Helping Mr. Gang Leader.Chapter 1:.On the day Gianna’s life changed drastically and irreparably, she endured a particularly painful luncheon with her father.Gianna, for the most part, considered herself to be a respectful and obedient daughter.She was, to the best of her ability, the perfect daughter.But her father was a particularly hard man to please, and nothing Gianna had ever done felt like enough.Gianna had an ulcer by sixteen, hair falling out by seventeen, and by eighteen she went away to college to save herself more than anything else.“—could have been something special. Wasted opportunity, that’s what you are.”Gianna tapped a finger gently against the condensation on her water glass.“--paying attention, Gianna?”She straightened up. “Yes, of course.”“Oh?” Her father asked, a gray eyebrow raised.“I believe you were lamenting on my poor career choices,” Gianna told him, a little too flippantly if the way her father’s eyes narrowed, meant anything.“Watch yourself,

Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 3: .Rio shouted, “I’m talking to you!”“Don’t snap at my sister like that!” Giovanni’s own voice rose.And then the new comer, whoever he was, interjected, “Stop fighting, all of you!”Gianna turned to Rio and looked him straight in the eyes. “Do you know why you have thirty seconds to get out of my operating room?”“Go ahead and tell me.”“Because,” Gianna said, muttering a thank you to Zeke when he deposited the tools at her side. “Because you’re the idiot who pointed a gun at me. You’re the idiot who, instead of asking nicely if I could save his friend’s life, demanded that I do so. Because I don’t like you. Because I don’t like violence. And because this is a clinic where I treat people and take care of them, and you are making it very difficult for me to want to do that. Now, your friend is laid out on my operating table, bleeding out from a gunshot wound. Do you want to stay here and be an ass, or do you want to leave now and let me work? Fif

Helping Mr. Gang Leader.Chapter 5: . “Talk,” Gianna demanded, and she wasn’t going to let Giovanni go until she had all the answers.“You’re not going to like it,” Giovanni warned.Gianna told him plainly, “Somehow, I already figured that.”“Don’t you think instead we should talk about how you almost had a heart attack tonight?”Gianna narrowed her eyes at her brother. “You’re attempting to distract me.”But then she wasn’t so sure, because Giovanni looked absolutely serious and worried as he insisted, “Oh, we can talk about all the things you want to know in a second. I’m fully prepared for that lecture, I have readied myself. But Gia, you almost … it looked like …”“Your friend,” Gianna said tersely, “the one with the gun, he startled me.”“We almost lost someone we’d do anything for.”Gianna sighed. There was never an excuse for bringing a weapon into a house of healing. But instead of fighting the matter, she told her brother, “I can tell all of you care very much for each ot

Helping Mr. Gang Leader.Chapter 6: A little lie won’t kill you, or Will it? .Hagrid pressed further into Gianna’s personal space and Gianna had no idea what would happen next, only that it probably wasn’t going to be good. Whenever anyone from Infinite came around, it never was.“I assume you’ll answer my questions now?”Gianna breathed in deeply, then gave a nod.A dubious smile stretched its way out across Hagrid’s face. “Good. Very good. Let’s get started.”It was like this:You had to either be completely oblivious, or incredibly stupid not to understand who owned the area.Gianna had grew up in one of Sangrid’s most affluent neighborhoods. She had gone to private school, and rarely been exposed to the underbelly of the city. But even she, at least vaguely, had known about the gangs. And she had heard rumblings of Infinite.Infinite.All the gangs were a little different, with specific ways of running things, different rules, and methods of operation. The last thing Gianna ha

Helping Mr. Gang Leader .Chapter 8: aren’t all gang leaders the same? .“Giovanni ,” Gianna said a little breathless. She made her way back to the kitchen, feeling nauseous, and in need of her medication. “You need to call me as soon as you get this. Hagrid … Infinite’s Hagrid, was just here. He came by and he was asking all these questions about Mariposa and I tried to lie, I think he believed me, but you need to call me. I need to talk to you.” She forced himself to stop, hating how scared she sounded. “Call me.”She swallowed down a large red pill and a small white one, drank half a glass of water and wished like hell she had gone out for drinks. She certainly wouldn’t take enough to be considered drunk, and with her medical condition it wasn’t something she could risk doing in general, but maybe if there had been any alcohol in her, she could have handled Hagrid with a bit more delicacy. She had let her anger and her attitude run away from her and said things she shouldn’t