Chapter Seven

Present Day

Gloria followed Frankie inside and stood on the opposite end of the elevator. She watched his stooped head as he flicked through multiple security feeds on his phone. Seeming to be pleased with what he saw, he smirked and put his phone back in his pocket. The elevator dinged in record time and Frankie pushed off from the wall to enter the foyer with the only door on the floor. The keycard beeped once and he walked into the impressive suite that spanned the entire top floor of the hotel. The moment his feet passed the threshold, he started pulling his clothes off.

Gloria stayed just inside the doorway, her arms clutched tightly to her chest as his empty tactical vest hit the floor with a clink. He moaned at the loss of weight and racked his shoulders back, causing a pronounced cracking sound to echo along empty space. His gloves were next, discarded on the kitchen counters as he surveyed the liquor cabinet. His shirt followed, as he walked toward the living room and the large windows looking out on the lightening Chicago skyline. She took in a slow, measured breath as her eyes soaked in the muscular, tattooed skin of his back. He rolled his shoulders and flexed as he stretched, making her lean against the foyer wall for support.

Frankie sat down on the couch in the living room and started untying his shoes. Gloria decided before he started unbuttoning his pants, she should try to get out of viewing range. She stuck her chin up, tried to shake the exhaustion from her body and started toward her new captor. Frankie’s eyes flicked up at her approach. The darkness of his pupils swallowed the small lights around the apartment, making his gaze unreadable as he threw his shoe over one shoulder.

“Where am I supposed to sleep?” she asked, knowing he would crack some joke about sleeping with him.

Instead, he shrugged as he threw his second shoe to join the first. “Fuck if I care. There’s three beds. Pick one.”

Frankie stood up and started undoing his belt, his eyes focused down on her. She could feel the heat from his bare chest. She ignored the blood trickling down his torso, the source of his injury unknown. She stood frozen, unable to move as he slid his pants down his thighs. She tried to maintain eye contact, she really did. A few moments of defiance though were too difficult to hold on to. Her gaze dropped, wandering curiously down his frame, over his black boxer briefs, to the strong, tense legs that had saved her from a different tyrant.

“Was that not the answer you were hoping for, Vixen?” Frankie whispered to the top of her head.

Gloria’s eyes snapped up. She didn’t respond to his dangerous, controlling smirk. She knew better than to wage verbal war with Frankie Donati. Instead, she turned on her heels for whatever room was farthest away from him. Luckily there was one room in the direction she’d turned and she went for it as though it were her salvation. She closed the door and leaned her forehead against the dark wood. She turned her back to it and slid down until her butt hit the floor.

She sat there for a long time, just staring at the large queen-sized bed beckoning her to end her torture by sinking into the sweet oblivion that is sleep: the only escape she’d ever known in her life. She put her head in her hands. She wouldn’t cry. She never cried over these things. If she did, the tears would never stop flowing. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Gloria didn’t cry when her mother told her the marriage contract would be going forward. She hadn’t cried when her mom handed her over to Nora so she could go into hiding. She hadn’t cried when Nora told her that her mother’s actions had resulted in her death. She hadn’t cried when she’d woken up in Sergei’s home and realized her mother’s sacrifice had been for nothing. She wouldn’t cry now as a psychopath of a different sort clicked the news on in the living room.

Gloria did what she always did. She let her head fall back against the wall, closed her eyes and counted slowly down from ten, over and over, until the stinging behind her eyes dulled to a small pinch in her nose. She forced herself up from the floor and walked toward the bathroom. She sent the bed a look of longing, promising to fall into its embrace once she’d scrubbed the blood and dirt from her skin.

The water in the shower was hot enough to burn away any traces of grime on her body. She sat down in the stream of water and let it soak her hair and turn her skin red. The steam in the room worked its way through her nasal passages, and made the shrill screaming in her mind settle to a dull roar. It wasn’t until her fingers were pruny and her lungs were becoming clogged with moist air that she decided to get out. She wrapped her hair in a towel and opened the door as she used a second towel to dry her skin.

“Oh shit,” Frankie groaned under his breath.

Gloria shrieked and covered herself as quickly as she could when she noticed him perched up on the bathroom counter. Anger clawed up her lungs and unleashed through her words.

“What the hell are you doing in here?!” she yelled as his eyes continued to track over the area her towel was covering as though willing the towel to disintegrate.

She could handle a lot. Having her singular moment of peace interrupted? Knowing he’d been there while she tried to calm her nerves? Gloria walked up to him and slapped him across the face with all of her strength. He didn’t even give her the satisfaction of turning his head. His eyes narrowed. Frankie grabbed the wrist she’d just used to hit him and hauled her forward.

Gloria gasped as she fell into his lap. The towel dropped and she froze. She could feel his bare chest against her breasts. No man had ever touched her naked before. No man had ever seen her naked. Frankie’s jaw ticked and, bless him, he didn’t look down. Not that he needed to. The rise and fall of his chest brushing against her own painted enough of a picture.

“Let go of me,” she said, her voice having lost that edge of bravery from before.

Frankie’s lips lifted into a shaky smirk. “I do that and I’ll have to see all of you again. What happens after that is a coin toss.”

“You’ve already seen it now, so why the fuck does it matter?”

Frankie’s eyes left hers and moved to her lips, her neck. “That’s two cuss words in two minutes, Vixen.” His eyes continued their downward path. “You really are riled up, aren’t you?”

“What are you even doing in here?” she asked, stepping back and gathering the towel around herself the best she could while Frankie’s eyes scoured over the portions of skin before she covered them. “Checking in on me? Think I’d manage to escape out the 42nd floor window?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Frankie said, readjusting himself on the bathroom counter. “You escaped me once before.”

“I didn’t…” Gloria closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, annoyed that all of her progress in the shower was for nothing. “What do you want?”

“I need help.”

“With what?”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed because you’ve been too busy checking out the rest of my smokin bod…” His voice lowered, “As you’re prone to do.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I have a knife wound in my chest and a… glass?... wound on my cheek.”

Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty. She raised an eyebrow. “You went barging into a Pakhan’s house. What did you expect?”

Frankie shrugged. “A kiss? Maybe a fuck.”

Gloria sighed and rolled her eyes. She tucked the towel more firmly around her torso and reached for the first aid kit sitting beside him. “It was a mirror.”

“It rounds out my face nicely,” Frankie said with a chuckle. “You Rubanovs love to carve up the money maker.”

Gloria looked at the other scar along his cheek and the one on his throat. “What are you talking about?” she asked, prodding the stab wound on his chest.

“You didn’t know? Your mom gave me the cut on my cheek. Your dad the scar on my throat.”

Gloria glanced up, startled. “What? Why?”

Frankie shrugged. “Misunderstanding.”

“I’m sure,” she said with a sigh as she started to suture up the wound on his chest.