Chapter 83: Chapter Eighty-Three

Frankie kept the pistol trained on the Pakhan’s face until the sound of the door clicking shut reached his ears. With Gloria’s taste still lingering on his lips, he raised the gun as if he’d pulled the trigger and popped his lips. He chuckled at his own joke.

“Now that the audience is gone, do you mind if we forgo the formalities?” Frankie asked.

Ivan’s agitated expression twisted as his jaw ticked. He breathed in slowly, his lips pursed and as he released that breath he gave a sharp nod. Frankie dropped the gun and Ivan spun on his heel to round his desk.

“Careful,” Frankie warned as he approached one of the chairs across from Ivan. “Don’t be pressing any buttons unless we discuss safe words first.” Frankie stepped over Gromov’s dead body and settled into a chair.

Ivan turned his back as he poured a glass of whiskey. He looked over his shoulder and raised a glass, nonverbally asking if Frankie wanted to partake. Frankie barked out a laugh in answer. Ivan rolled his eyes and slammed the drink back. He refilled the glass before sitting down in his chair. He interlaced his fingers together on the desk and leaned forward slightly.

“You’re fucking my daughter,” Ivan said with a growl of disapproval that made Frankie think the man had green sludge stuck to the back of his throat he needed to clear.

Frankie smirked. “You mob bosses… always so quick to stick your dicks in. Wouldn’t it feel so much better if you took a moment to squeeze some lube on the tip first?”

Ivan’s dark eyes scoured Frankie’s face for a moment before he clicked his tongue and sat back in his seat. “You owe me twenty million dollars,” Ivan grumbled before downing the second glass of whiskey.

Frankie laughed and shook his head. “Sergei said the exact same thing.”

Ivan scoffed. “Vasiliev.” He spit on the ground next to his chair. “Coward. Hiding in his little bunker leaving us to clean up his messes.”

Frankie shrugged. “From where I’m sitting, Gloria is still your problem until a priest is present and both parties have said ‘I do.’”

Ivan’s eyes cut to Frankie. “Would you like to be my problem again, Donati? It didn’t work out so well with you the last time.”

Frankie’s smirk tightened around the edges, and he shifted his head to the side until his neck cracked. “I was fourteen,” he hissed between his teeth.

Ivan chuckled, noticing how he’d gotten under Frankie’s skin. “Aside from the hair, you look the same to me now as you did then. A little boy, playing gangster.”

“Dress-up or sure-thing, I’ve broken into your swanky little compound. Even now me and my gang are dismantling your perfect soiree.”

“Is that so?” Ivan asked, an arrogant smirk firmly in place.

“That’s so. And the person steering the helm?”

“Let me guess, Accardi? Is he on the other side of the door waiting to make an extravagant entrance like those fucking Dagos love so much?” Ivan asked, pulling a cigar from his breast pocket.

“No, I’m under new management,” Frankie said, settling his shoulders back in his chair and interlacing his fingers in his lap.

Ivan’s brow shot up as he lit his cigar and took a few puffs. His brows pinched as he seemed to have trouble getting the smoke into his lungs. His eyes bulged as, all at once, something dislodged from the cigar and smoke flooded his system. He coughed a few times and pounded his chest before responding, “Accardi has dismissed you?”

“What makes you think Accardi would fire me?”

Ivan licked his lips and set his hand down on the desk. He flicked the cigar ash directly onto the wood. He shrugged. “Rumors carry across the wind, Donati. We’ve all heard Accardi’s gone soft for a woman.” He eyed Frankie up and down. “Perhaps it’s an infectious disease.”

“I was a skeptic myself. The accountant has surprised me though. No, I’m leaving the organization willingly,” Frankie lied. “Better opportunities elsewhere.”

Ivan gave him a look filled with thinly veiled doubt. “Better than an Italian family with hundreds of years of connections?”

“Mmm,” Frankie hummed. He picked at the leather of his chair. “Men estimated in the thousands, family history dating back to the Black Plague, entrenched businesses in drugs, personal security, armaments, money laundering services and trading of illicit goods totalling into the billions. Not to mention the assets the family will inherit once we’ve taken down their largest ally.”

Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “There are only a handful of families you could be referring to. Do I have the displeasure of knowing them?”

“Intimately,” Frankie smiled. He leaned forward. “It’s taken me nearly two decades, Rubanov, but I’ve finally got you by the short and curlies. All I have to do now… is twist.”

Ivan’s hand jerked under his desk. The moment the Pakhan’s finger pressed against the silent alarm, Ivan’s body went rigid. His jaw clenched, his teeth visibly strained to not snap against each other. The chords of his neck locked, the muscles along his shoulders, arms, and torso froze in a state of painful paralysis.

Frankie sighed and stood slowly from his chair. He took his time looking around the office at the various artifacts collected from around the world. Pictures displayed the Pakhan standing beside dignitaries and celebrities alike along with bolder images of him holding the decapitated heads of the men, and women, who had done him wrong. He could hear Ivan over his shoulder trying to force his vocal cords to work. Frankie turned and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“You should really vet your waiters more properly,” Frankie said to the Pakhan while shaking his head in disapproval. “I’d suggested he slip the device in your drinks, but, as he pointed out, it could sink to the bottom of the glass. A Cuban cigar, though? He knew how much you loved those. I hope it didn’t hurt too much going down? That coupled with five minutes alone in your office to change the trigger we both agreed you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself from tripping made this so easy it’s almost… boring.”

Frankie stood beside him now. He placed a stiff hand on Ivan’s shoulder and leaned down so he could look at the surveillance feed displayed on the computer. He smiled as Gloria stepped around a doorway, grinned and shot a man between the eyes.

“She’s breathtaking, isn’t she? I’d say you did a good job training that one but I’ll go out on a limb and say you had no hand in it?” Frankie surmised with a sadistic chuckle. “Excuse me one moment.”

Frankie stepped away so he could turn the volume on but the hand on Ivan’s shoulder stayed directly where it was. Though Ivan couldn’t turn his head, his eyes could still shift and see that the heavy weight on his shoulder was not Frankie’s own hand but a severed one belonging to the doctor who had dared to touch his Vixen for all those years. Ivan’s breathing grew heavy, whether from shock or anger, he didn’t care. Frankie placed the earpiece in his ear and tapped the microphone lodged in his molar to activate the communication between him and Conor.

Frankie turned the volume up on the monitor in time to hear Gloria announce, “My name is Gloria Rubanov. I am the future Pakhan of the Rubanov family. I’ve come to kill my father and claim my birthright.”

“Oof, damn, that was hot, Vixen,” Frankie growled.

“Keep your dick in your pants, Donati,” Johnny sighed. “Gloria doesn’t have her earpiece in.”

He watched Gloria turn back to the hallway in time to see Johnny emerging from the doorway, holding his back as if injured.

“What’s going on?” Frankie heard Gloria ask through Ivan’s monitor.

Johnny handed over an earpiece, and Gloria worked to put it into place.

“Is Rubanov secured?” Conor’s voice came through the earpiece.

Frankie looked back at the Pakhan whose eyes were still trained on the hand, trying to identify it, most likely. “He’s secured. The cigar idea worked.”

“Knew it would,” Conor said, sounding smug.

“We have all the women freed, ready to move them,” Gloria announced, glancing around the room at the various women searching for clothes.

“I see that, Vixen,” Frankie announced. Gloria looked around and up until she spotted the camera. A proud smile lit up her beautiful face. She did a little curtsy and Frankie groaned. “You got some good genes there, Ivan,” Frankie muttered. Ivan tried again to use his paralyzed vocal cords.

“What now? On to the next phase?” Gloria asked, looking to Johnny who was hugging a woman off in the background.

“That’s up to you, Boss Lady,” Frankie announced.

Gloria looked back up at the camera. She thought for a moment before she nodded firmly. “Johnny and I will get the women out to the rendezvous location. Conor, you’ll need to get your equipment and meet Frankie at Ivan’s office. Charlotte is incapacitated. You’ll need to carry her out. Frank, are you able to carry the dead weight that is my father?”

“With you bossing me around like that, I could lift a car, Vixen,” Frankie purred in approval.

“Focus, Donati,” Gloria scolded.

“Mmmm yes, ma’am,” Frankie groaned. Even from the monitor, he could see her eyes roll.

“Alright, let’s move. Okay, ladies…” Gloria pivoted and started barking orders as though she’d been Pakhan her entire life.

“Well, Mr. Rubanov, if it were up to me I’d slit your throat and be done with it, but…” Frankie clicked his tongue. “My new employer has something else in mind for the likes of you. Now…” He looked around the room. “You got a rug or something I can wrap you in?”

Frankie shoved against Ivan’s shoulder. The old man grunted as he hit the floor. The door to the office opened and Frankie quickly raised his gun. Conor merely raised an eyebrow.

“She’s over there,” Frankie said with a bob of his head as he looked for a suitable rug.

“Jesus, what happened to her?”

“This fucker, what do you think?” Frankie explained giving Ivan a quick kick in the side for emphasis.

Conor gripped Charlotte under the knees and behind her back before cradling her to his chest. “Mr. Rubanov,” he greeted with a bob of his head.

Frankie groaned as he shoved Ivan on top of a rug. Even just that simple act was enough to make him out of breath.

“You’re pathetic,” Conor added with a sigh.

“Oh yeah? Let’s strap you to my chair when we get home and see how you feel after I’m done with you, huh?”

“Last longer than you,” Conor mocked as he strolled out of the room, woman in his arms, heavy bag with his equipment on his back.

The pair moved quickly through the halls carefully evading Ivan’s patrols. He could hear Ivan’s muffled protests as he tried to use his voice to get attention. Frankie suppressed laughter of his own at the attempt. They walked into the cool night air and he spotted the large group of women pressed firmly against the building, out of sight of Ivan’s guards. Gloria walked up to him, gun in hand. She glared down at her father and Frankie could see the visible effort it took for her to restrain the desire to shoot him then and there.

“We have a problem,” Gloria said, not taking her eyes off Ivan.

“And that is?” Frankie asked.

She finally looked up, her colored contacts doing nothing to hide the anger behind them. “The catering trucks have all left. We have no way to transport this many people.”

“Hm.” Frankie glanced around. “Wait here, Vixen.” He dropped the rug and Ivan’s body hit the ground with a thud. “Keep an eye on that.”

Frankie pulled his gun from his waist and strolled leisurely around the building. He spotted the valet and casually walked up to the three men manning the station. “Heyo, boys. Here to pick up my ride: shiny silver Lamborgini.”

The three men looked at each other and down at the board of keys. One of the younger men spoke first. “We don’t have a…”

Frankie fired three times, each bullet finding its mark in one of their legs. The men dropped to the ground. Before they could reach for their radios he tsked. “I wouldn’t. I’ve been kind. Just incapacitated you. If you reach for that radio, I’ll plant one in your forehead. Now, be good little boys and hand over the radios nice and easy.”

They all glanced between each other before their eyes flicked behind him. He didn’t need to look to know his reinforcements were coming. They each nodded and pulled their radios out. Before they could hand them over, Johnny appeared and shot them each in the head.

Frankie sighed. “Come now, they were just following orders.”

Johnny shot him a deadly look. “Their orders involved holding these women hostage. They’re lucky we don’t have the time for proper punishment.”

Gloria appeared then, her eyes holding the same look of finality as Johnny mixed with disapproval. “We need to move, other guards probably heard the shots.”

Frankie spun the board around to face her and her eyes brightened, impressed at the sight of nearly a hundred sets of keys. “Shall we ask the girls what color they prefer or just throw them all in a bowl and make a game of it?” Frankie asked.