by Blue, Jayne
Crank reached out and touched my face. I slapped it away. I was in trouble here. Deep, deep trouble.
“Let me go, let me go now, and I won’t tell the cops you did this shit.”
“Honey, we shot a cop. Do you think we care about your little warnings?”
They closed in on me and I felt like a caged animal. I needed to get away from them. I needed to scream.
“Walk, keep your mouth shut, and smile. You’ll like it,” Crank said, and I didn’t fight. I walked. My eyes darted around. Straggling behind the group was Baby Paul.
“Baby Paul,” I said out loud, it was almost a cry. I felt so sad that this kid was in so deep with these thugs. I shook my head, and they yanked me farther, away from the crowds at the Polish Festival, away from anyone who would see and help.
I spied a van: white, crappy, full-sized, and with zero windows. I knew without a shred of doubt that was where we were headed. And that, if I got inside of it, I’d never get out.
It looked like a coffin to me. I started dragging my feet, fighting the pull forward.
“You want us to shoot you in the street?”
The hands tightened around my arms; my flesh was smashed underneath strong fingers.
They opened the van door and I started to scream.
“Help! HELP!”
The polka band was playing full volume. I screamed again, and the back of Crank’s hand smashed my face and slapped the scream out of me.
I pulled away. I kicked. I used every single bit of energy I had. If they closed the door to this van, I was dead, and they’d hurt me so that I wanted to be dead before they did it.
But there were three of them, and one of me.
Danny and the one I didn’t recognize immobilized my arms and legs. I squirmed on the pavement, and they struggled to get me up to the van.
“Paul, go get Gooch,” Crank ordered. “Paul, where the fuck?”
“He ran, he got scared.”
They had me on the floor of the van, legs half out but unable to kick.
“Fucking kid.” Crank leaned over the top of me. “This little show is only going to make things harder for you.” Crank lifted the bottom of my shirt, God no. I needed to be anywhere but here.
“Hold her tighter, she’s pretending she doesn’t like it.”
“When we’re finished, we’re going to make damn sure everyone knows what to expect if they want to visit Stickney Forest.”
I kicked again and turned my head away.
I felt his gross lips on my neck.
“Get the fuck off her, now.”
“Crank,” Danny said to Crank, and he looked up from me to his crew.
“What the fuck?”
I couldn’t see, but I knew that voice.
“Get the fuck off of her. I won’t say it again.”
Crank moved away. Danny and the other dude let go of my limbs. I slid to the pavement. I wanted to walk, but crawling was all I could manage.
Suddenly, Thorn was by my side. He put his arms around my waist and he helped me stand up. I turned around and Ridge closed in on Crank.
Ridge, Brogan, and Kase were the first line, and then Cochran and Bones backed them up. Ridge hit Crank first and he went down. Ridge kicked him, and then pounced, and hit him again. Crank’s skull was being pummeled by the pavement and by Ridge’s fists. Brogan and Kase offered the same treatment to the other two men who’d attacked me.
I stood, stunned again, by the violence Ridge could deploy. But then, without me pleading for it to stop like I had before, Ridge stood up. Crank and crew were a bloody mess, but they were alive.
Crank stood up and looked at Ridge through two nearly swollen shut eyes. They used the van as support.
“Did you call?” Ridge asked Thorn.
“Yep, on the way, quietly.”
“Good job, Baby Paul,” Ridge said, and there he was standing behind Cochran, looking scared and a lot smaller than his fifteen years.
“I’m so sorry, Frankie. I am so sorry.” He looked at me with tears in his eyes. I broke free of Thorn and walked to him. I put an arm around him.
“It’s okay,” I said but didn’t one hundred percent believe it was true.
“I ran as fast as I could when they weren’t looking, I couldn’t let them hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you for getting help,” I whispered.
Ridge walked up to us and looked beyond us. I followed his eye line. Hayden Parker was there now too.
“Let’s move this party a few blocks over,” Ridge said. I was confused.
“The police record will show that there was no violence today in Stickney Forest since you were attacked outside the neighborhood limit, right,” Officer Parker said to me, like it was an instruction, not a question.
“Right.”
“Let’s go,” Ridge said.
Just as Ridge and Hayden said, four blocks north, in an abandoned parking lot, the full force of the Chicago Police Department swarmed on Crank, Danny, and Turk, the third member of this evil three-piece combo. The entire scene had been quickly and quietly moved to just outside Stickney Forest.
I gave my statement.
Then Baby Paul gave his statement, and I learned he’d also identified Turk as the one who’d shot Hayden Parker.
Friday’s Polish Festival went off without a hitch. No violence, no Bane, and no one the wiser that Great Wolves had saved me and saved Stickney Forest from another round of bloody headlines.
When it was all done, I spent the night at Dziadzia’s.
Ridge had cut the head off of Bane. He’d kept Stickney Forest out of it. He’d kept me safe from the worst evil of my life. He’d also broken my heart.
Nineteen
Ridge
There were six murders, and fifteen shootings the night the cops arrested Crank and his crew. A non-murder and almost rape did not make the news.
Baby Paul, in custody for being an accomplice—unwittingly—to a cop shooting, also did not make the news.
He had promised to testify against the members of Bane. In exchange, he’d get a lighter sentence. I was there for all of it and so was Frankie. I had promised to keep Baby Paul safe, even on the inside, and I had promised him he had a place with the Great Wolves when he got out.
It wouldn’t make juvie easier, but he was tough. And he’d done the right thing, eventually. He had potential, and I was going to be there to be sure he realized it, with the GWMC.
I had no idea what to say to Frankie. I had fucked up, I had lashed out at her. I had trashed our trust in the blink of an eye. I knew that now. I knew it the next day.
Saturday’s Polish Festival attendance was huge, spurred by Frankie and Dzia’s instant celebrity on Channel Seven. Everyone wanted to hang with Dzia or dance with Frankie.
The Great Wolves were in full force, Bane was in jail, awaiting arraignment, and there was no stopping the good time.
“There are still a few of them out there, but they’re on the run, or in hiding.” Brogan had continued to watch for illegal shit from Crank’s crew. Things were quiet on that front from the moment they’d hauled Crank away.
There was also zero doubt that the Great Wolves were on the right track in Chicago.
I wanted to reach out to Frankie, I almost did. I also saw her at the hearings with Hayden Parker. She may not have wanted him to kiss her, but I knew she would be better with him.
She would be safer with a man like Hayden.
When I saw Crank had hit her, when I saw what had happened, under my nose, I knew then that I wasn’t going to apologize to her.
I was going to let her think that I was a dick. My outburst served as a perfect example. She could go, be with Hayden or someone like him, run her business, be safe and away from Great Wolves. We may be legit, but violence was still a part of our way, and always would be.
Frankie Kaminski was meant to be in the light. She was meant to be the Mayor of Chicago for fuck’s sake. She was not meant to be the Old Lady of an M.
C.
No matter how much I wanted it to be so.
A week after the Polish Fest, after we knew the prosecutors were throwing the book at Crank and his crew, I called Sawyer.
“I want to come home.”
“What now?”
“I did what I needed to. They’re doing great, they’re on the right path. I just don’t think it’s the right fit, long term.”
“Is this about that woman you helped, Frankie?”
“How the fuck?”
“I have my sources.”
“Great. Yeah, a little.”
“You did what we asked, but I gotta say I’m disappointed. Seemed like you were coming into your own as a Prez.”
“Whatever, I need to get back to Grand City.”
“Hmm, running away was never your bag, but you know there’s always a place for you.”
I ignored the comment.
I told Thorn, but no one else.
“Shit, man, we’re just starting to figure it out here.”
I didn’t answer him. I didn’t talk much, to anyone. The only one I did want to talk to I needed to stay away from, far away.
Sawyer had asked me to stay for a few days until he could find someone who could come and step in here, maybe Stone or Hammer. Whatever. I needed to get out.
The GWHQ was looking more and more like an MMA gym. The offices and apartments were taking shape too, and all of it in a few short weeks. A few short weeks that seemed like a lifetime.
My phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Ridge?”
“Yeah, Dzia, is that you?”
“It is. Can you swing by the bar? I’m confused about that deposit you put in. I think it bounced.”
“What?”
“The money bounced, and I have a fee to pay, and I don’t understand.”
I had paid Walter Kaminski for an apartment that was in ashes, and now he wanted me to cover a bounced check?
Which frankly, was impossible, but he was old, and he needed help.
“Can’t you call Frankie?”
“She’s not here, and she’ll take away my checkbook for good if I mess this up.”
“Fine, fine. The bar?”
“Yeah, roofing contractors are supposed to come, and I need to let them in, or Miss Thing will throw me in the nursing home.”
That did not sound like Frankie, but when Dzia had an idea, it was hell to get him off of it.
“Be there soon.”
I didn’t want to deal with this, but what was I going to do? The old man was freaking out.
I rode to the bar. The signs on the front read “Now Hiring”, “Re-opening Soon”, and “Call to Rent the Banquet Hall”. Frankie hadn’t missed a beat. She’d probably own the whole block in a year.
I knocked, but no one answered.
I walked into the bar. The smell of smoke had been replaced by sawdust. Work was in full swing. I was proud of Frankie, and also sad that I couldn’t share in this. I wanted to see her dreams happen; I wanted to see the Great Wolves grow here too.
“Dzia?” I called and from the kitchen bounded my gorgeous girl. She was wearing the Kaminski’s t-shirt, her thick hair in a bouncing ponytail, and her beautiful eyes were bright, optimistic, and determined all in one.
“He’s not here, but—”
She saw me and stopped in her tracks.
“He called me, something about a bounced check?”
“Check? He doesn’t have the checkbook or know how to look it up online.”
Frankie shook her head, and then rolled her eyes.
“Well, sorry. He just sounded panicked—said you were going put him in a home?”
“Jesus, sorry. He’s up to something. It’s not your problem.”
“Gotcha.”
I turned to leave her to her work.
“I hear you’re leaving Chicago.”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Soon, no date, but soon.”
“That’s pretty fucking cowardly.” She spat the words at me and stepped a little closer to me.
“What?”
“Leaving before the job’s done. Before you know how this all works out.”
“I’m leaving to protect you.”
“What??”
“I—forget it.”
I wanted to grab her, kiss her hard, and tell her I was sorry.
“I need you to stay to protect me, not go. I need you not to go,” she said, and it ripped my guts out.
“You’re not cut out to be an Old Lady, you’re a fucking world beater. And with me, well, you’ll be in danger from the Cranks of the world who come after the M.C.”
“I’d be a great Old Lady. I was a great Old Lady.”
She was defiant, beautiful, and I absolutely could not resist her. I pulled her into my arms and did what I’d been fantasizing about: I kissed her long and hard.
She pulled me closer, wrapped her hands around my neck, and kissed me right back. When we came up for air, she cupped her hands around my gruff old face.
“I love you. I want to be your Old Lady and a fucking world beater. I want to be both.”
“Yeah, what about how much of an asshole I was to you?”
“I’ll make you pay for that. I have a lot of plans, actually.”
“I just want you to be safe, and—”
“I am as safe as I can be. I mean, it’s Chicago.”
I pulled her in close again and hugged her tight to me.
Frankie Kaminski would be a great Old Lady, and with the job ahead of us, building the Great Wolves in Chicago, this M.C. was going to need one. But not as much as I needed her.
Chapter Twenty Polish Wedding
Frankie
To say I was nervous was an understatement. It was our first big event, and it was my own wedding.
Not only had I done this to myself, made my own wedding the test of what The Polish Wedding could do, but Dziadzia had also alerted the media. Rob Towheart, the reporter, had told his friends who wrote stories what’s “cool” in Chicago, and somehow, I had said yes to having them cover our first wedding. My wedding.
“You’ve got this. I’ve got this. There is no way I can let you say no. Media, for our first night? Yeah, it’s on. Coverage like that can make this place blow up. Oh, sorry, poor choice of words.” Lamont rubbed his fingers together to let me know this could launch Polish Wedding and relaunch Kaminski’s.
I couldn’t argue.
Kaminski’s was looking great. We did a soft opening a month ago, and we’d been packed since day one. Word had spread about our authentic food, drinks, and atmosphere. The atmosphere consisted of Dziadzia and his friends sitting in their booth or around the bar, explaining how vodka should be consumed. (Straight, cold, and always with a buddy, if you must know.)
It had been a year since the fire. The renovations took a while, but insurance covered most of it.
And Polish Wedding, well, we’d see how that went soon enough.
I decided to get ready at Kaminski’s, upstairs. My old apartment was gone, we had built better ones, and that’s where Terry, Sherry, and Char helped me get ready for my day.
Anne Zbornak had done my hair and makeup. I was in the process of de-bigging my hair.
“Look, there is no hair too big when it comes to your wedding day!” She explained, and I begged to differ.
“I look like a Mandrell Sister circa 1983.” Terry and Sherry sipped mimosas and told me I looked beautiful.
“It’s settling into big bouncy curls, so I hate you,” Char said, and I stopped fretting about the hair. It really was the least of my worries. I worried more that the appetizers were plentiful, the chicken was moist, the that we had enough kielbasa.
“I know how to impress these people, do not worry,” Lamont had told me right before they’d shooed me out of the kitchen to get ready.
“Make sure you’re the one who does their plates and make sure Baby Paul serves, I mean Paul.” Paul had spen
t six months in juvie, but Ridge had watched out for him, he’d visited every week. And when it was time to show he had a job; I was there for that.
Since he’d been out, Paul had been the model employee for me, and when he wasn’t working my two businesses, he was running errands for Ridge, who’d said keeping Paul busy was the key to keeping Paul out of trouble.
It had been working so far, and I didn’t trust anyone else to make sure the food critics and lifestyle writers got the best plates coming out of Lamont’s kitchen. Paul was everyone’s right hand man, and no baby anymore.
“It’s time.” Dziadzia made the announcement. He was wearing a tux.
“You look so handsome,” I said, and Terry hustled over to him.
“His tie is crooked, let me fix that.” She straightened it.
“Oh, he needs a tissue.” And Sherry provided that.
“Dzia, what? Are you okay?”
“You look beautiful. You look like your Busia did when I married her. But taller.”
“Oh, thank you. That makes me so happy.”
“Me too, it makes me happy too.” Dzia blew his nose, loudly, and the mood shifted from bittersweet to boisterous.
“Let’s get you down the aisle!”
“Sounds right.” Dzia put his arm out, and I took it as Anne flitted around behind me, making sure each curl was placed where she wanted it.
“Though you could have done it at church, I still worry about that. Busia wouldn’t like this having it all in the hall business.”
“Oh, Busia liked good business, she’d get why we were doing it all here, at Polish Wedding.”
“That’s true, she was so good with business.” I smiled, and we walked along the sidewalk the few feet between the two venues. Dziadzia waved to some neighborhood kids like he was the King of England.
I had chosen a crown of flowers with red ribbons trailing down the back instead of a veil. The crown of flowers was traditionally Polish, and I had used little touches like that in every detail. Every detail, please let all of it work!
I said yes to a simple dress, satin, it had a low V-neck in the front and the back and skimmed my body, but there were no embellishments, it was plain. It did flare a little bit at the bottom to reveal white peep-toe pumps and I’d selected red polish to match the ribbons.