Chapter One Hundred and Twenty

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty
“Here,” Gloria instructed, stepping beside the door to allow Conor to enter first.

Conor ducked his shoulder and stepped sideways through the entry. He walked toward the medical bed while Gloria busied herself looking for everything she might need among the various cabinets. 

“You sure do act like you know the way of the land,” Conor noted, grunting a bit as he tried to set Juniper down as carefully as possible.

“I should,” Gloria said with a sigh. “I helped my mom suture up my father’s men from the time I was old enough to hold a retractor.” She strode toward Juniper and cut through the clothing that had dried to the girl’s skin. She had to peel the cloth away to be able to see the extent of her injuries. “Let’s see,” Gloria said with a pitying exhale. “Looks like a few deep lacerations, a multitude of burns, some bruising at varying stages of healing. I would guess a broken collarbone, a broken radius, a few cracked ribs, and… She’s missing a few toes. Fucking son of a bitch,” she hissed under her breath, cursing her father specifically.

“Wow, you sound like you really know your stuff,” Conor said, carrying over a tray Gloria had left on the counter. 

Gloria took it with a grateful nod. “I wanted to be a nurse, at one point. I was studying to be one, anyway. That was before… all of this.”

“You could still be one,” a frail voice said beneath them. 

Gloria looked down to find Juniper’s eyes gazing up at her. She stared up at her as though she were only half present, probably a tactic she’d used to survive the torture. 

“Juniper, look, we’re here to take care of you and…”

“You could still be a nurse,” she whispered, running her tongue over her chapped lips.

“Conor, get some water,” Gloria ordered.

“You should… You should run from this, Gloria,” Juniper begged as a tear trailed down her cheek. 

Gloria accepted the glass of water from Conor and held it down to Juniper. She shook her head. “It’s too late for that. The laws are clear. I’ve killed my father, and that makes me…”

“He’s dead?” Juniper released on a sob. “I-Ivan? He’s… He’s really gone?”

Gloria clutched Juniper’s shoulder as it trembled with relief or shock, she couldn’t be sure. “He’s gone. He won’t ever hurt you again. You’re free.”

Juniper looked away and bit her lip hard. She shook her head. “I’m free. I could…” She looked back up. “We could leave all of this.”

“Just lie back and let me take care of you,” Gloria said. 

Silence filled the room as Gloria worked. She focused first on the deep lacerations to stop her from losing any more blood. Once those were taken care of, she made sure to doctor the burns and set the broken bones. The toes that had been removed were cauterized, so while she would have to undergo some physical therapy and might walk with a limp for the rest of her life, she wouldn’t develop an infection from the amputations. It was as Gloria was using a sponge to clean Juniper’s skin to ensure she hadn’t missed anything vital that Juniper finally spoke again. 

“We have a son,” Juniper whispered. 

Gloria stopped what she was doing. She looked up first at Conor, who gave her a shrug. She glanced down at Juniper only to find her staring up at the ceiling. 

“Who?” Though Gloria already knew.

Juniper turned her head. “Me and your father,” she confirmed.

Gloria swallowed and shook her head. “No, it’s not possible. He had an accident after I was born and…”

“I had a DNA test done. It’s why your mom helped me to escape,” she confessed. “I named him George, but… The family who adopted him officially named him Ian. I would see him, sometimes, in the park.” Juniper smiled, her chapped lips bleeding from the action. “They didn’t have much, but… every Sunday they would go to the park and their entire family would be there.” Juniper’s smile wavered, and she swallowed hard. “Your dad wanted me to tell him where he was.” She shook her head sharply. “I didn’t, Gloria. I wouldn’t, I promise you, but…”

“That’s how they convinced you to help Ivan escape,” Conor guessed. “They lied.”

Juniper smoothed her hands over the various bandages on her arm with shaking fingers. “They said they found him… on a Sunday… in a… in a park. They said if I didn’t help, they would kill him, his family. They said if I helped them, they would leave him alone. But then when I did… They wanted me to tell them where he was. The thing is,” she whispered, her shaking fingers taking hold of Gloria’s cold hand. “This life does something to all of us. We become inconsequential to ourselves. Then, when that happens, our enemies find the ones who aren’t inconsequential. I will never, ever let anyone know him or find him. I would die before I did that. There’s someone you would die for, too, isn’t there?”

Gloria nodded. There was no way for Juniper to know there were actually multiple people she would die for. That just a few days ago, she’d almost done just that for those very people. 

Juniper shook her head. “Waiting for our loved ones to be found so that we may die… That is not a life, Gloria.”

“Juniper, look…”
“Thomas? No one has said anything about Thomas yet. Is he…”

“He’s alive,” Conor confirmed, coming up to the side of the table. “His pride is a little wounded, as is his heart, but…” He smirked down at Juniper and brushed her hair back away from her face. “He’s alive and hell-bent on getting you back.”

“He is?” Juniper asked with a smile as tears trickled down her cheeks. “You’re sure?”

Conor gave a playful shrug. “What can I say? Us mafia men like our women to be a little unpredictable. Keeps us on our toes.”

Juniper shook her head. “No, no more. No more unpredictability.” She looked at Gloria. “I’m free. I’m going to the desert, some small town in Arizona where no one has ever heard the name Rubanov, and I’m going to have another son, maybe a few daughters. I’m going to open a motel.” She giggled a little. “Name it Flo’s with a little diner attached.” She turned her head back to the ceiling and closed her eyes. “And I’m going to take Thomas with me. Yeah, it’ll all be very, delightfully… predictable.”

Juniper’s breathing became slow and even. The drugs Gloria administered were luckily starting to take effect, allowing her to finally rest. 

“We should probably let her sleep for a time,” Gloria said, patting Juniper’s arm before turning toward the door and ushering Conor out. 

Once outside, she leaned back against the nearest wall and let out a long sigh as she closed her eyes. 

“That’s always rough,” Conor said with a weighted sigh of his own.

“Yeah.”

“You should probably get some rest. You look like hell,” Conor said. 

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but my hell can be remedied with some food. You? You need a shower, a change of clothes, and about seventeen hours of sleep.”

“Jee, thanks.”

“Sure thing. I’ll let Donati know you went up.”

“I didn’t say I agreed with you,” she argued back. 

“Take two steps toward me without swaying, and I’ll back down,” he challenged.

Gloria narrowed her eyes but knew the way her knees were wobbling would make her look like a fool if she took on that challenge.

“That’s what I thought. Nighty night, Pakhan,” Conor said. He took a few steps, snapped his fingers, and turned around again. “You know…”

Gloria groaned and let her head drop forward.

“Just hear me out,” Conor said. He waited until Gloria looked up again. “She’s not wrong. It isn’t too late.”

“What are you? The poster child for leaving organized crime?”

Conor’s eyes dimmed almost imperceptibly. “Before your life gets ripped away? Yeah…” He looked around and nodded before meeting her gaze. “Yeah, I guess I am. Think about it.”

Gloria watched the young blond swagger toward the kitchen, knowing he was probably right… He’d probably eat a Twinkie and be ready to fight a hundred men. He was also right about the other thing. She needed about seventeen hours of sleep and a hot shower. 

She shoved off the wall with a groan and headed for the stairs. She had to grip the railing and use it to pull herself up each step. Once at the top of the stairs, though, she wasn’t sure which way to turn. She could go to her old room, but that felt like the last place she would be able to relax. Definitely not her mother’s room. Nor her father’s, she thought with a shiver. Instead, she took a left and walked toward the guest rooms. 

She pushed open a door that led to what her mom always called ‘The Pearl Room.’” The room was modeled after the name with beautiful shades of white, opulent sea decor, and a large four-poster bed with linens that could be drawn to obscure whoever lay down on the plush mattress. She’d always dreamed of sleeping in that bed, but these rooms were specifically for guests, not childish little girls wanting to play make-believe. She imagined herself now, crawling onto the bed with Frankie and closing the curtains to block out the rest of the world and nodded. 

Gloria made her way to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the shower. She turned it on and held her hand under the stream of water until her skin turned pink from the heat. She stripped out of Frankie’s robe, unclipped the various snaps of the lingerie she’d put on hours earlier, and ran her hands over the sore flesh there. She stepped into the shower and sighed as the water didn’t just wash the bad emotions away, but burned them from her skin. She stayed there until her fingertips were starting to prune and her head continued to lull forward, threatening sleep. 

With heavy eyes, she reached forward to turn the water off just as the door to the bathroom opened, bringing with it fresh, cool air. She thought of the man who constantly loved to surprise her while she was caught wet and naked in the shower. The water cut off, and she pulled the towel from the door. Once she had it securely wrapped around her body, she stepped out with her lip tugged between her teeth. There he was, her shadowy figure lounging against the sink, his face and body obscured by the dense steam she’d created. 

“After all this time, I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here as I get out of the shower,” she teased, taking small steps toward him, hoping to drag out the intimacy of the moment. 

“After all this time,” a thickly-accented voice clipped back. Gloria’s foot faltered midstep. The figure stepped forward. His movement stirred the steam enough to reveal his face to her, and she gasped. “I would have hoped you’d learned your lesson.”