Chapter 85: Chapter Eighty-Five

Frankie walked into the quiet that was his apartment. He dumped his keys and duffel just inside the door before collapsing back against it. Safe. He was finally safe again. He could breathe and did just that: one deep breath in, eyes closed, one long breath out. Without opening his eyes, he used the toe of one boot to peel off his other, then repeated the movement with the second. The thud of glass against wood forced his eyes open. He tilted his head toward the living room. A deep sigh from that same direction made him shove off the wall.

His socked feet padded softly along the hallway rug as he stalked toward the living room. When he got to the entranceway, he propped himself against the doorframe and crossed his arms. Gloria lay on the couch, facing away from him. She had taken her wig off. Her golden chestnut hair hung over the armrest of the couch. Her slender hand reached down, and her fingers wrapped around the neck of a vodka bottle she’d set on the floor: the source of the thud he’d heard earlier. The bottom of the bottle was the only thing he could see as she took a hefty chug before coughing.

“Are you old enough to be drinking that, young lady?” Frankie asked.

He expected her to be startled, maybe go into a coughing fit. Instead, those delicate fingers wrapped more securely around the bottle as if he were threatening to take it.

“Are you going to call the cops, Mr. Donati?” came her soft voice, too sweet to be interpreted as the threat she’d intended.

“Only if you refuse to share,” he told her as he walked into the room. He shucked off his shirt as he moved. “What are we drinking to?” he asked, now standing over her. He braced both hands on either side of her head, and her honey eyes were rimmed with red as they connected with his.

“We’re celebrating.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmm. To family!” she said loudly, saluting the bottle into the air before breaking into giggles.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Frankie admonished. “Sit up.”

He tapped her shoulder until she lifted her torso with a groan. He hopped over the side of the couch and settled back into a reclined position. Gloria settled against his chest with a contented sigh.

“Gimme,” he ordered, beckoning for the bottle like a toddler desperate for milk.

She handed the bottle backwards. When he noticed how much she’d drunk, or rather how little she’d drunk, he clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“Lightweight,” he teased.

“Maybe that’s not my first bottle,” she offered, turning around so she could shove her hands under his back seeking warmth.

His eyebrows shot up as he took a gulp straight from the bottle. “Is this not your first one?”

“I said maybe it’s not,” she corrected, followed by a perfectly timed hiccup.

Frankie chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head. “Then my insult stands.”

Gloria sighed again and he could feel her eyelashes fluttering against his skin as she sought a comfortable position for her head. “So how is Daddy?” she asked, venom in her voice that lost its potency when she hiccuped again.

Frankie rubbed his cheek against her soft hair. “Angry. Volatile. Contained.”

“I still think we should have killed him outright.”

“If we kill him, then…”

“Sergei gets word, there is a loophole in the contract that allows him to take over the family, his forces triple, he becomes harder to take down and our lives get more complicated, yada, yada, hiccup, yada.”

“How are the girls?” Frankie asked, running his fingers down her spine, making her shiver.

“They’re good. They all met up at hiccup the place we discussed. Nora and Juniper met us hiccup there. She got them all on a bus to take hiccup them to the apartment building. They’ll have hiccup to bunk up together for a few days but…” Gloria let out a breath. “They’ll be fine.”

“And the cars?”

“Called the number you gave me and a guy named Thomas showed up with a bunch of hiccup goons to take them away. They were very excited,” she said with a hint of a smile in her voice. “Typical hiccup boys.”

A contented silence filled the room for several minutes as they both absorbed the events of the past few days.

“Your turn. What did you talk to my dad about?” she asked.

Frankie sighed. “Oh, you know, normal stuff. Asked for your hand in marriage.”

Her head shot up. “What?”

“Yup,” he said, popping the ‘p.’

She smiled and a delectable blush crept over her cheeks. “What did he say?” she asked, eyes glistening with amusement.

“He said ‘no!’ Can you believe it?!” he asked.

“The nerve. Well, he only wants the best for his baby girl,” she teased, settling back down on his chest. “What else?”

“You expect me to have had a rational conversation after he utterly destroyed my confidence?” he asked, aghast as he took another swig of vodka. He offered the bottle back to her.

“You’re Frankie Donati. If anything the rejection only amped you up further.”

“Ah, so you think you know me?”

“A little bit,” she said. A dribble of vodka snaked from her lip to land on his chest. He took the bottle as she ducked her head and licked the drop up with her tongue. He hissed between his teeth at the insanely hot gesture. She looked up at him with a crooked smile and winked.

“Oh, ho, ho, Vixen, watch it. I have no reservations against taking a woman in your state of inebriation,” he warned. She shrugged and settled back down. He readjusted his hips so his dick wasn’t threatening to impale her belly button and tried to get the blood back to his brain so he could recall his conversation with Ivan. “Let’s see, there was a lot of threatening.”

“By who?”

“I think we both lashed out equally.”

“That’s good.”

“He apparently knows where my parents live.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, but not surprising either. I’ll ask Accardi to put some guys on their block, but Ivan won’t be putting out hits from where he’s sitting.” Frankie combed his fingers through her hair.

“And?” she asked after a few moments of silence broken only by the occasional swishing of the alcohol as he took a drink. “Was that it? Proposal and threats?”

“There was one other thing.”

“Frankie Donati.”

He chuckled. “I…”

“You…”

“I officially resigned with Accardi.”

Gloria’s finger, which until that point had been tracing the tattoos along his chest, suddenly stilled. “You quit?”

“I like ‘resigned’ better. Sounds more eloquent,” he said.

“Why did you quit?” she asked.

“So I could be unattached.”

“Unattached,” she repeated.

“I can’t vow myself to a family if I’m still loyal to another,” he explained, surprised at the quiet shyness in his tone.

Gloria’s head rose so her eyes could meet his. “You want to pledge with another family? Who?” she asked, her voice rising slightly.

He smiled a bit at her drunken state and how it was preventing her from seeing the very obvious answer. “The Rubanov family, of course.” Gloria’s hand smacked his chest, her elbow knocked the vodka from his grasp. The bottle clinked on the floor before tipping onto the rug and spilling out. “Dammit, Gloria, that vodka is worth over a thousand and…”

“You vowed yourself to my father?!” she practically shrieked. He stared blankly at her for a moment, caught off guard by the hostility in her voice. “How could you? What’s the endgame here, huh? Sabotage him? Start your run in my family by backstabbing the leader and…”

Frankie clapped a hand over her mouth and gripped the back of her neck with the other. “Hush, woman,” he growled. “I am not vowing myself to the current leader of the Rubanov family but the future one. If you didn’t have the tolerance of a chipmunk, you’d realize that.”

Her eyes became misty. Her voice came, muffled behind his hand, “What?”

“I had thought I would wait til you were sober,” he said with a disapproving shake of his head. “Then again, it may be better if you’re drunk.”

Gloria sat up on her knees, straddling his waist as he dug in his pocket and pulled out a knife. She tucked some hair behind her ear as he flipped the knife open and cut into his palm. He held his hand out, asking permission to take hers. She bit her lip, fighting back waves of emotion as he gently cupped her palm and sliced into her skin. She gasped slightly as blood bloomed from her skin. He clasped their hands together, allowing their blood to mix. He used the tip of the knife to touch her chin until her honey eyes met his darkened gaze.

“YA, Frenki Donati, klyanus' zashchishchat' istinnogo lidera sem'i Rubanovykh. Chtit' yeyo, ispolnyat' yeyo prikazy, byt' k yeyo uslugam v lyuboy chas — po pervomu yeyo zovu. Pozvolit' yey vesti, poka ya sleduyu za ney. YA klyanus' pomogat' yey v dostizhenii yeyo tseley, pomogat' yey vershit' yeyo vozmezdiye i zabotit'sya o tom, chtoby ona byla udovletvorena vo vsekh myslimykh otnosheniyakh. YA otdayu sebya tebe, Gloriya Rubanova, s etogo mgnoveniya i vpred': ya tvoy chelovek. –I, Frankie Donati, vow to protect the true leader of the Rubanov family. To honor her, follow her commands, be at her beck and call, no matter the hour. To allow her to lead while I follow. I vow to help her achieve her objectives, to help her enact her wrath, to make sure she is satisfied in every way imaginable. I vow myself to you, Gloria Rubanov, from this moment forward: I am your man.–”

Gloria’s lips remained slightly parted as he unclasped their hands. He brought her palm to his lips and sucked at the open wound until it was clean.

“You know those aren’t the right vows? That part about making sure I’m satisfied, for instance.”

He gave her a crooked smile filled with mischief. “But it’s just as important as the rest, is it not?” Her lips pursed as she fought a grin. “Do you accept my vow, Pakhan?” he whispered, placing a kiss on her palm.

In answer, Gloria cupped his face and kissed him softly. “YA prinimayu tvoy obet. –I accept your vow,–” she whispered against his lips.

Frankie groaned and pulled on her neck to bring her lips more violently against his. Gloria’s hands went to work on his belt. Frankie’s frenzied attack on her lips set the pace for the chaotic, booze-drenched desire they felt to cement the vow in the most carnal way. Frankie grunted as Gloria managed to pull his cock free from his jeans with a not-so-gentle yank. He reciprocated by snapping the band of her panties to get them out of the way. She positioned him at her entrance and he thrust upward with a violent jerk. Gloria’s back arched and she ripped her lips away from his as she cried out at the expected, yet savage movement. Frankie took the knife he’d used to slice their palms to cut through the fabric of her shirt.

“We’ll discuss the vows you’ll be making to me later on, Lisitsa –Vixen–,” Frankie growled before sinking his teeth into the peaked bud of her breast.