Annabelle groaned before she ordered another drink, while she heard Gertrud say, "But you promised to dance with me."
Before he nodded over towards Connor, who was waiting for him on the second floor of the nightclub, Oswald replied, "And I will. But first, I have to finish with that gentleman."
Gertrud said to him, "Who knew running a nightclub was so much work? My poor darling."
While Oswald limped away from Gertrud and over towards the staircase that would lead him to Connor, Annabelle eyed his mother.
Although Gertrud annoyed her with all the constant doting and fawning over Oswald, she couldn't help but feel jealous of him.
Oswald had a mother that loved him unconditionally and meant no harm and wished for him to have the whole world.
Annabelle, on the other hand, had a mother that constantly berated her and harmed her with her magic, along with blaming her for everything wrong that occurred from the time she was six until she was sixteen and moved out of her childhood home with her then fiancé, Atticus.
She would give anything to start her life over and have a mother like Oswald did but unfortunately, she was unable to do such a thing and could only have horrible memories of her own mother.
Memories that had her view all mothers just as horrible and look at them with disdain and utmost loathing.
After being given another drink, she started to down her bottle of scotch, while she watched Gertrud dance by herself as Oswald said to Connor, "As I was saying, you and your crew are the best gun and knifemen in the city. Your hit on Councilman Klein, a thing of beauty. I-I'm a fan."
Connor replied, "Cheers. What do you want?"
Oswald told him, "For you to help me kill Don Maroni and all of his lieutenants."
Connor scoffed as he said, "You're having a laugh."
Oswald replied, "I'm fairly certain I'm not."
Connor asked him, "And Falcone's good with this?"
Oswald told him, "He will be when it's done."
In turn, Connor said to him, "Thank you. No thank you."
While Connor started to walk away from him, Oswald asked him, "So you like being number two? Falcone gives Victor Zsasz first dibs on every new contract. You bring him the bullet-riddled corpse of his enemy and all of that will change. This is your chance to move up."
Connor chuckled before he said, "You're a mad fellow, aren't you?" When Oswald only shrugged in response, Connor said, "Fair enough. Come by the bar tomorrow, we'll talk details."
Then Connor harshly patted Oswald on the back before he walked away from Oswald.
After hearing every single word that was said between the two of them, Annabelle looked over at Oswald and tilted her head, while she started to wonder if he truly meant what he told Connor, or if he was simply tricking him.
* * *
While Butch stared out at the table where Gertrud was sitting, Oswald said to him, "Well, Butch, Connor and his crew are onboard. They hate Maroni even more than I—"
After looking at Oswald, Butch said, "Shut up. Maroni and his crew are here. I couldn't turn them away."
Oswald replied, "Oh, of course. No matter—"
Butch told him, "No. She was already here."
Still sitting at the same table as Gertrud, Salvatore asked, "Is that my buddy Oswald? Come here."
While Annabelle slowly walked towards the table and eyed Salvatore, Gertrud smiled as she reached out a hand towards her son and said to him, "Oh, Oswald."
While waiting for Oswald to come out, Salvatore glanced over at Annabelle and said to her, "Take it easy there, Annabelle. I just want to have a little chat."
With a scoff, Annabelle replied, "A chat? Right. Well, tell me something, Maroni. Does this chat entail you threatening him once more, or trying to bribe him over with some food and a drink?"
Gertrud turned to look at Salvatore with wide eyes, only to stop when he told her, "She's just joking. Not to worry. Annabelle here has a rather dark sense of humor."
Gertrud quietly said 'oh', while Salvatore said with a chuckle, "There he is."
Oswald looked away from Salvatore and over at Gertrud, while he asked her, "Mother, what are you doing?"
Gertrud started to say to him, "I am having a drink with Mr—"
While he raised his right hand, Salvatore said, "Ah, ah, ah. I told you. Sal."
Annabelle scrunched her nose as she watched Salvatore stroke the side of Gertrud's face with a finger, while Gertrud said, "With Sal."
Oswald started to say to her, "But we shouldn't impose any longer—"
Salvatore replied, "Ah, ah, ah. You're not taking my Gertrud."
In turn, Gertrud said with a laugh, "Oh, his Gertrud."
While he gestured towards a chair, Salvatore said, "Sit. Join us."
Then Gertrud said to Oswald, "Oswald, sit."
Oswald glanced over at Annabelle, who did nothing but stare at Salvatore with narrowed eyes.
He only looked back at Salvatore when he said, "Sit, Oswald."
While Oswald sat down across from them, Annabelle looked between the three of them as she wondered what Salvatore was planning on doing and saying, now that he had Oswald's mother in his company.
The only conclusion she could come up with was that it wouldn't be anything good, which made her worry that he would choose to retaliate against Oswald by killing his mother.
* * *
While silently standing behind Oswald, Annabelle only crossed her arms over her chest as Gertrud told Salvatore, "Never, never would he play with other children. He knew even then he was too good for them. And now he is a respectable man of business, my Oswald."
Oswald plastered a smile on his face, while he said, "Well, this has been a delight. But it's late."
Just as Oswald was about to get his mother to leave with him, Salvatore said, "One thing, Gertrud, my love."
With a grin on her face, Gertrud said, "Oh?"
Salvatore told her, "A question that's been bothering me."
With a frown now on her face, Gertrud said, "Oh, no. Oh, no."
Salvatore asked her, "Is this an act?"
While Salvatore and Gertrud chuckled, Annabelle narrowed her eyes at Salvatore and took a step closer to him as she waited for the precise moment in which she could forcefully throw him out of the nightclub.
Then Salvatore asked Gertrud, "Are you pretending that he's just a nightclub owner? Or are you really that stupid?"
Oswald yelled 'stop' at the same time that Annabelle said, "That's enough, Maroni."
Salvatore ignored Annabelle and only stared at Gertrud, while Gertrud said, "I don't understand. I—"
Salvatore started to say to her, "Your son—" While Oswald yelled 'Don Maroni, I am warning you', Salvatore said, "Is a coldblooded psychopath."
Gertrud quickly shook her head, while she said, "No, no, no."
Salvatore told her, "I can't count how many men he's killed. My own friend, Frankie Carbone, he stabbed him a dozen times. What kind of person plunges a knife into someone over and over?"
Annabelle scoffed, while she said, "Like you're any better, Maroni. What, with how you tried to crush him inside of a car while he was still alive."
Salvatore turned to look at Annabelle, while he asked her, "And how, pray tell, would you know about that, Annabelle? Have you been watching me?"
Just as Annabelle was about to respond, Oswald yelled, "He's a filthy liar, Mother! He's just angry because I played him for a fool."
Salvatore placed his hands on both sides of Gertrud's face and turned her to face him, while he said, "You know, don't you? I can see it."
Oswald yelled, "Let go of her!"
While Oswald grabbed Salvatore's right arm, Salvatore asked Gertrud, "Did you catch him one night washing the blood from his hands?"
Gertrud only continued to groan and cry out, while Salvatore asked her, "When did you realize that you had given birth to a monster?"
It was then that Salvatore released her, which allowed Oswald to pull his mother towards himself and hold her in his arms.
Oswald told him, "You're going to pay for this."
While he stood from his seat, Salvatore said with a nod of his head, "Maybe. Or maybe this ends with me dumping your body in the river. Either way, you and Mama Gertrud can stop pretending." Then he dropped some money on the table before he looked around the nightclub and said, "The place is looking good."
Annabelle watched him with narrowed eyes, while she clenched her hands into fists.
It was only when Oswald had nodded his head at her after he buried his mother's face into his own chest and kept her from seeing what Annabelle would do next that she sped after Salvatore.
As soon as she reached him, she threw his men aside and slammed him up against the brick wall that was outside of the nightclub.
After she grabbed the front of his neck with a tight grip, she said to him, "That was way too far, Maroni. Even for you."
While he struggled to breathe, Salvatore asked her, "What are you gonna do, Annabelle? Are you going to kill me?"
While she tightened her grip some more on his neck, Annabelle replied, "I just might, if you choose to do that to Gertrud again."
Salvatore tried to scoff as he said to her, "Oh, don't tell me that you care about her, Annabelle. Since when do you care about her?"
Annabelle slowly looked down at the ground and started to wonder when she started to care about Gertrud before she quickly looked up at him when he let out a strangled laugh.
With her eyes narrowed once more, she said, "It doesn't matter when it happened, Maroni. All that matters is that if you do something like that again, I won't hesitate to tear you and all of your men apart until there is nothing more than ripped up body parts that I could scatter throughout the entire city."
Salvatore started to cough and regain the color in his face when Annabelle suddenly released him, which got him to bend over, while he tried to gasp for breath.
When he looked up to say something more to her, he suddenly stopped when he found that she was gone.
It was now evident to him that, despite the fact that she was known for caring about no one but herself ever since her arrival in Gotham, she did care about something that didn't say anything to her.
He couldn't help but wonder if there were others that she also happened to care about and if he could use them against her, if it meant that she didn't come after him anymore.
* * *
While looking through the window and watching as Gertrud shook and Oswald took a seat next to his mother, Annabelle sighed.
She hated that Salvatore had gotten to Gertrud, whose only fault was birthing the very man that had killed many people in order to move up in the underworld.
She was an innocent and despite how hypocritical this would make Annabelle out to be, she hated it when people chose to go out of their way and harm an innocent in some way just because they were angry at someone else.
It had made her so incredibly angry that she wanted to kill more people, but she had to check in on Oswald and his mother to make sure that Gertrud wasn't too shaken up from what Salvatore had done and said to her.
After sighing to herself, she watched as Oswald held up a cup to Gertrud, while she said to him, "Oswald."
Oswald asked her, "Feeling better? I made tea. I'm afraid you had, well, a little too much to drink. Mr. Maroni, he has a strange sense of humor—"
Gertrud told him, "Oswald, I am not some bumpkin from the country with hay in my brains." Oswald only shakily shook his head, while she said, "I am your mother, and I will love you no matter what. But lie to me now, and you will break my heart. Oswald, have you done things you should not?"
After Oswald opened his mouth and didn't say anything, Gertrud raised her eyebrows before he closed his mouth and said to her, "Mother, I'm a nightclub owner. That's all."
Gertrud let out a shaky breath, while she patted Oswald on the face before she kissed his hand and told him, "I'm tired now." Then she stood up and started to walk towards her room, while she said, "I am tired."
He tightly closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath.
He hated what Salvatore had done to his mother.
He hated that Salvatore had gotten to his mother to be so shaken up from what had occurred in the nightclub.
Just as he was about to think more on how he could potentially make Salvatore suffer what Salvatore did to his mother, he suddenly stopped when a knock on the door was heard, which got him to quickly open his eyes.
He stood up from his seat and limped over towards the door and opened it to see a man holding flowers, who said to him, "Yeah, I got a delivery for Gertrud from Sal."
Annabelle carefully opened the window of the home and sneaked inside of it, while she watched Oswald and kept an eye out for Gertrud as the man said, "Tip's not included."
Oswald quickly took the roses from the man, while he said, "You tell Sal it's over. The guns are bought. The killing room is waiting. He doesn't know it, but he's a dead man."
Then he threw the vase of roses and let it shatter on the floor without a care in the world before he slammed the door shut in the man's face.
Annabelle tilted her head, while she wondered just how far Salvatore was willing to take this before she raised her eyebrows when Oswald quickly opened the door to see the man, who was starting to turn his back on the door, and said to the man, "On second thought, I'll tell him myself."
Then he grabbed one of the broken shards and shoved it into the man's neck before he shoved the man onto the floor and landed on the man, which got the man to groan, while he fell.
He stood from his crouched position over the dead man and stared at him, only to stop when Gertrud asked him from her bedroom, "Oswald? Who was that?"
Oswald told her, "It's Mr. Yatsko from next door. He needs help taking out some trash."
Gertrud replied, "You, you— Please, you help him, then."
Oswald didn't respond and simply grabbed the man by the leg and started to drag his dead body through the hallway, while he left a trail of blood behind him.
Annabelle sighed, while she stared at the blood trail and broken glass before she started to walk back towards the window, only to stop when she heard approaching footsteps coming from behind her.
She heard a loud gasp before she quickly turned around to see Gertrud reaching for a nearby phone.
While withholding a sigh, Annabelle told her, "Mrs. Kapelput, please, I'm just a friend of Oswald's. I was there when Maroni was bothering you. I just came to check on the both of you, that's all."
Gertrud slowly let her hand fall back down to her side, while she asked, "You're a friend of Oswald's?"
Annabelle nodded her head as she said, "Yes, I am."
While she took a step forward, Gertrud asked, "So, as a friend of Oswald's, can you confirm that Mr. Maroni was lying? That Oswald hasn't done any of the things he said he did?"
Annabelle eyed Gertrud and saw what was left of her tears that had originally rolled down the sides of her face before she nodded her head and said, "Yes, Mrs. Kapelput. Oswald has done nothing that Maroni had claimed. He's a good man and you did a good job in raising him."
Gertrud shakily nodded her head, while she said, "O-Okay. Thank you."
Annabelle nodded her head once more before she said, "Just go on back to bed, Mrs. Kapelput. I'll be back in the morning to check on how you're doing. I give you my word."
Gertrud only nodded her head and slowly walked back towards her bedroom, which allowed Annabelle to slip out through the window.
While she did that and left the apartment building that Oswald and his mother lived in, she couldn't help but wonder how the woman had managed to grow on her when the two of them had hardly even spoken to each other.