Chapter 54: Chapter Fifty-Four

June

Broken glass rained down around her but none actually hit her thanks to Stephen shielding her entire body. Her ears were ringing as Stephen hauled her up from the floor. He was screaming something as he pointed toward the front of the house. He raised his handgun and blinked as he fired each shot toward the men still stalking toward the house. His dark eyes, nearly black thanks to his widened pupils, connected with hers. She tried to read his lips as he continued to shout at her.

“Get upstairs to my room!”

Gloria nodded, and picked up a run as she raced for the stairs. She felt Stephen’s hand on her shoulder, both pushing her forward and keeping her within arm’s reach in case he needed to shove her out of the way. They took the stairs two at a time. Her hearing returned just as the front door banged open. Stephen ran ahead of her and opened a panel beside the bed. His hands shook and he cursed as he entered the wrong code the first time. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. When his eyes reopened they were sharper, more determined. He hit four numbers and the lock turned green.

Stephen yanked the door open and pulled her in hard enough to make her stumble and fall to the ground. Gloria gasped in pain as a stray piece of glass caught in her shirt sliced into her arm. Stephen either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He used a lock that resembled the wheel of a pirate ship to seal the door closed. He then brushed past her and started to click on the various monitors. He raised his phone to his ear and waited.

“Fuck!” Stephen looked at his phone and threw it across the room so that it shattered against the wall. “They’re using a signal jammer. Gloria, try the landline!”

Gloria heard him. She had seen the red phone sitting against the wall. But she couldn’t move. Instead her eyes were focused on the camera facing the front door. She watched, her heart ready to break through her ribcage as Sergei Vasiliev slowly walked into Frankie’s safehouse. He glanced right then left. Then his gaze snapped up and locked with the camera. Gloria gasped and skirted back on her butt as if Sergei had the capability to reach his hand through the monitor and grab her.

“Gloria!” Stephen barked. She snapped out of her fear-driven fog and looked at him. “Landline!”

Gloria nodded at the frenzied man and got up on shaky legs. She reached for the landline but heard nothing but the harsh beeping of a disconnected line.

“It… it’s disconnected,” Gloria said between ragged breaths.

Stephen rushed over and clicked the receiver over and over. “Dammit!”

He turned away and ran both hands through his hair as he tried to think of what to do.

“They can’t get in here, right?” Gloria asked, looking around at the ample supply of food, water and the compost toilet in the corner. “We can just… stay here!”

Stephen sighed. He sat back against the wall and slid down to his butt. He chuckled brutally once. “Do you think he’ll just give up?” he asked, waving his hand at the monitor showing the staircase Sergei was currently walking up. “You think he’ll just go, ‘Oh, well, they’re locked in that room. Guess it’s time to go home, boys’?”

A harsh knock sounded on the outside of the door making her jump. Stephen got to his feet and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest, her tears wetting his shirt. She felt him shift and suddenly a crackle like a radio came on.

“I know you’re in there Gloria,” Sergei called, his accented voice causing goosebumps to rise all over her body. “You have five minutes to come out before I force you out. Tell Donati in there that for every minute he keeps me waiting will be an hour added to the time I make him suffer for taking what’s mine.”

She lifted her head and followed Stephen’s eyeline to the camera stationed outside of the panic room. Sergei took a few steps back, sat on the bed and looked pointedly down at his watch.

“They can’t get in here,” Stephen assured her, running his hand down her back.

“Will Frankie be back soon? Is there a panic button or something?” she asked. Stephen’s silence was answer enough.

Stephen released her and stalked to the wall of monitors. He braced his palms against the desk and studied the actions of Sergei’s men. They were tearing the house apart. None of them were wearing masks. They didn’t have to. They planned to kill everyone they encountered. Everyone… except her. Why would Frankie leave her like this? What was the point of keeping her from going to Florida if he was just going to leave her more vulnerable than she had been in New York?

Gloria turned to the stash of food and started ripping it apart. She picked up a chair and flung it against the wall hard enough to bend the metal legs. Stephen called her name somewhere in the distance but she was lost in a haze of anger and fear. She pulled the useless landline from the wall, chords and all, and flung it against the same wall as the chair. She looked at the door and went for it.

“Gloria!” Stephen grabbed her by the waist and pulled her up away from the door she was trying to open.

She turned on him, her fists flying as he tried to catch her hands before they landed against his face. Finally he had her wrists in his grip and shoved her against the wall.

“Stop!”

“This is all my fault!” she yelled in his face, her tears blurring her sight, keeping her from reading his expression. She didn’t need to. Anyone would be looking at her as if she’d grown a second head. “I ran from my fate! My mother died because of me! Nora is in danger! You…” A sob caught in her throat. “He’s going to kill you!”

“No!” he shouted in her face. “No, he won’t! I won’t let him! I won’t let him take you. I won’t let him hurt me. Do you know why?!”

“Just let me go and seal yourself inside. Just let me go.”

“I asked you a question! Do you know why I won’t let him take you?”

She shook her head, tears falling hard enough to drench the collar of her shirt.

“Because I promised him! I promised Frank that I would keep you safe. I gave him my word! Nothing means more to me than that. If Sergei kills me, then so be it, but he won’t get you! Now sit the fuck down while I try to figure this out.”

He didn’t give her a chance to comply. Instead he shoved her down and she let him. She wiped her eyes and watched him make notes while scanning each camera. As Stephen worked on a plan that involved an intricate blueprint of the house and the various men inside it, she looked at the faces of those trying to force her out. She recognized a few of them and knew their names. She memorized the others: every eye color, skin tone, scar, tattoo, walking gate. She would remember each and every one. If by some miracle she survived this, she would spend the rest of her days tracking each of them down and make them pay until the fear in their eyes mimicked what she felt in her heart.

“Dammit,” Stephen sighed.

Gloria looked back at him. His hands were braced against the desk again. His head hung below his shoulders as if the weight of his stress was threatening to decapitate him. The fingers of his right hand constricted until the paper under his palm was balled in his fist. He laughed, softly, almost as if he’d never done it before. He pushed away from the desk and walked over to where she sat. He slid down the wall and patted her knee.

“I have looked up to him since I first opened my eyes. Literally,” Stephen said. “My parents told me that the moment they handed me over to Frankie, he refused to give me back. Even when my mom was giving me a bottle, he would sit on her lap and make sure she was holding my head right.”

Stephen sighed. “He left home because of me. He wasn’t a good kid. Got caught up in the wrong crowd of kids on our street. The same kids that eventually trafficked Nora. He was selling dope, going to strip clubs, picking fights in back alleys to make money he didn’t even need. I wanted to be him so bad. He was so tough. He didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought… Until I started following him around. Then he cared. People started making fun of the kid who had a baby tied to his ankle. He got into more fights.”

Stephen’s head fell back against the wall and he visibly gulped. “The night I got caught shoplifting and the cops brought me home, my parents weren’t even mad at me. They were mad at him. They got into a big fight over it. Later that night I caught him packing a bag. He was going to leave for Chicago. He was going to leave me behind. Said I deserved a better brother. Told me to look up to someone like Roger, our neighbor down the street who was on track to go to law school.” Stephen scoffed. “I tried to get him to stop. To stay. I really tried but he still left.”

“You didn’t become a lawyer,” Gloria noted, though her eyes were on the monitor where Sergei no longer sat on the bed. He’d moved at some point when they weren’t looking.

Stephen laughed. “No. Almost did. Got into Columbia.”

“You what?” she asked, her head whipping back to look at him.

“Yeah,” he said, still chuckling.

“What happened?”

“I got into some trouble. I was making money taking tests for people. I got kicked out for ‘academic dishonesty.’ Couldn’t find a decent job because of it. I went to the other side of my parent’s street and started selling shit. Taking it too. My parents caught on and, for whatever reason, reached out to Frankie.”

“Did they expect him to scare you straight?”

Stephen smiled and laughed again. He looked at her with crinkled eyes. “I suppose so. Then I found out the guy was a fucking millionaire, living in a penthouse, that he refused to let me see by the way, and working for a powerful organization that made him untouchable. I asked for a job and, after some blackmailing on my part, he got me one working for Accardi.”

“Sounds like a good brother,” Gloria noted, touching his knee.

“The best.” He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Which is why when the fire starts, and we make a run for it, you need to ignore whatever is going on. Don’t look back. Don’t worry about me. You run through the pantry in the kitchen. It leads to an underground garage where a bullet-proof sedan is waiting with a full tank of gas. You get out of here and you don’t look back. Do you understand?”

“What are you…”

“Gloria, I need you to tell me you understand," Stephen said, his face filled with desperation.

“What if…” A lump of emotion lodged in her throat. “What if he kills you?”

“My brother is a different man since you came into his life. You may not see it. He may not even let you see it for some time, but you need to trust me when I say that you’ve changed him. He needs you. He doesn’t need me. I'm just a baby tied to his ankle”

“That is not true…”

“Whether it is or not, doesn’t matter. What matters now is getting you out.” Before she could argue further, Stephen pulled himself up. He turned on a receiver and Sergei’s voice broke through the silence.

“Time’s up, Gloria. Come down to me now. I’ll have you, blistered skin or not,” Sergei announced as he dropped a match in the kitchen that immediately swallowed the entire countertop in flames.

“Okay,” Stephen said, taking a deep breath that lifted both shoulders. “Gloria, remember what I said, you make a break for…”

Gloria made the last turn on the hatch and a loud click made him pivot to face her. She looked back with her lip caught between her teeth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t let him take someone else from me.”

“Gloria, no!” Stephen yelled as Gloria pulled the door open and fled.

She ran. She ran as fast as she could. She made it out of the bedroom before she felt his hand around her upper arm. She swiveled, catching him off guard. She lifted her foot and kicked him in the gut.

“I’m sorry!” she yelled as he hit the ground hard.

Gloria rounded the corner, the stairs in sight. She made it down two before he caught her again and slammed her against the wall. “I’m sorry too,” he whispered. His voice resigned. “This is going to hurt but he’ll know. Once you show it to him, he’ll know. Tell him I love him. Make sure he knows that, okay?”

“What are you…” She gasped as she noticed his handgun. The barrel was wrapped in his fist. She turned, saw Sergei waiting at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by flames as though he were Satan himself. Then the grip of Stephen’s gun connected with her skull and Sergei disappeared. Everything disappeared.