Chapter 92: Chapter Ninety-Two

Frankie pulled his head away from her shoulder and tried to force his heart to slow down. He felt like a little school kid who’d just snuck into the principal’s office… and fucked his crush on the desk. Gloria’s eyes were caught on something, so he followed her gaze to the bible his hand was perched on. He lifted a brow at the realization he’d had his hand on a Bible from the moment he’d thrust into her. He laughed some more, and Gloria’s eyes flashed up to meet his.

“Talk about a holy fuck, huh?” Frankie asked. Gloria smiled and pulled her lower lip between her teeth.

“You just swore to God on the Bible to always love me, Frankie Donati,” Gloria said with a shake of her head and amusement lighting up the honey of her eyes.

He shrugged. “Now, a week from now, it’s all the same,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her softly before finally pulling out of her and adjusting his pants.

As he flipped up the waistband of his pants, something metallic clinked against the table. Frankie immediately realized what it was and tried to grab it, but it was too late. Gloria slid off the counter, holding up the thin gold band between her index finger and thumb.

“What’s this?” she asked, looking down at it as she placed it carefully in the center of her palm.

“It’s nothing. Literally, look at it, you can’t even see there’s a diamond on it,” Frankie scoffed, doing up his belt with jerky movements.

“Frankie…” Gloria looked up at him, and her eyes melted him to his core.

He shrugged again. “It’s been passed down from eldest son to eldest son for a few generations. I don’t even think it's half a carat.”

Gloria picked up the ring again with her fingers and turned the gold engagement ring over and over as she inspected it carefully. “Your mom gave it to you this morning?”

“Mhmm,” he answered, an odd ball of nerves settling in his stomach as her face cycled through several emotions.

“Perhaps now she’s wishing she hadn’t,” she whispered softly.

Frankie slowly grasped her hand, encircling her fingers around the thin band so she wouldn’t drop it. She looked straight ahead into his chest where his breath was still coming in short gasps as he recovered from the quick stint he’d just pulled. The guilt was weighing heavily on her. It was one of the few times Gloria showed her age. He could sense it the day before when she’d finally had a chance to speak with his mother and see that it wasn’t her who had pushed Frankie away. He could see it in the way she’d written to him that night when confessing her insecurity about her lies. Her handwriting had been light, as if she were afraid to press pen too hard to paper.

“I should have told her who you are,” Frankie said softly. “It still doesn’t matter, Gloria. She will understand. Once we explain…”

“What my family did to you? What they did to Stephen?” she asked, looking up with a sheen of moisture brimming her lids.

“Stop,” he whispered, using his free hand to cup her cheek. “Pakhans don’t cry. They don’t feel guilt.”

Gloria took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Then maybe I don’t have what it takes to…”

The door leading into the sanctuary opened, and Father Matthews paused as his eyes caught sight of the couple embracing in his chambers. His face went from shock to disappointment when he noticed it was Frankie: a look he had become rather accustomed to as a child when standing before this priest. Father Matthews’ back straightened and he clutched his bible to his chest.

“Mr. Donati, I should have known. If you wish to make confession, I would have been happy to take you outside… in the confessional… alone,” Father Matthews assured him.

Frankie smirked the devilish sort. “I’m not sure there are enough hours in the day for you to listen to my sins, Father,” Frankie told him.

“It’s never too late to save a soul,” the Father answered.

Frankie sighed. “I thought it was a sin to lie, Father?” The priest’s eyes swiveled to Gloria. “And before you get any ideas, she’s just as far gone, I’m afraid. If you’ll excuse us.”

Frankie kept hold of Gloria’s hand and quickly strode from the room before the priest could start bartering for her soul. Her soul already belonged to someone: him.

“I’ll see you next Sunday,” Father Matthews called.

“We’ll see if we make it in. We have other plans,” Frankie answered from the door.

The priest smiled and dropped his chin. “I know. I’ll be the one performing the ceremony.”

“Of course you will,” Frankie sighed. “See you Sunday then.”

“Goodbye, Miss Gloria. It was nice to meet you. Of course I wish it were under different circumstances,” the priest said.

“Nice to meet you t…”

Before she could finish the sentiment, Frankie shoved her out of the room.

“Let’s go,” Frankie said, weaving his way through the throngs of people mingling throughout the foyer before heading to their cars.

Gloria seemed to lag behind. Each time he looked back to see what was stalling her, he had to smother a smile. She was looking down at his family’s ring. It wasn’t what he pictured adorning her finger. He pictured something like the paperweight on Gen’s finger or any other mafioso’s woman. He wasn’t even sure his mother would give him the ring. After all, before yesterday the last time he’d spoken with his parents they’d told him they’d lost both of their sons. As Gloria smiled softly down at the ring, though, he realized it meant more to her than anything he could ever procure from a jewelry store. It was an heirloom, a symbol that she still had a family: a good one, a safe one, a loving one.

The warm air met their skin as he guided them around the side of the church toward the cemetery. When he slowed at the entrance, Gloria finally looked up from the ring and the soft smile she’d worn faded.

“Are you going to put it on?” he asked, bringing her attention back to him rather than the rows of tombstones ahead.

She glanced up at him, then back to the ring. When her eyes met his, he recognized the challenge she was about to lay out. “Are you going to get down on one knee?”

Frankie barked out a laugh and took the ring from her. “Nah, that’s not my style, Vixen.” He flipped the ring between his fingers before taking her left hand and sliding it slowly on. “It’s far more my style to promise my devotion to a woman while fucking her on top of a bible.” Once the ring was firmly in place he brought her hand up and kissed her knuckles. “I’ll get you something bigger to go with it,” he promised.

“No.” She shook her head quickly. “No. I don’t want anything else,” she whispered, her voice stern, her eyes steady as she communicated without words exactly what she meant by that.

Frankie leaned down and kissed her slowly, measuring every move of his lips with her as a milestone toward ‘happily ever after.’ A throat cleared and Frankie pulled back to see his father with his mom’s arm looped through his.

“We aren’t at home. Your rules don’t count here,” Frankie argued, brushing Gloria’s heated cheeks with the back of his fingers.

“The fact that this is the Lord’s home doesn’t seem to matter either,” his father growled, the look he gave telling him he knew exactly what they’d been up to.

“Why don’t you two go on ahead? I’ll stay back with Miss…” His mom’s lips twitched. He could tell she was fighting the thousands of questions threatening to spill. “My future daughter-in-law.”

Mom let go of Dad and reached a hand out to Gloria. Gloria looked up at Frankie for reassurance. One small nod was all she needed before taking his mother’s hand and stepping up beside her. His father walked off toward the cemetery without a word. Frankie sighed and now directed a look of help of his own to his mother, who merely rolled her eyes and shooed him away with her free hand. Frankie sighed and walked in the wake of his father. He buried his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes on the ground. They came to a stop and Frankie still didn’t look up. He kicked the grass at his feet.

“Look at him,” his father demanded, his voice clipped as he attempted to hide the emotion he clearly felt.

Frankie took a deep breath and finally glanced up.

Stephen Giuseppe Donati

September 16, 2005 to June 25, 2025

Loving Son and Brother

The pair sat in silence for several minutes as if the sound of the wind rustling through the grass and trees was enough. As if they were waiting, as they had always done, for the youngest Donati to break the thick ice that forever stood between eldest and father.

“I think about the funeral a lot,” his father admitted after a few more minutes.

Frankie didn’t look at him, he couldn’t. He was too busy fighting the burning behind his eyeballs and the sting in his nose.

“I shouldn’t have forced you away. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Frankie pursed his lips, the struggle becoming harder to control.

“I blamed you. I blamed myself. I blamed everyone but the one responsible. I’m sorry, Frank.”

“You blamed the right man,” Frankie said, his voice hoarse. “I was responsible. He was under my…”

“They never told us how he died. The police said it wouldn’t be a good idea for me or your mother to see him. We shouldn’t remember him like that is what they told us.”

“They were right.”

He could feel more than see his father look at him. “You saw him.”

A single, sharp nod. He did more than see what his brother looked like after Sergei was done with him. Sergei had video called him from Stephen’s phone so he could watch as they crucified his bloody, broken, naked younger brother against the side of his ‘safehouse.’ He could still hear his screams. Not of terror, or even pain… at least, not at first… First there was rage. The taunts he threw out at Sergei for the reckoning he would receive. A reckoning he had yet to suffer.

His father let out a deep sigh that shook around the edges. “There is something I must know.”

“Dad, you don’t want…”

“When he died… Was it for a noble cause?”

Frankie peered over his shoulder at Gloria and his mother, who stood side by side, their hands intertwined, their knuckles white as they watched the two men. He watched Gloria swipe a tear from her cheek before he looked back at his brother’s name.

“Yes. He died protecting…” He wondered if he should say it, and decided he’d had enough of covering the truth. “Protecting the woman I love.”

He could see his father nod out of his periphery. “When he died… did he make you proud?”

Frankie pursed his lips tightly together. His jaw ticked as tears brimmed. He looked up to the sky before he nodded. “Yes. He made me proud, very proud. He always did. Every day. But that day… He died a good man… a noble man… a proud man… The man we always knew he would become: a better one than me.”

“Look at me,” his father commanded.

Frankie shook his head.

“Look. At. Me.”

Frankie turned just as the first tear fell to see his own father’s face strained with emotion. He watched his father swallow hard. Then his hand reached out tentatively at first. The moment his fingers curled around Frankie’s shoulder, they tightened. He pulled Frankie into his chest and wrapped both arms strongly about Frankie’s neck.

“It’s okay. If he died like that, then it’s okay. I can accept that,” his father said, his voice strong, steady. “Now, we must live in a way that will make him proud. Do you understand?” he asked, shaking Frankie slightly. “Do you understand… Son?”

Frankie’s fingers dug into his father’s jacket as he nodded.