Chapter 57: Chapter Fifty-Seven

Gloria sat back against the couch as she watched Gen’s sister, Jada, question Leo’s wife, Lucy. The confrontation was getting pretty heated. Lucy sat in a lounger, her arms crossed and her face stone. Her foot tapped in agitation as Jada leaned over her, scowling as she pointed her freshly manicured nail in disdain.

“Admit it! You were there that night! His car was in your driveway the next morning. Your fingerprints were all over his house. Tell the truth!” Jada yelled.

“I. Didn’t. Kill. Him,” Lucy hissed.

A freshly filled glass of red wine appeared in Gloria’s periphery. She took it with a smile and nod at Genevieve who sat down beside her.

“Have they discovered anything new?” Gen asked, sipping her club soda.

“No, they’re just going around in circles,” Gloria said.

“Ask her about the photos!” Gen’s office manager, Kaitlin, prompted. Her cheeks were a cherry red due to the amount of liquor she’d consumed.

“The photos aren’t relevant,” Georgia pointed out. Gloria couldn’t quite remember what her position was at Accardi industries, a lawyer maybe, but she remembered the girl beside her, Simone, was a receptionist.

“You murdered Abraham out of a jealous rage when you discovered he was married to Gloria! Come clean!” Jada yelled.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit weird to play a murder mystery game given what your husbands all do?” Gloria asked Gen, being sure she kept her voice down in case the Accardi Industries employees weren’t ‘in the know.’

Gen shrugged. “Are you not having fun?”

Gloria looked around at the women half in their cups and fully invested in the terrible interrogation going on. It was a motley crew of women Gen had assembled for ‘girls night.’ Gloria originally thought it had been something Frankie orchestrated as a way to distract her during the drug transfer that night. She was quick to learn these girls made a habit of meeting up at least once a month to gossip and have fun.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Gloria said with a smile and another sip of her drink as she settled back to enjoy the show.

“Tell me!” Jada screeched.

“Jesus, Jade, watch the decibel,” Gen said with a laugh as she rubbed her slowly growing stomach.

“So, Gloria, how did you get invited to this soiree?” Simone asked, trying and failing to get the straw of her footy drink in her mouth without looking down at it.

Gloria chuckled at the display. “I’m dating Mr. Accarid’s friend, Frankie.”

It felt weird to use the term, ‘dating.’ Was that what they were doing? How would one describe a relationship in which the man stole her from her fiance, moved her into his home, took her virginity and vowed to help her kill everyone who’d wronged her?

“Frankie?” Simone asked, looking around at the other girls for help.

“The guy with the dark eyes, covered in tattoos, combat boots and ‘you wouldn’t survive me’ smirk. The one who you don’t want to make eye contact with but can’t look away from either. That mysterious, you know he’ll take you all the way to heaven over and over before dragging you to hell,” Kaitlin added helpfully with a slightly suggestive shimmy of her shoulders.

Gloria found her glass tightening in her grasp as her eyes narrowed at the young woman. She felt Gen place a reassuring hand on her thigh.

“The short, dark-haired guy who is usually with my husband,” Gen supplied.

“He’s not short,” Gloria said, coming to his defense.

“No, right of course not,” Jada added, picking up on the sudden hostility. “Short-er.”

“Right, that’s what I meant,” Gen said, patting her thigh a few times before sitting back on her legs.

“That’s nice. Um, how did you meet?” Simone asked, looking a bit unsettled after learning who Gloria was involved with.

“Depends what you consider a first meeting. If you count the first time we interacted, it would be when I saw him getting his dicked sucked by a whore in Accardi’s club. If you think it’s the first time we spoke, it was after Accardi stabbed him in the chest and he came to me to sew it up.”

The girls went silent. The women from Accardi Industries looked taken aback, unsure if she was joking. The mafia women had smiles like they had similar stories to share.

“I met Matteo because of a dare,” Gen added, trying to alleviate the tension.

“Louis saved my life from an abusive boyfriend. First time I saw him, he was plowing his fist into the fucker’s face,” Jada said cheerfully.

Lucy laughed. “I met Leo in the hospital a few days after that when I went to visit Jada. He wouldn’t let me in the room and I tried to get past him. I ended up pressed against the wall with a knife to my neck.” She looked away with demure eyes. “Wasn’t the last time it happened either.”

The mafia women all laughed to themselves. Gloria turned to the girl who had the nerve to describe Frankie like a wet nightmare come to life. “And you? How’d you meet your current boyfriend?”

Kaitlin, who had sobered rather quickly, gulped and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Uh, in college at a typing class.”

“Well, isn’t that... boring,” Gloria said before taking a sip of wine.

“I met Murphy at a strip club,” Georgia said cheerfully, most definitely one Cosmo too deep.

“What were you doing at a strip club, Georgia?” Gen asked, holding back bubbles of laughter.

“Stripping, of course!” Georgia hollered. The room erupted in laughter. “What? You don’t think I’ve still got it? Hold my drink, Kaitlin.”

Gen stood up. She and Jada rushed toward the coffee table to try to convince the older woman to not take her top off. Lucy stood up too but instead of trying to get her to stop, she pulled some cash out of her back pocket and threw it at the woman. Gloria couldn’t stop her laughter. In that moment, watching these women love and laugh without any hidden agenda, she realized how desperately she’d always needed that. To have a group of girls who just wanted to hang out, gossip, have fun. She’d never had that.

With every woman she’d ever considered a friend, there was always that underhanded sense that she was only there as a form of protection or a way to bring her to freedom. Nora was a friend like that. They were brought together as a savior and victim. It wasn’t like that with these girls, these women married into the mafia. There was only… understanding, and a need to try to get away from the darkness that threatened to consume their lives in various ways.

As Gen finally gave up on trying to get Georgia down, the woman succeeded in getting her top off and twirled it above her head. Then the door to the apartment shook with the force of violent knocking.

Immediately four hand guns were drawn by half of the women. “Stay back,” Jada instructed the two pregnant women and the corporate ladies.

Like a bucket of ice-water, the harsh knocking sobered every woman there. Georgia hurriedly put her top back on as Jada stalked toward the door. She looked through the peephole and sighed. She turned to face the group as she undid the various locks.

“It’s just Conor,” Jada announced.

A pit immediately formed in Gloria’s stomach. Just Conor? That couldn’t be right. Frankie had left with Conor. Jada finally succeeded in getting the door open and Conor stumbled in. His face was pale, a sheen of sweat coated his forehead and his breathing was labored as if he’d run all the way from the warehouse. His eyes scanned the room and locked with Gloria's. He visibly gulped. In that moment, she knew.

“Where’s Matteo, I need to speak with him,” Conor demanded.

“He’s at the club,” Gen said, subtly moving closer to Gloria as though she sensed it too.

“Fuck, okay,” Conor turned to leave.

“Stop!” Gloria yelled. Conor halted in the doorway as if her command had the physical power to grab him. “Stop. Right. There. Look at me,” she growled.

Conor did as he was instructed.

“Where is he?”

“Gloria, look,” Conor began.

“Where is Frankie?” she repeated, her steps slowly eliminating the space between them.

Conor gulped again. “Something happened.”

Gloria smacked him across the face and several women gasped behind her. Tears slid down her cheeks but she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. “Tell me!”

With his head still turned, he swallowed. “There was an ambush at the warehouse.”

“Where is he?” she asked for the third time.

He finally looked up at her. “I don’t know.”

Gen’s hand slid over Gloria’s shoulder. “We’ll go with you to the club,” Gen said, already pushing Gloria toward the door.

Gloria nodded her agreement, her heated glare still fastened on the coward that had run rather than fight. As she stepped over the threshold, she dropped her character’s card from the stupid game they’d been playing: the card that identified her as the murderer.