Crimson Reflections | Ferard

VIII

So Frank really hadn't meant to witness the scene he just almost walked on.

He was actually looking for Gerard. He had grabbed his jacket from upstairs and skipped down the stairs like a five-year-old to catch up with Mikey by the door, but when he couldn't find Gerard in the kitchen he went to the living room, hoping to catch him and tell him they were leaving, he had heard some noise from the basement and went there to check it out, only to find the this instead.

There was three people in there. Gerard, Tony and a strange woman (Frank had no idea how she got into the house in the first place) visibly shaking with sobs, on her knees, her blonde shoulder cut hair obscuring her face, looking up at Gerard while Tony stood between them.

She was begging on her knees, Frank realized when she sobbed harder, shaking and looking at the gun Tony was pointing between her eyes. Tony was blocking her from Gerard. Frank couldn't do anything but stare.

"Gerard," her voice was strangled and she was clearly crying, "Gerard, please. You can't do this. I didn't have a choice. Please. I have a family, please. They have no one but me. You can't do this. You can't kill me, please."

Gerard scoffed her words heartlessly, "you should've thought about that before you betrayed us."

"They made me do it." She was crying out loud now, sobbing into her hands that were covering her face, repeating the sentence they made me through heart wrenching sobs over and over again.

It was fair to say that Frank's heard his share of begging before. He's done all kinds of jobs for money before, he's killed people without a second thought, so logically the scene unfolding in front him shouldn't have been such an emotional experience. To be fair though, none of the people Frank's threatened or even killed had ever begged like that. None feigned innocence like that, and Frank knew it was crazy. He wasn't some messiah on a mission, he knew that. He didn't kill bad guys. He killed whoever he was told to kill. He shouldn't be acting like it was the first time he ever saw a mob in action.

Still, the way Gerard stood. The way he scorned at the woman in a way Frank's never seen him do before. The way the young woman was on her knees, literally fucking begging for her life, struck Frank frozen. He couldn't move away even if he wanted to.

The whole thing seemed to stretch for infinity and Frank felt like it's been hours before Gerard moved back and signaled for Tony to use his gun.

The blonde woman was on the ground, bleeding through a hole in her skull before Frank could blink.

...

Mikey kept giving him weird looks.

Frank tried to ignore it. God knew he wasn't in the mood to talk about it, or basically had any idea what he would say if he wanted to talk about it, but Mikey, being a man of few words, had a stare that rivaled any nagging he could ever come up with. It was impressive really how he could drill holes into the side of Frank's head while driving the car so smoothly.

"We're half an hour away from the house." Mikey had announced at some point, monotonously as ever.

Frank blinked at the road, trying to make sense of where they were since he hasn't been seeing the road at all so far, the scene he's just witnessed still playing in his head. He eventually nodded to Miley's words, even though he still had no idea where they were at that point. All he could tell from what he was seeing that they were in a hiking area somewhere, although the Jeep Mikey was driving was holding up the road very well so far, and the way the road was running smoothly didn't leave much room for him not to think, and think he did.

He mostly felt confused, if he was being honest. What was he expecting? He's been doing this for years, the year he's spent away was nothing compared to that. Gerard was doing his business as well. Frank knew Gerard, well, not actually, but he's heard enough about him throughout the years he's spent in this business. The man was unforgiving and ruthless, that was common knowledge. Frank's heard enough stories, in fact, to know to avoid him and his men at all costs, until now, that was.