Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 50: nothing will stop that . If it had just been Gianna’s relationship with her father that had suffered, she could have endured it. But Giovanni didn’t deserve to be caught in the middle.He always deserved better.“I’ll head to where you are now,” Gianna said, giving the flower shop girl one last wave and appreciative bow. “Tell me the address and I’ll get a taxi.”She could hear the confusion in Giovanni’s voice as he asked, “Aren’t you with Rio? Or was it Zeke? I can’t remember.”“Rio,” Gianna said, and now the girl outside was practically throwing herself all over the short male. Rio didn’t look as if he minded it much, but Gianna thought it was in bad taste to be done so publicly. “But I think he’s a little distracted right now.”“He shouldn’t be distracted when he’s supposed to be watching you.”“I don’t need him to watch me,” Gianna reminded. “And wouldn’t you think with this being Mariposa’s territory, that it would be safer? Or is there
Helping Mr Gang Leader .Chapter 51: Once was a fluke. Twice was trouble..“No matter what happens with our father, we will pay our respects like we do every year. We’ll go through the traditions, we’ll fulfill our requirements, and nothing will stop that. Don’t you believe me?”Giovanni hefted the hand basket up a little higher and gave a nod. “I believe you.”“Then let’s go pay for this,” Gianna said, steering him towards the cash register. She asked curiously, “Will this hamburger place also offer salads? I’ll nag you less if I know you’re getting a salad on the side.”Giovanni made a face. “I don’t think you understand the concept of what good tasting food is supposed to be.” He looked so serious that it was almost hysterical. “I think there’s a rule somewhere about good tasting food not being allowed to be green.”Gianna was laughing as she stated, “You’re capable of eating a five-pound watermelon by yourself, and I promise you, that’s not only healthy but green.”Stopping shor
Helping Mr Gang Leader .Chapter 52: moment between life and death. In the moment between life and death, with her mind floating and all sensation drifting away, there were many memories floating around in Gianna’s mind.But there was one memory that mattered.And there were a series of events leading up to it that went like this:Gianna had always been exceptionally observant. She had been a watcher, more than a doer, probably too quiet for her mother’s tastes, and too reserved for her father’s. She had been, by all accounts, the toddler who was sat in one place, usually on a soft blanket in her mother’s line of sight, and remained in place.So, to say that she’d been too aware of her medical needs from a young age, would have been an understatement. Because kindergarten had come around soon enough for Gianna. It had come along earlier for her than for others, in fairness, because at three Gianna knew her numbers, her letters, her colors, and had better sentence structure than mo
Helping Mr Gang Leader .Chapter 53: mind floating and all sensation. In the moment between life and death, with her mind floating and all sensation drifting away, there were many memories floating around in Gianna’s mind.But there was one memory that mattered.And there were a series of events leading up to it that went like this:Gianna had always been exceptionally observant. She had been a watcher, more than a doer, probably too quiet for her mother’s tastes, and too reserved for her father’s. She had been, by all accounts, the toddler who was sat in one place, usually on a soft blanket in her mother’s line of sight, and remained in place.So, to say that she’d been too aware of her medical needs from a young age, would have been an understatement. Because kindergarten had come around soon enough for Gianna. It had come along earlier for her than for others, in fairness, because at three Gianna knew her numbers, her letters, her colors, and had better sentence structure than
Helping Mr. Gang Leader.Chapter 54: Wonders never ceased, it seemed.. Gianna had few deep regrets in her life, but the way her relationship had broken down with her father, was one of them. And whether it was her fault or not, Gianna felt like she hadn’t done enough to save the relationship between them. She felt like there must have been something she could have done to make it easier between them, or to make it better.But distance had built between them so easily, and the years hadn’t been kind to the way Gianna pulled away into adulthood, having to leave an already lonely man further alone.Still, it was something that her father was there, not six feet from Gianna, twitching a little in sleep on the sofa. It meant something that her father had come, and not only come, had stayed with her.Her father was not a sentimental man. Not anymore. Gianna truly believed most of her father’s heart had died with Gianna’s mother and sister. But this was sentimentality. This was Gianna’s
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 55: family is everything . Gianna could hardly focus on the sound of her shoes across the floor as Giovanni leaned in close and said, “I’m so sorry, Gia. I’m so sorry got you involved with Mariposa. I’m sorry you came anywhere near them and got hurt because of it. This is my fault and I’ll never forgive myself for this.”Sleepily Gianna squeezed deliberately at Giovanni’s hand. She was scared of what she’d seen her brother do, scared at how easily it had been for him to do it. But she would never be scared of her brother. And she wouldn’t let her brother blame himself for the choices that Gianna had made.“I’m so sorry, but I’m going to find who did this. Mariposa and I will find the bastards who hurt you, Gia. We won’t let them get away with this.”Giovanni’s fingers rubbed across Gianna’s hand, careful of the IV, and all Gianna could think of was the tiny little boy who’d begged to be carried around everywhere, and who Gia had barely been able to
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 56: home is Dante .Gianna froze. Mariposa?“Including one little jerk with a very bad attitude who keeps accusing me of deliberately withholding information about you from them.”Rio. That had to be Rio. Gianna would have bet all the money in the world on that.Maria swayed a little back and forth, indicating how her feet were hurting her in her shoes, as she explained, “Those guys who came with Giovanni, following you over here, they’ve been taking turns staying. Some of them come, some of them go, but there’s always a group of them. And the group? It’s grown over the days. It’s the same couple of guys who ask about you, who ask about visiting hours, and who can be in the room with you, and your condition. But overall? There is a growing number of people lurking around, looking suspiciously tense, particularly perusing the floor that your room here is on. Kind of like they’re looking for trouble. So, my question is to you, Gianna, is about them.
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 57: what IS the look of love? .Gianna just wanted to go home. She wanted to go back to her apartment, back to the clinic, and back to her normal routine. Or as close as she could get with tapped ribs and an inability to bend down.“Soon,” She told Ezekiel. Then she frowned and said, “You both realize nothing is going to happen to me here, right? You don’t have to stand guard. And you can tell the twenty guys you’ve got eating up space in the waiting room the same thing.”Jovani, who almost always had a smile on his face to match his bubbly personality, said seriously, “Someone tried to kill you.”Ezekiel said sharply to Jovani, “Don’t say stuff like that!”“It’s true,” Jovani argued back. “Someone tried. But they’re not going to get a second chance at it.” Jovani told Gianna, “We’re here to keep you company. We’re here to make you less sad to be in the hospital. But we’re also here to make sure no one gets any ideas. Mariposa is looking out for y
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Epilogue: Time to start living .If six months ago, when Gianna had been worried that her father would pull funding for the clinic, and that they’d have to close their doors to an ailing public who needed them, anyone had told Gianna that not only would her clinic be surviving, but also thriving and expanding, she would have laughed and then likely wept.But with the summer heat beating down outside, Angelo sending post cards regularly, Harry a fulltime practitioner at the clinic, and full community support, the clinic was now officially relocated to a building that was three times its original size.It was a surreal moment for Gianna, walking through the front doors of the new clinic that was set to open in less than two days, looking around at what her hard work and dedication had finally landed her.Infinite being flushed out of the area, regardless of how it had happened and the part Gianna felt she played in it, was the best thing that could have happe
Helping Mr. Gang Leader.Chapter 109: crying for the rest of my life .Maddox was in the apartment.Maddox was in a personal, private space that was supposed to be safe. And if he’d gotten past the men standing guard outside …Wiggling her toes a little against the water, Gianna asked quietly, “What are you doing here?.”She didn’t want to wake Dante. She couldn’t. If Dante came out here to where Maddox was with a gun, it would only put him in danger. Gianna couldn’t risk that. She wouldn’t.“It’s all gone,” Maddox eased out, moving forward fully into the light, gun raised to Gianna’s chest level. “It’s gone and it’s your fault.”“My fault?” Gianna questioned. She shook her head a little. “No. I …”“Clyde,” Maddox said morosely, more like a sad wail than anything else. “Clyde. He’s gone.”Gianna took that as confirmation that Clyde was likely dead.“I didn’t kill him,” Gianna said evenly.Maddox looked … worrisome. From where Gianna was standing she could see that Maddox’s eyes wer
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 108: Maddox .“Gia!”Gianna was jarred away from her conversation with Rio as Giovanni nearly barreled into her side, exclaiming, “This party is awesome!”“You just like it because of the food,” Gianna accused, but she gave Giovanni a playful nudge to the shoulder. “Go ahead and eat as much as you want. I hear that the person who’s supposed to be looking after your eating habits hasn’t been doing a good job.”Giovanni made a surprised squeak, damaged eyebrows going high. Rio scoffed.With the speeches over the floor was quickly becoming a small dancing area, music playing softly. It was a sure sign that the night was starting to conclude.Giovanni dashed back to the food table and Gianna turned to Rio, asking, “Do you want to dance?” She would have loved if Dante had been able to come. Truthfully, Gianna was a bit desperate to finally be able to show off the person who held her heart. But Dante had been extra busy with Axel lately, and she was tryi
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 107: Unrequited love: The most painful kind of love to be trapped in .There was something to be said for persevering through adversity.Because for the first time in a very long time, Gianna managed to have an amazing Christmas.Christmas time for Gianna was typically not a huge event. She knew a fairly large number of people who celebrated the holiday, both religiously and in the secular sense, but with Gianna’s reduced family size, there weren’t a lot of people to celebrate with. She might go to a party or two, and see Giovanni for a few hours, but that was it. Most years she bought Christmas presents for the people she knew—almost in a compulsive way, and received a few only from the people she tended to be closest with.When she’d been a child, it had been the house keepers and nannies buying both herself and Giovanni presents with a prescribed budget from their father. Gianna couldn’t remember the last time her father had handed her a pres
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 106: Mariposa takes care of family .For the first time in a while, Gianna saw some kind of amusement in her father’s eyes. The kind of emotion that Gianna thought had been carefully cut out over the years.“I’ve lied a lot over the past week and a half,” Her father said, looking Gianna in the eyes. “I lied about where my information about Infinite came from. I lied about Mariposa’s association with what happened. I lied about Mariposa’s identities. I lied about you being there at all, other than coincidentally, and I falsified information to make certain people disappear from the records. Not only that, I’ve … provided certain incentives to other individuals to make sure no important names ever come up or can be tied to this.”“Oh, dad,” Gianna sighed out, tears in her eyes.“Considering I deployed the national guard,” his father continued, “to offer back up to one gang over another in a conflict that spilled out onto the streets and ended up inju
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 105: a medical mystery .Gianna screamed. She screamed her throat raw until it was painful to even breathe, and then she kept screaming, eyes locked on Rio’s body.“Shut the fuck up!” Clyde demanded, stalking towards her, the gun still raised.No. Not Rio. There was no way Rio was dead. He couldn’t be.“I said shut the fuck up!”Gianna couldn’t. She couldn’t stop screaming. She wasn’t in control of her body anymore.Clyde fired off a second shot, inches from Gianna. The bullet imbedded into the ground and Gianna fell quiet maybe out of an inability to do anything else, more than the fear.“Christ! Finally.” Clyde let out a long breath.Gianna gasped out a sob, and then she was crying openly, reaching out trembling fingers for Rio.Blood was seeping out around Rio’s body at a slow crawl, but from the way he’d fallen Gianna couldn’t tell where the bullet had gone in. She couldn’t even properly address the injury. She couldn’t do anything but collapse
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 104: infinite bastards .The moment she injected the morphine into herself, feeling the buzz of the drug kick in, chasing away the pain, she sighed in relief. It made her a little loopy, relaxing back against the bed in a useless kind of way, but she was so thankful to be free of the pain she’d felt constantly for a day, that it was worth it.And it was hard, so terribly hard, with how exhausted she was, and lonely and scared, but after that Gianna forced herself to sit up and keep going.In the other syringe she loaded a likely lethal dose of sedative. It was hard to tell though, even for a doctor, as Infinite employed various sized people. The dose she’d filled would kill someone like Donald, put someone like Clyde into a coma, and likely only knock out someone Hagrid’s size.She wasn’t looking to kill anyone, but if they sent Hagrid after her, Gianna couldn’t take the chance that a smaller dose would barely have any effect. Hagrid was strong, in
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 103: Karma? .When they locked her back in her room that night after the phone call, instead of taking her downstairs, it was absolutely clear to Gianna that they planned to use her as bait. They were going to dangle her out in front of Mariposa in the coming days and reduce her to mere fodder.Gianna, who cared more about Giovanni and Dante, and the rest of Mariposa, than anyone else in the world, was not willing to let that stand.She wasn’t just going to roll over and let things happen. Infinite had the advantage now, but Gianna was creative. She was creative, and above all else, she was desperate.So that night, using a pair of grooming sheers she found in the bathroom, she tore up the sheets on her bed. They were thick and of an extremely high quality, the kind of thread count that Gianna had grown up sleeping on. The best money could buy. But most importantly, it meant the material didn’t have much give. And she could wrap her ribs tightly an
Helping Mr. Gang Leader . Chapter 102: Gia is Mariposa now . “For Gia, right?” Giovanni asked, staring hard at Dante. “We’re going in for Gia, right?”And not for Maddox. The second half of the question was left off, but implied all the same.Rio said hotly, “If I come across that bastard, I’m going to take a shot.”“You’re not alone,” Ezekiel interjected.“Of course,” Dante said, voice going rough. “If any of us has the chance to end this by cutting the head off the snake, take the shot. But this is about getting Gia out. Leave Axel and his men to gun for Maddox. If we get Gia out, then we can hit Maddox later, on our own terms, and without him dangling someone we love over our heads.”Jovani leaned back, unease on his face, and said, “There’s one thing I’m really worried about.” He looked to Sal. “The cops.”“They could be a problem,” Sal agreed.“They will be a problem,” Jovani corrected. “They’re not just in Infinite’s pocket. They’re owned by Infinite. There isn’t a cop on th