Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft Page A

punched him in the kidneys. He cried out, doubled over in pain. She followed with a jab to his face and a quick right hook to the side of his head.
    Her fighting skills could be directly attributed to her brothers, a childhood trauma she’d opted to use to her advantage. When Fina was about ten, the boys devised a game called Sucka, which entailed punching one another within a complex system of rules and circumstances. Rand, Scotty, and Matthew saw no reason why their sister should be exempt from the game, and Carl and Elaine were clueless. The siege lasted about two weeks, until the day Carl came home from work and was greeted by a daughter with a huge shiner. Carl lined them up on the couch, Elaine pacing behind him with her cigarette, and screamed at his progeny until he was red in the face. If he caught them doing any more of this bullshit, they’d be out on their asses. His diatribe spooked them, but it was hardly the end of physical skirmishes amongst the Ludlow children. As Fina got older, Boston’s criminal element paid the price.
    Fina ran to her car and drove a circuitous route back to Newton, checking her rearview mirror frequently. Once parked outside Frank and Peg Gillis’s house, she pulled down her visor mirror. There were scratches on her cheek and a small welt emerging on her forehead, but no other physical signs of the fight. He, on the other hand, probably had a black eye, an egg on the side of his head, and—fingers crossed—a bruised kidney.
    Fina winced as she pulled open the metal door of the bulkhead and sidestepped down the narrow stairs into Frank and Peg’s basement. She fumbled putting the key into the lock and was greeted by a wash of cool, dry air when she pushed the door open. Fully clothed, she dropped onto the bed facedown and folded the duvet cover over herself like a large human burrito. The pillowcase smelled like lavender, and she struggled to slow the surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She’d been tired before her skirmish, but now she was tired and wound up, not a great combination. Fina tried to picture a serene setting—any place her family wasn’t—and finally dropped off to sleep from pure exhaustion.

    Hours later, a gentle tug on her leg awakened her, and Fina rolled over to see Frank standing over the end of the bed. He smiled. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
    “Really?” Fina asked. “Have you looked closely?”
    Frank gestured for her to scoot over, and he took a seat at the edge of the bed. He took her chin in his hand and studied her face. “Ouch.”
    “Exactly.”
    Frank Gillis was the private investigator who used to work at Ludlow and Associates and was Fina’s mentor and friend. He’d taught her the trade, and their relationship had evolved over time from strictly business to personal. Frank and Peg were her parents’ age, but unlike Carl and Elaine, they were principled and kind and normal, and Fina sought refuge with them on a regular basis. With Frank and Peg, Fina didn’t question her competency, and she wasn’t required to be perfect, either. In the Gillis home, she had nothing to prove.
    “What time is it?” Fina asked.
    “Five fifteen.”
    “Ugh. Why are you up so early?”
    Frank patted his belly, which approximated the second trimester. “It’s time for our daily constitutional. I wanted to check on you. Heard you come in last night and wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
    “I’m fine. I just didn’t want to go home, and I needed some sleep before going to see my dad.” A few years before, Frank had given her the key to the basement once he realized that Fina was essentially a nomad and incapable of creating a real home of her own, despite her glaring need for one. Those nights when she couldn’t face her own place and wouldn’t dream of going to her parents’, she came here, to the tidy double bed in the basement of their modest Newton home.
    “So who’d you piss off?” Frank gestured at her