Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 88: Gianna and her pervert boyfriend.Dante put a thoughtful hand to his chin and said, “We don’t serve alcohol here, Granny says there’s too many high school kids during the day and she doesn’t want them to get any ideas. But there’s a bar about a block from here. If you want some alcohol, that’s the place to go.”Once more, Gianna repeated, not caring at all if she sounded like a doctor, “You should not be drinking alcohol right now.”Her father palmed a hand down on the table and said decisively, “I think, Gianna, for the next three or four months, I can do whatever I want.”That was how, against all likelihood, Gianna ended up in a bar with Dante, her father, and Giovanni, watching the father she’d never felt she pleased, become seriously inebriated.“This is weird,” Giovanni said quietly, his shoulder brushing Gianna’s as he leaned in closer to keep his voice low. Gianna, who wasn’t a big drinker because of the medication she took, had managed
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 89: off they went.Her father gave Gianna a drunk wave and let Giovanni heave him out of his seat.“Dive safe,” Gianna called after them, watching with a concerned expression as the whole of her family disappeared from sight.“That,” Dante said, his arm coming around Gianna’s waist, “wasn’t as bad as I was picturing.”It was odd, to have Dante touching her so openly in public, but also nice. If it was the alcohol loosing Dante’s rigorous fears about them being tied romantically, Gianna vowed to ply him with alcohol more frequently.“How did you imagine it going?” Gianna tugged Dante towards the door and onto the street. She wondered where Dante had parked, and couldn’t see it from the front of the bar.Dante shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I know your father works for the government, and you’re super, super smart. I mean, you’re a doctor. And Giovanni doesn’t know how to apply himself, but he’s no louse either. I guess I imagined your dad being thi
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 90: shrill fire and incidents .Gianna was jarred awake by the shrill ringing of Dante’s cell phone.Blinking against the darkness of the bedroom, Gianna groaned and tried to burrow her face further against Dante’s chest. She felt Dante’s arms tighten around her and held out hope for just a second, that whoever was inconsiderate enough to call at a time when the sun wasn’t up, would stop soon.The ringing didn’t stop.“Your phone,” Gianna huffed out, desperate to get back to sleep, comforted by Dante’s presence and the warmth of the heater blowing across them.“Ignore,” Dante grunted.The blanket slipped down Gianna’s naked back as she leaned over Dante’s body to glare at the clock. It was three in the morning. They’d only been asleep for a few hours and Gianna was going to murder whoever was calling.Heavy, frantic thumps echoed through the apartment and Dante sat up so fast he dislodged Gianna.“Is that the door?” Gianna asked, the banging continu
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 91: where is the leader? .In the distance, Gianna heard screams.“What about Namjoon’s grandparents?” Gianna asked, gesturing to a member of Mariposa who was arriving, dragging a burned young man with him.“I don’t know anything,” Sal said, sounding defeated. “But I have to get back to the frontlines.”Ezekiel reached out for him before he could go, asking, “Do you know where Jovani is? If Gianna’s here, she can help these people, at least until the paramedics get here. I sent him to get some medical supplies.”Sal was already pulling free of the grip and jogging away when he called back, “I don’t know where he is, but if I see him, I’ll send him your way!”“Ezekiel ?” Gianna called out.Ezekiel turned to her, looking forlorn. “What can I do to help you?”.The fire seemed to be moving away from them, which was something, and the homes directly around them were only slightly damaged.“Okay,” Gianna said, getting to her feet, and telling Ezekiel, “I
Helping Mr. Gang Leader.Chapter 92: try and fix what was happening . By the time she and Ezekiel got back to the car the street had thinned out enough that Gianna could get the car turned around and headed in the direction that Ezekiel pointed her in.A quick look in the mirror revealed to Gianna that she was as dirty looking as Ezekiel, skin and clothes covered with dark splotches of soot and dirt. And they both smelled horrible, too. Chances were they were tracking the smell into the car, and getting rid of it would be difficult, but that certainly wasn’t at the forefront of her mind.The so called safe location, the rendezvous point, was towards the eastern portion of Mariposa’s territory, and the second floor of a mostly empty office building that was in desperate need of renovations.It was, in retrospect, a good meeting place. No one from the outside was going to think anything was going on in the inside.“Gia!”Gianna was only a few feet through the door when Giovanni smashe
Helping Mr Gang Leader .Chapter 93: a gaping hole left behind. Clearing her voice, Gianna said, “My parents, when they first started trying for kids, wanted a girl first. I know that’s a little odd. Most parents just want a healthy baby, or, let’s face it, a boy. But my parents wanted a girl. They had a name picked out that they agreed on long before she was ever conceived, and there was never any doubt in their minds that they’d be having a girl first and foremost.”Gianna marked the steady rise and fall of Dante’s chest. It was a nice change from the stuttering that had come for so long hours ago.“I have a sinking suspicion,” Gianna told him, “that my parents only wanted one child. As you know, my father has a very intense, stressful, and time-consuming job. And my mother, like me, never let her health condition get in the way of having a career. Did I mention she was an editor at a local publishing house? When she was young and single, she’d spend fifteen hours there in a day s
Helping Mr Gang Leader .Chapter 94: It’s not a perfect system. Gianna told him, “You have to have a heart. You have to be patient. The people who raised him, the people who loved and cared for him and were Dante’s world, just died. I can promise you from personal experience it feels like a piece of him just got ripped out and there’s nothing but a gaping hole left behind. Do you even understand that?”Gianna wondered if Sal really did. Sal, from what Gianna could tell, and compared to Dante, was relatively untouched. His parents and sister were perfectly fine, minimally exposed to danger, and they probably even had someone around the clock watching their residence. Sal hadn’t lost what Dante had. There was no way he could possibly understand that kind of loss.“And I’m telling you,” Sal said, face set, “that Dante is the leader of Mariposa. He is the face and the support of Mariposa. He is what keep the gang going. And now, more than ever, he needs to be out there, visible and stro
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 95: Prepared for what.Gianna dropped to her knees in front of Dante, catching his hands in a grip and demanding, “Don’t you dare for guilty for not hurting an innocent little girl.”Dante looked away. “If I had, if I’d just sacrificed one life that meant nothing to me, I could have saved my grandparents, and the twenty-six-other people who died. You tell me, which lives are more important? The twenty-eight total, or the one? And what about the property damage? And everyone who’s scared now? Don’t you tell me that I didn’t make the wrong call by backing away from the most important information I’ll ever have on Maddox.”Palms sweating, Gianna said, “I could never love a person who is capable of ordering the death of an innocent child, regardless of the circumstances, consequences, or context.”Dante’s shoulders slumped even further, and he admitted, “I’m done, Gia. I’m just done.”Standing once more, Gianna took a deep breath. Then she told Dante, “
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