Chapter 79: Chapter Seventy-Nine

For the umpteenth time since the insufferable car ride began, Gloria tried to find a position that didn’t cause pain to shoot up from her ass cheek. She winced as it seemed like there would be no relief until she could stand again. Gloria looked up and caught Frankie’s eyes watching her from the rearview mirror with a proud smirk on his face. She rolled her eyes and went back to looking out the back window.

She crossed her arms and continued to fume over the “punishment” Frankie had administered before leaving the Blue Lounge the other night. Ten lashes. Five across each ass cheek for disobeying him and putting herself in unnecessary danger rather than waiting for him to come home and explain. It wasn’t even the spanking that infuriated her. It was his ability to pin her down, have her completely at his mercy while she struggled with all her might. Even still suffering from his injuries, he didn’t break a sweat. It reminded her that while Frankie wasn’t the biggest man, he had all the strength necessary to bend anyone to his will… including her.

Gloria blinked over and over until finally sticking her finger in her eye to adjust the colored lenses she wore to turn her irises from brown to green.

“Here, this will help,” Charlotte offered, handing her a tube of eyedrops.

“Thanks,” Gloria murmured, dumping several drops into each eye in the hopes of alleviating the discomfort.

“You should put yours in,” Johnny said from the passenger seat as his gaze analyzed Frankie’s appearance.

Frankie ran his hand through his newly dyed blond hair, which he assured Gloria over and over would wash out within a few days. “I’m not wearing those damn things.”

Finished with his analysis, Johnny shook his head, unsatisfied. “There’s no way this is going to work. No one in their right mind will believe you’re my brother.”

“Siblings have different eye colors all the time, John John,” Charlotte said with a roll of her own eyes to Gloria as if they were lifelong gal pals and they’d be venting about their irritating men later in the night.

“The hair color is horrendous, his build is way off, facial structure is a joke and anyone with less than certified blindness is going to see the makeup on his hand covering the ugly compass I told you not to get when you were that young,” Johnny said, staring out the window, his entire demeanor taut and irritated.

“Gloria likes the get-up, don’t you, Vixen?” Frankie asked, smirking at her through the rear-view mirror.

She was still mad at him over her punishment, so she barely made eye contact before she turned away. “If I wanted a guy from a boy band, I would have gotten one,” Gloria growled, tightening her arms across her chest in defiance.

“Well, this should be a fun party,” Charlotte quipped. “Maybe you and I should stick together, Frank, and let the two sourpusses feign a romance.”

The car grew very quiet. Gloria glared over at the brunette who was oblivious to her ire. Gloria then looked up at Frankie and noticed his white knuckles against the steering wheel.

“Anyone who touches my girl will end up in the road with their skulls caved in from my tires. Understood?” he asked, looking pointedly at Johnny.

Johnny snorted. “I didn’t say anything. Take it up with the prostitute in the back.”

Charlotte kicked Johnny’s chair. “Excuse you? Prostitute? I didn’t know she was your sister, Johnny! I’ve known you since the day you moved to Chicago and never once did you…”

Johnny spun in his chair to face the woman visibly shaken by the insult. “I met you on a street corner while you were doing… What, Charlotte?”

Charlotte sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. Her lips pursed as she fought to not let tears spring forward and ruin her immaculate makeup.

Frankie sighed in the front seat. “This is going to be a long night,” he mumbled.

The car remained silent as they pulled up to a lavish gate surrounded by tall conifer trees. She was reminded of the woods that surrounded Sergei’s compound. The gates were heavily guarded. One guard stepped up to each window. While Frankie handed over their tickets and the fake IDs Conor printed the day before, two other guards swept mirrors under the car to check for weapons. Those same two guards opened the hood of the car and the trunk to ensure nothing was inside that could disrupt the festivities.

The tickets were handed back, and they were ushered forward. But no one celebrated. Getting onto the grounds was the easiest part, and they all knew it. Gloria could feel herself starting to shake. Sweat began to collect under her armpits and the small of her back. They drew up to the large mansion, twice the size of the home she’d grown up in. Men in tuxedos were as common in number as those in tactical gear and rifles. Blooming rose bushes surrounded the pebbled driveway, the perfect illustration of the beauty mixed with violence they were walking into.

The car came to a stop, and Gloria felt she was about to vomit. Her door opened, and she jumped slightly. A hand reached in for her, only for it to be yanked back out. She looked up to find Frankie holding the poor valet by his suit jacket. Frankie shoved him back and adjusted his own jacket before extending his hand down to her, his eyes still glaring daggers at the man who had the audacity to even consider touching what was his. Gloria took his hand, and his fingers immediately gripped hers tightly, stalling the shaking, grounding her in a way no one else had ever been able to. As she stood, she took in a deep breath, knowing that so long as he was by her side, nothing would harm her.

Still sensing lingering nerves, Frankie cupped her throat with one hand and lifted her chin so that their lips could touch.

“Breathe,” he whispered against her lips. She took in a stuttering breath. “Contacts don’t hide fear, Vixen. You’re the strongest bitch here whether I’m with you or not. Show them what a real fucking Rubanov Pakhan looks like.”

Gloria laughed and fluffed her fake red hair. “Like Christmas?” she asked, with a sweep of her hand down her emerald green dress meant to match her fake eyes. His own gaze wandered down her appearance and his jaw ticked.

“If Christmas looked like you, I’d have enjoyed it far more growing up.”

“You just didn’t like it because you always got coal,” she said, as he took her arm and started leading her after Johnny and Charlotte toward the stairs.

Frankie barked out a laugh. “Lucky for us, Santa’s not real. I got great shit growing up. Got a Red Ryder at ten.”

“And your parents wonder what went wrong?” she asked.

“Black Bart was a menace in our neighborhood. They needed me defending our home,” Frankie growled by her ear.

Gloria laughed, and by the time they reached the front door and the next phase of their entrance into the illustrious party, Frankie had done what he does best: put her at complete ease through the use of his perfectly timed comedic relief. His fingers traced along her spine, exposed by her backless dress, as they waited for their turn to get patted down. As they grew closer, Gloria realized she knew the men inspecting tickets. Her back became rigid, and Frankie’s fingers stalled. He turned slightly, shielding her from the men whose eyes ran along the crowd.

“What is it?” he whispered to the top of her head.

“The two at the front.”

“Hmm?”

“Gregor and Marty. They’re two of my father’s most trusted men. They… they watched me grow up. They may recognize me,” Gloria told him.

Frankie chuckled and her eyes shot up to his. He touched her chin. “They saw you meek, timid and submissive. Three things you have definitely grown out of, Vixen. Look them in the eye, keep your shoulders back and…” He sighed as he readjusted the front of her dress a bit. “As much as I despise telling you this, stick your chest out and they’ll be too focused on these,” he said, brushing his thumbs across her nipples, causing them to rise. “To think of that little girl they were foolish enough to misjudge.”

“Ben!” Johnny called in a way that said it hadn’t been the first time. Frankie sighed and drug his gaze away from her now heaving chest.

“Yes, brother?” Frankie asked. Johnny bobbed his head toward the two men staring at them.

“As I said, this is my brother, Ben, and his date, Melinda,” Johnny said, ushering them forward.

Frankie placed Gloria’s hand in the crook of his elbow and led her toward the men. Though she could feel herself shaking, she kept her chin high and her chest inflated. Marty’s eyes dropped first and Frankie’s arm tightened, pinning her hand to his side.

“Gentlemen? Quite an ordeal to get into this shindig,” Frankie said.

Gregor looked at their tickets and their IDs. His eyes skimmed over Gloria’s face, and she fought the urge to look away. His gaze dropped to her chest, and his brows bounced once before moving back to the IDs.

“Men to the right and women to the left. You’ll need to be patted down before entering,” Gregor announced.

As the group passed by, Gloria let out a breath at the same time as Gregor smacked the back of Marty’s head.

“Do that with someone who actually matters and you’ll get your head blown off. If you’re going to gawk, do it after they’ve handed over their weapons, you moron!” Gregor hissed.

Frankie chuckled darkly and leaned down toward her ear. “I wouldn’t need a firearm to do to him what I was thinking,” he confided in her. “Good job, Vixen. You were very convincing.”

“Please, my nipples did all the talking,” she said, still shaken from the experience. She knew those were only two of dozens of her father’s men she’d have to face by the end of the night.

“Mmm, they certainly did.” He turned her to face him and brushed his thumbs across the bottoms of her breasts. “My favorite language.”

She swatted his hands away. “Enough of that. We made it past them. You can cut it off now.”

“Why would I cut it off? You’d miss it as much, if not more, than I would.”

“Please, you have other appendages I could just as easily put to use,” she challenged as she walked off with Charlotte.

Gloria crossed her arms and looked across the foyer where Frankie was stepping up to get frisked. He stared at her, placed two fingers on either side of his mouth and flicked his tongue between them. Gloria rolled her eyes just as the man digging through Frankie’s pockets whirled him away toward a private screening area.

“You two are cute together,” Charlotte said softly beside her.

Gloria laughed. “Cute? I don’t think that word has ever been used in reference to Fr…” She cleared her throat and glanced around. “Ben, before.”

Charlotte sighed and stared longingly across the foyer where Johnny waited impatiently for Frankie to be done. His hot glare followed every one of her father’s men as they passed.

“You and uh…” Gloria jerked her head toward Johnny.

Charlotte shook her head. “We have fun but… he’ll never see me as more than an employee, I’m afraid,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. A beautiful woman in a dress more elegant than either of them was wearing called Charlotte forward.

Frankie reemerged then, his hair disheveled, his shirt untucked, belt undone and his shoes in one hand. He smiled big and shrugged his shoulders at Johnny, who merely shook his head. He glanced over at Gloria and gave her a wink as he used Johnny’s shoulder for support to put his shoes back on. Gloria’s turn was next, and the woman’s appearance belied the strength of her hands as she searched every nook and cranny of Gloria’s body for weapons. She walked out of the room feeling oddly close to satisfied and scanned the foyer for the man she wished she could drag to a closet to finish the job.

“I know that look, Vixen,” Frankie said over her shoulder, his hot breath fanning her neck and making her shiver. His hand snaked around her waist and dipped dangerously low. His fingers curled into the silk fabric of her dress, bunching the hem up a few inches. “Want me to ask what she’s doing later?”

“Why? You worried you won’t be able to rise to the occasion?”

“Keep tempting me,” he warned.

“For fuck’s sake, are you all going to fuck in the lobby or can we just get on with the task at hand?” Johnny griped.

“Vixen?” Frankie asked.

Gloria sighed and took a step forward, forcing his hand to drop from where it was anchored. “Enough stalling. Let’s get this over with.”