Gloria stood at the desk of the newest assistant at S.I., and showed her how to download vendor records on her computer.  Gio Savarino still sat in one of the chairs against the wall, on Mick’s orders, and felt awkward as hell.  Especially when the supervisor, that Blair Conyers, kept giving him displeasing peeps.  Not that he cared.  She was just a nosy-ass secretary as far as he could see.  Why should he care what she thought?  But he cared what Gloria thought.  And from what he could tell, she didn’t think very much of him.

He crossed his legs.  He wasn’t a great-looking man, and he knew it.  He was big and bulky, socially awkward, and kind of dumb-looking if he were to tell the truth.  He wasn’t dumb, but he knew he had that dumb-jock look going strong.  But Gloria Sinatra, he thought, as he continued to watch her help that new hire, was a beautiful sight to behold.  From the moment he laid eyes on her, he was smitten.  She was a biracial bombshell in his eyes.  But he’d already been warned off by the other guys in the syndicate.  “Don’t even try it,” they warned him.  “Mick the Tick’s daughter is off limits.”  And Gio, despite how he might appear to people, wasn’t stupid.  He kept his feelings to himself.

But when Gloria finished her tutorial with the new girl, and made her way, not back to her own desk, but over to Gio, his heart began to pound.  He was about to rise to his feet, but she motioned for him to stay seated.  And she sat beside him.  She leaned forward and crossed her legs.

“Everything okay?” he asked her.

“Yeah, fine,” she said.  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Gio looked at her.  “Me?”

“You seem a little uncomfortable.  Are you okay?”

Gio felt relieved.  “Yeah, I’m good,” he said.  “Thanks for asking.  That old witch just keeps looking at me like I’m trash sitting up here.  I’m not used to that.”

Gloria nodded.  She and her brothers often called Blair Conyers Blair Witch.  But that was their inside joke.  “I know what you mean,” she said.  “But, for some strange reason, my dad loves her to death.”

“That bitch?  Really?”

Gloria smiled.  “Really.  I guess he figure she’s good at her job, or whatever.”  Then she considered Gio.  He was one of those big white guys with what Joey said was a face only a mother could love, and with what Teddy called prison-yard muscles.  He wasn’t attractive; he couldn’t hold a candle to any man she’d ever dated.  But there was something about Gio Savarino.  Something warm and comforting and, as she saw it, and big, teddy-bearish.  “How long have you been in the business?” she asked him.

“What, this business?  I don’t work for Sinatra Industries.”

Gloria couldn’t believe he misunderstood her, but she didn’t call him out on it.  “I mean, my father’s other business.”

“Oh!”  Gio flushed.  Why was he always getting it wrong?  “Long time.  It was all I knew how to do.  My old man was, you know, in this line of work.  His old man was in this line of work.  My own mama told me I had to rely on my muscle because brains and beauty was no friend of mine.  My nickname is Rocks because that’s what people say I have for brains.” He said this with a smile, a smile Gloria didn’t return because she found it more sad than funny.  His smile left too.  “It’s all I know how to do,” he said.

“Gloria,” Blair Conyers said, and both Gloria and Gio looked at her.  Gio was waiting for Blair to say more, but Gloria wasn’t.  She knew what she wanted.  Gloria patted Gio’s hand with her own hand, and then made her way back to her desk.  She got back to work.

Gio felt warm inside.  He wanted to rub his hand where her hand had been, that was how warm he felt inside.  But he dared not do it.  She didn’t want a dufus like him, what was his problem?  Beautiful girl like that.

But at least she was kind to him.  That was more than he could say for all those other pretty girls he’d encountered in his life.  At least she was nice.  But that still didn’t mean she wanted him, he realized.  And that was why, like always, he repressed that warm feeling and kept his look, his mindset, his entire being hard.

In the corridor outside of the suite of offices, the elevator doors opened and Teddy and Joey hurried off and made their way toward the suite.

“Who would have the balls to come after Dad?” Joey asked yet again as he worked hard to keep up with his big brother’s big strides.  He was still reeling from that attempted hit.  “Who would do that?”

“How should I know?” Teddy asked.

“You should know,” Joey responded.  “Dad made you his heir-apparent.  He made you his undisputed number two.  You should know.”

Teddy glanced at his brother.  He couldn’t disagree with Joey.  Because he should know.  But he didn’t.  “You know how Dad is,” was all he could say in response to his brother’s truth.

But when they made it to the office door that led to the assistants’ workstations, both brothers forgot what they should have known, and focused on the task at hand.  They’d already checked the perimeter.  They didn’t see any indication of ambushes or anybody lying in wait, so they were fairly confident this would be a smooth transport.  But it was their sister they had to transport, and the fact that their father wanted both of them to transport her meant their father felt something was going down.  The added weight kept them antsy.

When the door to the suite opened, and Teddy and Joey entered, everybody looked up from their workstations.  For the younger women, they all loved it when those handsome Sinatra brothers came around.  For Blair, it was yet another distraction from those Sinatras.  But for Gloria and Gio, it was a far different take.

“Dad sent us,” was all Teddy had to say, and Gio was rising and Gloria was grabbing her purse.

Any other time, Blair would have asked, “where do you think you’re going,” before Gloria could make it to the door.  But Blair heard what Teddy had said.  Mick had sent for her.  Even Blair Witch knew better than to dispute her own boss.  Gloria and her brothers, and with Gio bringing up the rear, hurried out of the office.

What was remarkable to Gio, but not at all to Teddy and Joey, was the fact that Gloria didn’t question why.  She didn’t ask what was going on, or why did her father send for her.  She just got on the elevator with the rest of them, made her way downstairs, and then, to Gio’s surprise, went unquestioningly around the backside of the lobby to the parking garage.

“Not out front?” Gio asked Teddy as they hurried.

“No,” Teddy responded.  He respected Gio, not because he had a lot of experience working with him: he didn’t; but because his father respected him.  “There are too many buildings and moving parts out front for us to feel confident that there’s no ambush in the works.  Lex is waiting in the garage.  We can control that scene better.”

Gio nodded.  Made perfect sense to him.

And when they made it through the door and into the parking garage, where they saw Lex waiting patiently with the SUV, it seemed like the perfect plan.  Until they heard a car backfire, prompting all of them to look, and then saw another car suddenly hit on the gas and approach them so fast the car was swerving and on the verge of losing control.  Teddy pushed Gloria and Joey into the SUV, while he and Gio took out their guns and began firing.

But the car was coming too fast.  It came straight for Teddy, causing him to jump onto the hood.  Gio, acting quickly, was able to shoot the driver through the head in that split second as the car flew past him.  But it was enough.  Teddy jumped off of the car just as the car careened out of control for real this time, and crashed into the wall so violently that the driver and his passenger flew through the windshield, and slammed against the wall.

Teddy and Gio jumped into the SUV, and Lex sped away.