Frankie dismissed her newest Street Gang Leader Allera and her hands both SullivanBlack and Matty so that they could prepare for the celebration she suspected might happen later tonight - the raising of another Guardian.  First, however, she had to have a serious heart to heart with him.  

Francis, as most of the crew was coming to know him, was a Priest and for that reason he might well resent being offered a position in a known criminal organization.  It was up to Frankie to convince him that he could serve his God (who, she was well aware, he placed above all earthly joys including that of a lover) and serve her.  Of all her men who surrounded her since the passing of her husband - Francis was one of the few she KNEW she could trust implicitly and that manner of trust wasn't ever let go easily.

She would find away to get Francis to accept not only a button, but a Street Gang Leader position ... or she would drive him away in trying.  "Carmine,"  She said to her bodyguard.  "Bring me the Priest."

With that her elderly bodyguard left to find the GangsterPriest .

He was ready. On his knees at the foot of the bed. Hands in a ready position. In any other hotel room in Las Vegas he'd be moments from getting his rocks off. He really didn't have much stamina. But it wasn't him. It wasn't his path.

He was kneeling in prayer. To ask for guidance in these dark times. The world was being stretched from limb to limb. Money was becoming more important than character. And maybe that little tale always was, and would be. But above it all, all the obvious bullshit, he saw something in his minds eye.

A glimmer of hope. A flicker of a candle that was lit not of fire, but of conscience. Of one's own understanding of oneness. Of a light amongst the darkness. Of a tower standing tall, guiding others to the promised land.

And just as he began to feel waves of warmth wash over him, his silent contemplation was broken.

#KNOCK KNOCK#

The wooden door spoke. Open up, because a pair of knuckles is smacking me about. It was someone he knew from a past he seemed was always nipping at his heels. Yet right now, that shadow had no high noon.

Francesco slowly brought himself out of his intense focus. He breathed deeply into his balls. His feet were what grounded him, and the attention on them were what had his energy take a sharp turn back into the present moment. After another deep breath, he was upright on those soles and heading towards the knocking.

"Get dressed. Not that priestly crap. I'll wait for you downstairs."

The voice came through muffled, but he knew who it was. Carmine. And as footsteps gave him the hint that Frankie's bodyguard was walking away, Francis' mind reasoned it could mean only one thing. Enzo had given the approval for him to return to Italy.

Frankie was standing at the window as she liked to do at sunset, when she heard someone approaching the door.  The knock was Carmine's, she'd come to know it quite well.  The door opened without her answering, and the next set of feet to enter were most likely Francesco's.  She could hear the bodyguard's shuffling gate back out and close the door behind him leaving her alone with her old friend.

"Las Vegas couldn't be more different than Sicily if it tried."  She said, still watching the pink and gold hews painted across the sky, shifting slowly darker like a coverlet of night being pulled slowly over the world.  "This whole country really.  Sicily was a place where people's roots were so deep into the soil that they were part of it... solid trees watered with the blood of the innocent, unyielding in the storms of constant conflict."

She drew a slow breath as she considered the conflicts that had shaped the Messina family, "One occupation attempt after another for so long we had to develop the means to protect ourselves... this thing of ours; a system where common men came together to protect their neighbors from those who would rape the people and their resources whether they were foreign, domestic, or even the government itself."

She shook her head.  "Bloody work sometimes... and always such a high price."  She turned and looked at her friend.  "Life, death... the soul for it's immortal nature has always seemed to me to be a fragile thing; so easily darkened."  She motioned to the chair across from her desk and she moved to her seat to sit down as well.

"My Grandfather has said you may return to Sicily, if you like..."  she takes an opened envelope, one bearing Italian stamps, and puts it in front of him, "...but if you'll hear me out, I'd like to make a counter offer." 

She folded her hands on the desk in front of her.  "This land is a place of weary immigrants trying to build up something new... fruit from old trees fallen far from their origins.  In many ways the echoes of old conflicts are still a part of them - but they yearn to be more, and they can be if they're allowed to do so, and we can help them if we're willing to bear the burden."

She swallows back a lump in her throat.  "My cycles came a few days after you told me about Tony."  She looks down at her desk.  "I and my men had thought I was with child.  I'd been late... I was sick in the mornings... maybe the stress caused it to fail, I don't know; but,"  She looked back up at the Priest, eyes shimmering with unshed tears.  "I like to think the Lord had a plan for me and it clearly didn't involve being a wife or mother." Bitterness tinged her tone, but she tried her best to resist the urge to succumb to it.

"Perhaps that's why my heart has always yearned for something else... why I was never satisfied with the simple life my grandfather wanted for me in Sicily, living as some farmer's wife.  I had to cross oceans, lose everything, to be ready to start a family here... not one of blood, but something more."  She sighed and chortled.  "I know how I must sound.  Grieving widow, reaching at straws trying to find some semblance of purpose and meaning to it all, but ever since I got my first letter from Lucky Lucy - I've felt as though I was on a path."

"Summerlin isn't where I thought I'd be in life, but God's in control not us, that's what the Priests say?"  She arches an eyebrow.  "Consider that maybe Sicily isn't meant for you either.  Maybe you were always suppose to come here - to help these people, to help my family... to help me."  She said the last with reluctance.

"You know who we are and what we are willing to do to protect our community.  You know the sins we deal in to have the money and power to subdue the wicked.  You've never judged my grandfather for those things and ... I think you haven't looked down upon me; it takes a stalwart heart to do that.  To take confessions from Mafioso and offer the path to salvation to them; not every man of the cloth could, or would.  Not every Priest would accept that even the wicked such as we, might have a place in God's plan - shielding the innocent common man from the wolves in sheep's clothing who move among them unseen."

"Lucy's last letter to me warned me that one day I would see a monster when I looked in the mirror, Francesco.  That, to do all I wanted with this tower, I would darken my soul and assure my place in Hell; but maybe... maybe she could be wrong?  God blessed wars and warriors - retribution of all kinds that none of us would call good."  She shook her head.  "I'm not saying that God smiles at what we do here... I'm sure he doesn't, but I'd settle for him understanding and tolerating so long as we don't lose our footing on the path.  To have any hope of that; I need someone like you to help me."

She leaned forward in her seat.  "I need to remember who I am and why I'm doing what I do and I can't be allowed to forget why I agreed to take up this Ivory Tower - to be a guardian of an ideal so much bigger than making money for it's own sake.  To teach the younger Mafioso, to hold them to a code of honor and expectation of dignity even in a world of thieves and murderers."

"I think, with your help, I might be able to do that ... but without someone to help me, without someone to be my touchstone and conscience, it could be so easy to lose myself as I've seen others do.  I don't want to become monstrous, Francesco.  I know what I am, and I know how easy it would be to fall from the very narrow path I've started walking, I nearly did this week when I found out I'd lost Tony... but you helped me.  I want you to stay and keep helping me.  Help my family stay the course, join us.  If you can't ... I'll put you on a plane tonight.  I have one on the runway, it'll take you to New York and a steamer home; but I don't want you to go Francesco.  I want you to stay here with me where we have a chance to make things better than they are back home."

She shakes her head, "Don't go back to that place where nothing ever changes - take a chance on this, say you'll become a Guardian of the Tower?"

He had to sit. Was this really happening? Could it be? Threads of experiences, recent and long gone, were tieing together in his mind as he took to a chair. He listened to Frankie speak, and word after word, sentence after sentence, they painted pictures.

Of a story he was yet to fully share, but she seemed to dig into like a spade. Francis had been on an interesting path, maybe even a crooked one. He couldn't fathom how other priests stayed stuck in their church, to the church. As if their very walls were the salvation.

Through all his trials, he had found salvation in his brethren. In the hearts of the very men, and women, living life outside those dogmatic walls. Stuck in the mundane everyday fires of creation, the very experiences that were showing him what it meant to be human.

Francesco kept listening, his eyes focused nowhere in particular, his attention deep within. The pictures kept meshing together, one after the other. Of Frankie's Godfather. Of the lessons he had learned indirectly, about the very church itself and how common folk were able to do more for the people.

Then, it hit him like a club to the back of the dome. Could this really be what he was envisioning this past week and a bit in solitude? Could the lighthouse he kept finding in response to his prayers, be an actual tower? Could this be it, what he was in this world for?

"Don't go back to that place where nothing ever changes - take a chance on this, say you'll become a Guardian of the Tower?"

As Frankie finished, his eyes met hers. His seat was a little off center, so the priest's body was facing her at an angle. He didn't yet notice, but the chair itself was different than the others that supported the spines on this level of the tower. Maybe Sully's non incident may have had something to do with that.

It was fitting. To both his buttcheeks, and his current situation. A broken piece of furniture was needed before this odd seat could join the others. And in a twist of fate, death had opened the door for Francesco to be here, before the Don of Summerlin.

Who'd have heard of such a thing, a man of the church joining the ranks of this thing of theirs. Francesco hadn't, and he was weary of it happening here and now. He just couldn't see it. It just didn't make any sense.

"Frankie." He replied with a concerned voice. The look on his face matched it.

"A man of the church, a clerical man, just can't do what you are asking."

He took a deep breath. His eyebrows dug towards his nose, almost showing an expression of scorn.

"What you are asking, I just can't agree to."

He paused again. Maybe this would be the last time he would be in these offices, as he was. In this country. Maybe even in this world. He slid his hand into his black woolen overcoat. The clerical collar he usually wore, wasn't seen as his black button down shirt became visible. The priest removed his hand and placed it on the desk, closed. He shuffled forward in his seat to do so.

"You've been good to me. Your Grandfather too. And Tony. I looked up to both of you. No matter your affiliation. No matter how different I was as a boy, you both showed me love and respect and I have never forgotten that. And I never will."

His hand opened, and he placed a white strip of cloth forward on the desk.

"A man of the church can't stay. But a man of God and the people will."

Now, he looked defiant. Maybe this had been coming for a long time. Maybe he knew it all along. That he was better off without the outer appearance, one that gave him a conflicted need to seek answers in prayer every night.

"I belong here. I've seen it. I feel it in my bones. Plus, the coffee is weirdly better over here."

He finished with a smile.

"A guardian of the tower, hey? I like how that sounds."

Frankie looks at the collar as if it were a snake.  For a moment panic is in her eyes, then regret, and barrage of other emotions to obscure to pick apart.  She closes her eyes as if to pen them all inside, she holds herself there for a long moment.  

"Are you SURE this is the path you want to take - I ... I didn't realize that for you this was a choice that you'd ever consider."  She opened her doe-eyes and looked at him.  "I never would have asked you to give up your calling.  I know how much this meant to you and ..."  She swallowed back words unspoken and resolved herself to repeat, "Are you sure?"

"My calling? Who said this would change that. I've been against the institution for some time now. I just wear that thing to help me reach people who need it. They seem to think it makes a difference."

He didn't feel like his words were making the impact he desired. So in a change of pace, he cut to the core.

"Fuck the church."

He let that sink in.

"I'm a man of the people. Serving coffee and attending to the poor can be done without a money hungry structure. Your Grandfather taught me that. He taught me that God truly does work in mysterious ways. And shine through the most unlikely of faces."

"My calling wont change. It will just have a different, approach."

"Plus, if I return I will be excommunicated. It's also part of the reason I'm over here. I never intended on going back. At least this way I get to disown them, not the other way around."

"Frankie, I can be here to help you if you wish me to be. I accept that responsibility. But, if you'd like to retract that offer..."

"No." She said far more abruptly than she meant to, as if she were saying 'don't go!' 

"I... I should treat you like any other associate then."  She swallowed the lump in her throat and stood up.  Grabbing the collar she opened the top drawer on her desk - spotting there a small pistol she put the collar in the place of it and offered him the gun without a second thought.  "If you say you're done, and that you're one of us now, then who am I to question that?"  Only after he takes the gun does she take up Uffa's leash and clicked her tongue for the small goat to follow.

"Come with me."  She said as she began to walk down stairs. 

"It started a few days ago when our patrols noticed several of Durden's people in a variety of places.  We think he's making a quiet, but aggressive move on our holdings... but there could be more to it than that.  For him to get a toe hold on our operation he'd need friends... I'm deeply concerned about the nature of our alliances with several key people and so I've called in some help."

She went down the stairs, but didn't stop at the bottom.  Instead she opened a door that, until this point, Francesco had not seen anyone outside of the Don and her hands enter.  This, so far as anyone in the crew knew, was off limits to anyone save for made men and women.  "I'm sending you out to meet a friend of our family."  She closes the door behind him, flicking on a light as she does so, saving them both from drowning in darkness.

"You'll be debriefed on several tasks that need doing tonight.  You'll pick one.  Other members of the crew will be asked to handle the other tasks - ideally you won't meet any danger along the way, you're good with people... but just in case, you have a gun."  She walks down the long flight of cement stairs under the hum of industrial lighting. 

At the bottom of the stairs she stops at a lone white steel door.  She pulls out a key, hanging on a chain around her neck.  She unlocks the door and pauses.  "This is the point where I normally warn associates that everything changes from here, that one way or another... nothing will be the same ever again after tonight."  Her eyes locking on his, searching him in a way she'd never done before.  "But I think we've already established that."  She pushes the door open and motions for him to enter.

After Francesco enters, Frankie & Uffa follow.  She shuts the door behind them with a resounding bang.  All that can be heard after that is the scraping metallic sound of a deadbolt being slid into place & then... silence.

Frankie sent out invitations to anyone and everyone she could think of, in order to celebrate the GangsterPriest Francesco earning his button!  She hoped that everyone would come out and wish him the very best in this thing of ours!
 

Coming to a place oh so familiar.. opening the door, I see Gangster, and know immediately to congratulate him , I bring him a glad of wine not sure if he will accept, but I can always suck it down, if not. This is so exciting for you, well it was for me! It has been great getting t know you some.

"Congratulations and welcome to the big time."  Rat then offers a hunk of cheese.

"Congratulations to you! May this thing of ours always treat you well and may all our meetings be less tense than our first!" Raconteur shakes GangsterPriest's hand and gladly shares in the excitement of this day that has seen them both rise together.

congrats on your promotion 

He'd made it back alive and taken the oaths.  Seeing him without the collar still troubled her, but it had been his choice - she hadn't done this to him, right?  Frankie stood off to the side letting everyone approach Francesco and congratulate him, waiting.  After a time, when there was a break in the steady stream of well-wishers, she went to him.  At first she thought to hug him, as she would have done in the old country without a single hesitation, but he was a priest then.  The collar, and before that his firm intention to the priesthood, had always meant never fearing how he read her actions.  So, instead, she offered her hand.

"In America they shake hands to greet each other and such..."  She smiled.  "Congratulations Francesco... or do you prefer I call you Francis?"  She smiled at him, "In either case, welcome home."

Francis made the rounds. He'd never have expected for his life to turn in this way. To be amongst these men and women he would now call peers. And at a ceremony welcoming him into the fold. Him! A fuckn priest. What the shit. But it felt right.

There was a sense of peace about him as he made the rounds. Some cheese from the one they called Rat Smiley. He had wondered why he had such a name, but before he could prompt the man for the story, Raconteur and HesterDunn approached.

"Thank you both. Really. Your words wont be forgotten."

Handshakes. They seemed to love it here. At least it wasn't a salute like Mussolini was trying to introduce. Some physical touch was better than none. He shook both men's hands firmly accompanied by a smile.

He noticed Allera out the corner of his eye before she approached. The somewhat priest turned to recieve her. He bowed his head respectfully as a response. More smiles. He couldn't stop beaming. After the near death, this was a good result.

And finally the Don herself. He only ever knew her as Frankie. An old friend from a life before. But as life always did, things changed. Don? Lady maybe, like Allera would say? Boss? He'd never really given his service to anyone but the bearded guy.

Francesco cocked an eyebrow at the offer of a handshake. He remembered seeing some kids playing in the streets. Two youths. He'd often mingle with them as they went from moment to moment. They were poor, but seemed full of more spirit than many who were in more expensive attire and rushing off to earn a decent wage.

They taught him how innocence brought happiness. Something he may later find an obstaclce with this life. But for now, he attempted the same greeting they had showed him. With a closed clenched fist, he offered it forewards with knuckles down to Frankie-Messina.

"Francis, Francesco, Priest, Gangster Priest as they called me in Calabria before my departure. Whatever works, Don Frankie."