Chapter 55: Chapter Fifty-Five

Present Day

Gloria stared across the room at Frankie. His arms were braced wide, flattened palms holding his body weight. His head was dropped forward, his hair obscured his face. A single drop of water hit the marble and he inhaled slowly, his breath stuttered some as he did.

“It was true what I said to you that night in the hotel,” Gloria said, her voice breaking though no tears would fall. She refused to allow herself to feel anything after what she’d done. She didn’t deserve the release of her guilt. “If I could go back and leave the apartment a minute sooner.”

“He would have found you in Florida, Gloria,” Frankie said, his head still bent, his voice muffled.

“If I could keep myself from opening the door. If I’d listened to Stephen and gone for the…”

“Sergei lit the fire in the kitchen. You wouldn’t have made it.”

A second droplet of water hit the island.

“If I could have just…”

“Stop,” he whispered, nearly too quiet for her to hear. “There was no way out. He knew it. He knew Sergei wouldn’t hurt you. He’d told you to run and when you didn’t, he knocked you out because otherwise…” Another shaky breath.

Gloria took a few hesitant steps forward. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Otherwise what, Frankie?” she asked, though she knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

He finally looked up and Gloria took another instinctive step forward. His eyes were bloodshot. Tears brimmed and fell one at a time as if a tear had never fallen from his eyes before and his body wasn’t sure how to express this form of emotion.

“Otherwise, Sergei would have made you watch. Just like he made me listen.”

“Frankie,” Gloria gasped, having not known Sergei had done something so cruel.

Frankie shoved away from the island and she hesitantly stepped back as he rounded it to get to her. His arms wrapped around her neck and pulled her into a tight embrace. Gloria buried her head in his chest. She wrapped her hands around his arms as an anchor. He took a shaky breath into his lungs and his body followed suit. He started to tremble as her hair became wet with his tears.

“You did everything you could,” he said, his voice broken above her. She tightened her grip, knowing it wasn’t her words he needed. “There was nothing you could have done. You were faced with an impossible situation against someone in a completely different realm of morality. There was nothing you could have done.”

In a startling moment of clarity, Gloria realized he wasn’t talking to her.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone,” he whispered, placing his cheek to the top of her head. “I should have brought you with me. I should have…” His arms tightened and a sob broke the silence of the room.

“There was something he wanted me to tell you,” Gloria said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

Frankie reluctantly pulled back and took her face in his hands. She fisted his shirt and tried to control the emotions warring within her.

“He wanted you to know that he loved you. That was the last thing he said to me. He wanted to make sure I told you that. Stephen loved you, Frankie. And it wasn’t just that once he told me so. He talked about you every day. He looked up to you. He loved you very much.”

Frankie nodded. “Thank you, Vixen.”

He lowered himself down to his knees and used her shirt to wipe his face and blow his nose, making her smile despite the gravity of the emotions in the room. As he stood, he cupped his arms around her ass and lifted her up.

“Why didn’t you ever let him see your apartment?” she asked as he carried her through the hallway toward the stairs.

Frankie chuckled and buried his head in her breasts as he walked up the stairs. “He would have trashed the place. Thrown parties.”

“That doesn’t sound like him,” she said, laughing slightly as his hair tickled her chest.

“A couple weeks together and you think you know him better?” he asked with a raised brow.

“He let me know you better. He would have made a great professional matchmaker. He was quite talented,” she admitted, her voice hesitant.

He paused with her beside the bed. “Is that so?” he asked, before dropping her like a sack of potatoes. Her butt landed on the soft mattress and she bounced slightly.

Frankie buried his hands in his pockets and studied her for a moment. He turned away, his face introspective as he walked to the window. She sat back against the headboard and drew her knees to her chest. He stood there silently for a few minutes and she never wished she could read minds so badly before in her life. He turned and for a moment she felt like she was gifted the superpower as his eyes reflected the various emotions he was feeling: despair, curiosity, wander, realization.

He walked toward her and she felt her heart rate climb with each step he took. Frankie crawled onto the bed, maintaining eye contact as he grew closer to her. She waited for his lips to brush hers, to feel the heat of his breath on her neck. Instead he sat back and pulled his shirt over his head. Next, he helped her do the same. Then he grabbed her right ankle and extended her leg, followed by her left. She wondered how she would tell him she wasn’t ‘in the mood.’ After such an emotionally charged conversation, she felt it was wrong to bookend it with passion.

Just when she thought Frankie Donati couldn’t surprise her more, he laid down flat on his stomach, wrapped his arms around her waist and placed his head in her lap. He sighed long as he burrowed himself further into the comfort of her body. She fought the burning of her eyes and nose as she gently put her hand on his hair and started to stroke it. She let her head fall back against the headboard.

“I have a few things going on for the rest of the week,” Frankie told her.

“Anything I can help with?”

“You can help by staying here. I know you don’t want to feel like a prisoner, but until we have Sergei neutralized, it will help if…”

“Whatever you need,” Gloria said.

Frankie chuckled. “Just like that?”

“So long as you don’t expect me to sit on my hands when it comes to taking Sergei out.” Gloria pulled at his hair until he looked up at her. “He’s taken from me too. I want to be there when you kill him.”

Frankie smirked. “I thought you were going to be the one to kill him.”

“I just want to make sure we’re on the same page,” she said, releasing his head so he could settle back in her lap.

“It’s just some intel work, following up on a few leads with the Phelan bastards and a drug handover in two days. After that we can make moves against Sergei, I promise,” Frankie assured her.

“Good. I can handle a couple days in this apartment, I guess,” she said sarcastically, glancing around the spacious place she was starting to think of as home. “So long as you can get some more food delivered.”

“Done.”

Gloria nestled back against the headboard and closed her eyes, enjoying the quiet around them, only broken by their soft, measured breathing.

“I’m glad he got to know you,” Frankie said after a few minutes of contented silence.

“Me too,” she whispered. “He was a good guy.”

Frankie snorted. “He was a little shit.”

“Okay, so maybe the two of you had more in common than you’d like to admit,” she joked.

Frankie chuckled and sighed as his arms tightened around her.

“I’m sorry, Frankie,” Gloria said as a single tear broke her barrier of restraint.

“I am too, Gloria. But don’t worry, you will both get your revenge. I swore that to him the day Sergei took him from this world. And I’m swearing it to you now. Chemú byt', togó ne minovát'. –You can’t avoid that which is meant to happen–,” Frankie said, his voice resolute. He looked up at her. “Sergei will pay and there’s nothing that will stop me.”

Gloria nodded, knowing he meant it. She waited for him to put his head back down to run her fingers through his hair. “H-how long have you spoken Russian?” she asked, hesitantly.

A smile tugged at his lips but his eyes remained shut. “Asher taught me,” he confessed.

So, since he was fourteen, she thought, great. “Ah, and when were you going to tell me?” she asked, tugging at the roots of his hair a bit.

He shrugged. “I was hoping to get one or two more confessions out of you first.”

Gloria huffed, though she was more embarrassed than upset. She pulled her hand away and crossed her arms.

“Don’t be upset, Vixen,” Frankie whispered, grabbing her hand without looking up to place it back on his head. “Dumayu, ya tozhe vlyublyayus' v tebya. –I think I’m falling in love with you too.\--”