Got to read my contract today,” she said, her voice a false brightness.

Nora pulled her lips to the side. “That bad, huh?”

“You could say that,” Gloria said on a sigh.

“Frankie?” Nora asked, knowing she didn’t need to ask the full question.

Gloria sighed and took a swig of her drink. “He read it too.”

“Hmm,” Nora hummed, nodding. “What’s his body count for the day?”

Gloria snorted. “His? Zero. Sergei’s? Four at least.”

The glass in Nora’s hand dropped and shattered on the rubber mats at her feet. She lurched forward and took Gloria’s hand. “You saw Sergei? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she reassured her friend. “I was with Frankie so he couldn’t get to me.”

“Good,” Nora said, her fingers smoothing over the back of Gloria’s hand. “That’s one thing he is good for.”

Gloria gave a distracted nod and glanced back at the ring. There was a large hulking figure pulling himself onto the mat. He ripped his shirt off and all the men in the area booed, hissed and threw things at him. He loved it. He held his arms out, gesturing with his hands for more.

“You’re not upset about the contract, you’re not upset about seeing Sergei. What is bothering you?” Nora asked.

“Nothing,” Gloria replied automatically.

“Gloria,” Nora called, refusing to continue until Gloria met her look of concern. “There’s this far off look you get when something’s bothering you.” She smiled. “I tell you this because he won’t.”

Nora’s smile was contagious. It was one of the things that convinced her mother to believe the friendly woman offering to help. The smile faded as she debated on whether or not she should trust Nora with something so personal. But who else was there? She looked around to make sure no one was within hearing distance. The men were still enraptured with the one-man gun show happening in the ring.

“It’s Frankie,” Gloria began. Nora nodded as though she’d confirmed all of her suspicions. “The way he’s handling this whole contract thing.”

“Is he being violent?”

Gloria shook her head.

“Quiet?”

“Not exactly he’s…” She looked down at her hands still gripping her water glass with tight fingers. She licked her lips and leaned forward. She spoke quickly as if seconds mattered. “He’s like a fuse that’s been lit but the cord has disappeared into a mine shaft and even if I could see it, there’s nothing I can do to stop the combustion from creating a crater in the earth.”

Nora laughed and nodded her head from side to side. Her eyes lifted and her smile grew. Her nodding turned to a shake of reproachment. She leaned forward over the bar on her elbows.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret about Frankie Donati. With him it’s not about how you handle the fallout. What you should be concerned with is what he’ll do to stop the detonation.”

Nora nodded her head toward the ring and Gloria followed her gaze. The crowd had shifted from doubtful mockery to playful warnings as Frankie pulled himself into the ring across from the behemoth. Frankie smirked at the man who brushed his thumb across his nose.

“You sure you want to have a go, Donati? I’m not like Accardi. I won’t take it easy on you,” Behemoth announced.

Frankie smirked and nodded as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. A glass of wine appeared beside Gloria and she took it based purely off reflex. Her attention was focused solely on the ring as Frankie racked his shoulders back and performed some light stretching.

She’d seen him fight. Well, she’d snuck glances over the heads of the men she was doctoring and looked away quickly to avoid him catching her staring. But, here, now, she could ogle. And ogle she would. It still impressed her how many tattoos covered his skin. It was hard to differentiate between ink and veins, skin and scars. He was a work of art, and her eyes ate him up as such.

Frankie wasn’t bulk. He was sinewy muscle with a defined cut. The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on him and stood nearly a foot shorter than the person he was about to spar with. That didn’t seem to phase him though. Instead, it appeared to amp him up more. Behemoth pumped his fists and bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited. Frankie smirked.

He was fast. Faster than anyone she’d ever seen before. He tore across the mat and landed four punches in Behemoth’s gut before she could even blink. The crowd went quiet as Frankie continued to unleash his personal hell on the man who thought himself untouchable. She couldn’t remember what the bulking figure actually looked like as Frankie turned him into a human punching back. There was no escaping the relentless pounding of his fists. Three in the gut, two to the head, three to the gut, a swipe to the leg that brought him to the ground.

“Holy cow,” Gloria said in a voice she thought was under her breath.

“Yeah, just wait,” Nora muttered.

Frankie walked away from his opponent, allowing him the chance to get up and suck in a few breaths. Frankie interlocked his hands and rocked back and forth on his heels as he waited. His next move came from nowhere. One moment he was swaying back, then next he was launching himself forward and delivering a haymaker to the man’s jaw that sent a tooth flying out of the ring. The man who found it held it proudly upward, but Frankie didn’t seem to notice. His intent was clear: annihilation. There was no time for a breather, no time for defense, no time for his opponent to take his hands away from shielding his face.

Amid the hailstorm of fists, Frankie’s eyes shifted up and met Gloria’s. A split second. A blink. A smirk. A hesitation. His opponent threw a punch that landed. Frankie staggered back as the energy in the ring shifted. A blow to his right cheek that spewed blood across the mat. A shot to the ribs that made Gloria wince. Frankie’s opponent knocked him back step by step until he was up against the ropes. Gloria stood up, watching as Frankie took hit after hit… without blocking.

“Fucking masochist,” Nora mumbled.

Gloria watched as Frankie allowed his opponent to take his pound of flesh. When it looked like he’d had enough, a single uppercut was all he needed to take Behemoth down. The crowd was still quiet as everyone looked up at the man whose shoulders shuddered with every breath. He spat blood down on the mat and wiped his mouth with his forearm.

“Who’s next?” Frankie asked, turning to grab a bottle of water from the assistant manager of the club.

“Come on, Donati, we’re just having a bit of…”

“Who’s next?!” Frankie repeated, his voice loud, firm, and non-negotiable.

There was a commotion in the crowd. People were pushing forward until the next victim was spit out. The man, if one could call him that, rubbed the back of his neck with uncertainty. He waved up at the deranged lunatic waiting for him causing a roar of laughter to reverberate through the crowd of mafia men.

“Poor kid,” Nora whispered.

Frankie gestured for the boy to come up. After having his hands wrapped, the young man watched his competitor warily while Frankie looked utterly bored. The boy raised his hands and Frankie sighed heavily. He walked to the young man and smacked him lightly on the cheek. Gloria couldn’t hear what Frankie said, but she could see him knocking the boy’s feet to correct his stance and adjusting his fists in a way to maximize damage.

“What’s he doing?” Gloria asked.

Nora laughed. “Teaching. That’s supposed to be one of his jobs. You know this sparring is for more than a show of testosterone. Especially when Frank has that look in his eye.”

“What look?” Gloria asked.

Nora sighed. “You’ll see.”

A few more minutes of instruction lead to a tamer round of sparring with the same formula. Frankie released frustration and then took on the opponent’s. The boy managed to make it out with a smile on his face. The others… Round after round she watched Frankie use maximum effort to tear apart his competitor and then back off to let the other man have his turn until he’d had enough and ended the fight with one or two punches. By the sixth round, Frankie looked dead on his feet but when she expected him to back down, he called for the next victim.

“What is he doing?” Gloria asked Nora.

“What do you think?”

“I think he’s trying…”

That’s when it hit her. Punishment. He was punishing himself. Using pain as a way to block out his conscience, his anger, his fear. It didn’t take much to observe how Frankie used pain to reset his brain. Some people cut their wrists or burn their skin, he took hits that threatened to cause severe internal injuries. As the sixth man stepped into the ring, confident that Frankie couldn’t take much more, Gloria got to her feet.

“That’s enough of this,” she said aloud.

The crack of fists against skin sounded over the encouragement of the crowd as she shoved her way through it. Men ignored her, threatening to drag her down to the ground as they fought to get a better view of the blood bath going on above their heads. She finally got to the side of the arena. Frankie was finishing his assault, an assault which no one had been able to stop until he allowed them to. His sparring partner landed his first punch and Frankie relented, allowing the large man to pummel his fists into Frankie’s liver.

Gloria growled to herself and ignored the hands pulling at her as she heaved herself up to the ropes and ducked between them. Someone grabbed her ankle and she kicked out, knocking the stranger in the nose and earning a few hoots of encouragement from some nearby observers. Frankie was up against the ropes, taking hit after hit. She strolled up to the oblivious pair.

A single knock to Frankie’s opponent’s shoulder and a kick at his knee sent him careening sideways to the mat. The man flipped around and looked up at her with wide eyes.

“Stay down,” she ordered, pointing her finger in warning.

Then she turned her ire to Frankie. He was still leaning back against the ropes on his elbows. He gave her a crooked smile showing his blood-coated teeth. She stepped up to him and crossed her arms. She slid her eyes over his person, taking into account the multiple lacerations, swollen extremities, stream of blood flowing down his frame. When her eyes returned to his face, his smile was gone, replaced with a look of curiosity, as if he knew she could see straight through his act and that fact utterly terrified him.

“Stop playing around. Finish this,” she demanded. “I’m ready to go home.”