Chapter One Hundred and Ten

Chapter One Hundred and Ten
It took Gloria and Genevieve another hour to ensure all of Frankie’s wounds were tended to. Afterwards, Gloria ordered groceries for those staying with them. She ensured Mr. and Mrs. Donati were settled in a guest room along with Nora and her mom. She then sat in Frankie’s living room with Accardi, helping make phone calls, chase leads and do everything in their power to track either Sergei Vasilieve or Asher Thompson. Both of which were ghosts, especially on their home turfs. She didn’t let this stop her though. She had her own connections: her father’s pets. 

Gloria managed to get in contact with the triplets and through them received valuable information on the comings and goings of her father’s closest confidants, including Sergei and Asher. She received several new leads and passed them to Leo. The three of them worked diligently into the night until the sun started to rise… though they couldn’t see the sun due to the curtains being pulled tightly shut to accommodate what Gloria was rapidly beginning to understand as a phobia level of fear Accardi had of heights. 

It wasn’t until Gen and Lucy began showing obvious signs of discomfort with their pregnancies that Accardi and Leo decided it was time to take them home. Gloria intended to stay up. She needed to speak with her father’s men. She had told them she would be in touch today. She had a lot to go over. If the pets were sitting on the wealth of information they had, she could only imagine what Ivan’s men had. 

Much to her annoyance, though, Accardi informed her he had already delegated that task to one his most trusted men, Don. It turned out that all night long while they were held up in the apartment, her men were being interrogated by the Italian soldier. They would have a report organized for them to go through by mid afternoon. Once he had it in his hands, he assured her, he would return so they could go over it together. Gloria had to take a deep breath and accept that she was grateful for his help. She’d taken everyone’s advice and, for the first time, really watched the Don as he worked. 

He was a diligent worker. He never stopped, never paused unless it was to give attention to his wife. He was constantly on his phone, taking diligent notes, seeking new avenues. Through it all, she saw how he delegated. How much trust he bestowed on the individuals in his circles. The amount of times he would turn to Leo and the two of them would speak in hushed tones as Accardi tried to solve a problem he was facing. Sometimes, he would follow Leo’s suggestions, others he would present why his thoughts were more reasonable and pursue those. Through it all, he maintained the same level of respect for his guard. He would even speak with his wife on matters she had no way of understanding. Geneveive would go quiet and then present him with a question from a completely different point of view. While most of the time he would smile and explain how things didn’t work that way, there were instances where her out-of-the-box thinking made a lightbulb pop above his head. He would kiss her fiercely and whip out his phone, reinvigorated. 

Gloria’s father never sought counsel in that way. No, he only held counsel with himself. It was such a vast difference from what she’d ever known possible and the guilt of her ignorance sat heavy in her chest. How was she meant to do this all? How could she run a family of this size when the only thing she’d been prepared for was being a broodmare.

“Get some rest,” Gen said as Accardi ushered her toward the door. Leo and Lucy had already taken the elevator down. For whatever reason, Accardi was adamant about he and his wife being alone. Gen hugged her tightly. “Take a shower, lay down next to Frankie. When you wake up, it’ll all still be here and we’ll be here too.”

Gloria nodded and thanked them all. As she turned for the stairs she noticed Mrs. Donati strolling out in a robe. She looked surprised to see Gloria awake… and still in her dress. 

“Oh my goodness, dear. Have you not slept?”

“No, I’ve been busy. I got some groceries delivered. There’s coffee and if you want I can make breakfast. I think we have…”

Marge grabbed Gloria by the shoulders, stalling her rant. “You need to sleep. I’ll  make coffee and breakfast. You’re in shock. You need to sit and think about what happened to you yesterday, Gloria. You cannot put it off forever. No one is that strong.”

Gloria nodded, dreading the next part. Marge directed her to the stairs and gave her a light push. She stayed there, at the bottom of the stairs as if she expected Gloria to wait for her to turn her back to come running back down and start working again. Instead, she took the advice of the other two women and went into the bedroom she shared with Frankie. He was lying on the bed, his arms on his stomach, his arms, leg and shoulder wrapped. She’d dosed him pretty heavily with a drug cocktail in the hopes that it would keep him down long enough for his body to rest. She idly wondered if she should mix the cocktail for herself because, as she looked at him, she was envious of how peaceful his face looked.

She walked to the bathroom and pushed the door open. Gloria went for the tub and started the water, making sure it was steaming. She wanted to burn off the memories of the last day. Thinking it would be smart to rinse off first, she then turned for the shower and flipped it on as well. Next, was the hard part. She took a deep breath and turned for the bathroom sink. She walked up to it and placed her palms against the edge of the countertop. She stared down at her chipped nails. Her leg bounced and she bit her lip as she finally looked up at her reflection.

For a moment she didn’t recognize the girl looking back at her. Her face was pale. Blood spattered across her cheeks and forehead. A large splash of the red, sticky stuff coated her throat and chest, obscuring a portion of Frankie’s name, still healing from when she’d gotten it three days earlier. Her beautiful dress was torn, stained, burned in several spots, caked in dirt… ruined. She bit her lip harder as she lifted her hand to start removing the bobby pins she’d placed in her hair to keep it partially up for the day. While most of them had failed to keep her hair pinned during the more violent portions of the evening, they remained pressed to her scalp as if their new job was to keep her insanity intact. 

Tears blurred her vision at the same time as the steam from the shower and tub fogged the window, obscuring the unfamiliar ghost of a woman from her inspection. She dropped her head again and gripped the counter top until she felt it bruising her palm. She stomped her foot and cried out in pain, just now remembering she never had someone look at her own bullet wound. A sob ripped from her throat as she hiked her dress up and revealed the injury, red, puffy and inflamed. Her fingers shook as she tried to undo the buttons at her back. When that proved impossible, she shimmied the dress down over her shoulders and pushed it over her hips. It pooled at her feet and she collapsed onto it. She ran the material through her fingers as the tears started to flow more freely. 

Gloria allowed herself to sit there and wallow for a few minutes as she fully accepted how her wedding day had turned sour. Then she took a deep breath and pulled herself up to the counter again. Her body was beginning to process the trauma in a way her brain had not fully caught up to yet. Every muscle was sore, every cut felt raw and newly inflicted. Exhaustion weighed her shoulders down and threatened to pull her under its grasp. She found the needle and thread Frankie kept in the bathroom along with the bottle of alcohol. She cried out as the antiseptic poured over the injury. She sniffled as she tried and failed three times to get the thread through the needle until she screamed in frustration and threw the bottle of alcohol across the room. 

She heard a thump from the bedroom and a moment later, a blurred version of a man was leaning heavily against the wall. She blinked the tears away from her eyes and stared in shock as Frankie looked around the bathroom, pistol gripped loosely in his hand.

“Oh my God, Frank, how the heck are you standing?!” she yelled, pulling herself to her feet with great difficulty. 

“I heard a scream…” he answered, breathing heavily while his wild eyes blinked around the room in confusion. “What… What’s happening?” he asked, his gaze turning to her body where he raked them over her skin looking for what had upset her.

“Nothing, you need to get back to bed,” Gloria instructed him, trying to direct him back to his room. 

“Not till you tell me what’s going on,” he denied, pushing back against her. 

Gloria’s feet slipped on the condensation layering the tile floor. She screamed as she fell backward, hitting her butt against the floor. A moment later Frankie’s hand lost its traction again and he joined her there on the ground. 

“Woah,” Frankie breathed, inhaling the sticky moisture of the air around them. “That’s a lot of steam.”

“Yeah, I was going to take a shower then a bath,” she told him, looking for the needle and thread she’d dropped. 

“And you thought you’d take them at the same time by swimming through the air?” he asked on a chuckle.

“No, I…” She finally found the needle and thread and held them up in front of his face, making him go cross-eyed. “I needed to stitch the hole you put in me but I can’t…” She sighed as she tried and failed again. “I can’t get the needle through,” she hissed, smacking her hand on her thigh.

Frankie looked down at his wrapped arms and legs. “You saw to me but not yourself?”

“I was busy,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

Frankie squinted and looked at the bathroom window. “How long have I been out?”

“I don’t know,” Gloria said, pushing the hair away from her face. “Fourteen… sixteen hours?”

“And you’re just now taking care of yourself?” Frankie asked. She didn’t answer. “Dammit, Gloria, give me the needle and thread.”

Frankie took them from her before she had a chance to say no. He shook his head as he tried to put the thread through the needle. Then he stuck his tongue between his teeth. Then he squinted his eyes in concentration. 

“Damn, this is hard. What the hell did you dose me with, anyway?”

Gloria shrugged. “A few things.” She sighed. “I’d hoped they’d be enough to keep you down.”

“Still that mad at me, huh?” he asked, concentration making his eyes go crossed again.

“Are you still mad at me?” she asked. 

Frankie’s eyes cleared and refocused so he could look into hers. “Absolutely furious,” he told her. “But…” he continued, back to the job at hand. “We will deal with that later. For now, I need to plug this hole in your leg cause killing my Pakhan less than twenty-four hours after she took over would not look good on my resume. Aha!” Frankie yelled in jubilation as he held the secured needle and thread up for her inspection. “Come here,” he told her grabbing her knee and pulling it onto his lap so he could have better access to her thigh. 

Gloria bit her lip again as he punctured her skin for the first time. She looked away and sighed. “I’m sorry, Frankie, I thought…” She shook her head. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Frankie’s hand smoothed over her thigh in reassurance until she looked back at him. He used his crooked finger to lift her chin up and kiss her softly. He pressed his forehead against hers and let out a deep exhale. “I know, Vixen. So did I. Turns out married life isn’t so easy,” he whispered.

“Technically we aren’t married,” she whispered back. 

Frankie clicked his tongue and pulled away. “Not even twenty-four hours and you’re complaining I’m not performing well in bed, huh? I’ll consummate this marriage right here on this floor as soon as I get you patched up if that’s what’s bothering you.”

Gloria laughed. “That’s not what…”

“I know,” he said, looking up, his expression serious. He looked back down at her leg and started stitching again. “We have a lot to sort out. Anger to get reignited, heating argument where we break lamps and overturn tables followed by hot, angry makeup sex that moves the bed across the floor. A real wedding ceremony that doesn’t end in bloodshed and explosions and me passed out while you take off your own wedding dress without my teeth assisting the process. Killing Vasiliev, Thompson and all the others who get in our way. We’ll get to all of that, Vixen.” He looked up from his work. “Especially that bed moving bit. But there’s something we really need to do first.”

“What?” she asked, not liking the stone-like expression on his face.

“You’re going to mix up more of that cocktail you gave me earlier and we’re both going to down it together. Cause this shit is fucking amazing. You gotta try it,” he told her, the serious expression on his face slowly cracking into a goofy grin.