Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 43: the other side of Sal . “It’s not me,” Sal said finally. “It’s my sister. There’s something wrong with her, even if her doctor doesn’t think so.”Next to Sal, Ezekiel lowered his bowl slowly, wiped at his mouth, and asked, “Hana?”Even Dante looked startled. “Why didn’t you say anything?”Sal ignored them, staring straight at Gianna. “My sister is ten. She should be out running around and playing with her friends. But all she does is lay around and sleep. She says she’s tired all the time. She can barely stay awake at school.”Gianna’s eyes narrowed in interest. “You said a doctor already cleared her?”“Some asshole at the local hospital did,” Sal said with fierce anger. “He acted like she was just lazy, but I know she isn’t. She used to be loud and energetic.”“How recent has this happened?”Sal looked to be guessing as he said, “A couple weeks. Maybe a month.”Gianna could see the tension and unease radiating from Sal, and the tapping of his
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 43: the other side of Sal . “It’s not me,” Sal said finally. “It’s my sister. There’s something wrong with her, even if her doctor doesn’t think so.”Next to Sal, Ezekiel lowered his bowl slowly, wiped at his mouth, and asked, “Hana?”Even Dante looked startled. “Why didn’t you say anything?”Sal ignored them, staring straight at Gianna. “My sister is ten. She should be out running around and playing with her friends. But all she does is lay around and sleep. She says she’s tired all the time. She can barely stay awake at school.”Gianna’s eyes narrowed in interest. “You said a doctor already cleared her?”“Some asshole at the local hospital did,” Sal said with fierce anger. “He acted like she was just lazy, but I know she isn’t. She used to be loud and energetic.”“How recent has this happened?”Sal looked to be guessing as he said, “A couple weeks. Maybe a month.”Gianna could see the tension and unease radiating from Sal, and the tapping of his
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 43: not infinite, not Mariposa but Doctors . “What about your heart?”Hana, who was cute as a button, gave an almost invisible nod. “It beats really fast sometimes.”“And slow at other times? Slower than you usually feel?”.“No,” She denied, and Gianna felt sweet relief whip through her. A quick heartbeat, rather than a heartbeat that alternated between quick and slow, was easier to deal with. And it indicated something much better than the other scenarios that were playing through Gianna’s head.“No?” She asked to be sure.“No,” she confirmed. “It just gets fast sometimes, like when I stand up really fast, or for too long.”“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” Sal cut in sharply.Gianna turned to Sal and pressed a finger to her lips. Sal was worse than some of the parents that accompanied their children. It was obviously only because he loved her, though.“What about your appetite?” Gianna inquired. “How are you eating?” She finished inflating th
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 44: the secret behind Rio . “So,” Sal tried as they sped towards the clinic, mere minutes away with how the Mariposa member was driving. “Is it always this exciting at your clinic? I mean, gunshot wounds, gangsters lurking around, fistfights between the doctors.”Gianna gave him a look from the corner of her eye, clinging to the door handle. Instead of a proper response, she said, “I didn’t honestly think it was possible for me to feel more scared than when Rio is driving. And I’m certain he has a death wish.”Sal gave a deep kind of laugh. “He’s just an adrenaline junkie.”“He’s crazy,” Gianna corrected. “And not just because he drives a motorcycle.”They were well into Infinite territory then, and Gianna wanted to put a hat over Sal’s head or slip sunglasses over his eyes.“Rio just likes to feel.”The comment caught Gianna off guard. “Feel?”There was clear hesitancy on Sal’s face, then he said almost delicately, “Most of us in Mariposa, even if
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 45: what seems to be the problem? . “Sal,” Gianna offered gently. “You don’t have to…”Sal looked weary as he said, “I don’t know the details. This is one thing Rio doesn’t talk about. I just know that Rio’s boy’s home finally started putting up a fight. The workers there refused to let their boys get devoured up by Shinhwa, especially as the gang was starting to have major issues at the time and were in danger of staring some kind of civil war. So, when the workers said no one more time, Shinhwa set the place on fire. Rio made it out, and so did a couple other kids, but lots of people died. Gianna, Shinhwa barred the doors. They locked those people in before they set the place on fire. Just to prove a point.”Gianna felt her heart seize up into her chest, and for one moment, there was a stutter. But it was just heartache, she realized a moment after that. It was just sadness.“Rio lost everything,” Sal said, “time and time again. He kept cheating
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 46: This Traitor is betraying us!. Gianna pushed open the door and tried not to ask too frantically, “What is going on here?”.Angelo and Enzo were on opposite sides of the room, with Victoria between them like a mediator of sorts. She certainly had a small can of pepper spray in one hand, and a crackling taser in the other. She looked incredibly intimidating.Enzo, with some swelling to his forehead like he’d taken a knock to his head, turned to Gianna, pointed at Angelo and said, “This bastard is betraying us!”.Angelo shouted back immediately, “Don’t you dare call me a bastard!”.Gianna looked between them, gob smacked. “You’re doctors,” She told them, incredibly disappointed. “You are doctors and you’re supposed to be symbols of something better than this. How can you behave like this? How can you call each other names, fight with each other, and scare our patients?”“It’s because of him!” Enzo shouted in a heated way. “Angelo is a traitor and
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 47: what about your father? .Simply, Gianna said, “You’re leaving.”Angelo didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.“So now we’re down a doctor!” Enzo said, a furious look on his face. “We’re down a doctor as our patient numbers keep rising. And it’s not because he’s having an emergency of some kind, or because the situation is out of his control, no, we’re down a doctor because he’s leaving us for something better.”The disappointment was welling up so much in Gianna’s chest it was nearly overwhelming. “This clinic needs you.”“I know,” Angelo said, looking truly sorry. “I know it does, and I’m sorry to go. But this is my dream, Gianna This has always been my dream, and I thought you understood that if I ever got a shot at my dream, I would have to go for it. I’m not doing this to screw the clinic over. I’m doing it because this is what I’ve dreamed about at night since I declared my focus to be in ortho.”Enzo accused, “And we’re not supposed to t
Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 48: We do what it takes.“Speaking of,” Enzo reminded, “what can we do about your dad? Gianna? We have to block him from trying to kill our funding because he’s pissed about your brother.”Gianna swore, “I’m working on it. I won’t let him take our funding, no matter what he threatens. He doesn’t represent the whole of the Sangrid government, no matter who he knows. I won’t let him get away with this.”“But what if he does?” Enzo posed.“Then we go into funding overdrive,” Victoria proposed. “We get anyone and everyone to sponsor us. We have fundraisers, we appeal for research grants, take private donations, and whatever else we have to. We do what it takes to keep this place open.”“Got it,” Enzo said. “And that’s something we have to get the other nurses and receptionists in on. This has to be a group effort.”Angelo asked, “What about trying to get some of the neighborhood businesses to kick in a little? Everyone is strapped for money here, but if
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