Francesca Florentino

Diana Florentino †

* Mother

Leonard Romano

* Ex-husband (1980-1981)

Vincenzo "Vinny" Toscano

* Ex-fling

**Francesca Florentino** is a character role-played by jminamistar.

## Description

Francesca Florentino, commonly referred to as Fran or Franny, is a 30 year old woman from New York. After having lived off of her father's wealthy empire for her entire life, she is very much used to the finer things in life. However, after deciding to make a life for her own untouched by her father's influence, she has had to adjust to actually *working* for the things she wants.

Fran is very sociable, and can make friends fairly easily. She lives for all things popular culture, and will always be seen in nice clothes and perfect nails, even if she has to skip a meal or two to afford it. She can be assertive and bold at times, due to a long history of rarely hearing the word "no", but is rarely outright cold or dismissive of a person to their face. Instead, gossip and social warfare are her preferred methods for dealing with issues, should they ever arise.

## Background

### The Early Days

For all it afforded her, Francesca had always wanted nothing to do with the family business, Florentino Sanitation. Waste management, which was just another word for working in the shit that nobody wanted anymore, had no appeal to her whatsoever. Despite the affluence it gave her father to run his own company in the trade, Fran wanted no association with it. Often, as a child, she even lied to others as to what her father did for money. A CEO, a realtor, even a car salesman - anything other than what he actually did.

Of course, she had no issue benefitting from the money it brought in. Fran was an only child - an anomaly for an Italian family, but her mother died when she was a baby, and her father never got over her loss. Not like Fran complained at all - in fact, she liked not having to share things with a sibling. Though their townhouse in the West Village was far too big for the two of them, Fran never felt lonely growing up. Especially when all of her wants and needs were met with just a simple request to her father.

It wasn’t until she reached middle school that his business started to raise some questions for the young girl. For one, she didn’t understand why the head of a waste management company had to have so many private meetings with sharp-dressed men in their home. She also didn’t know how, realistically, they could have… *that* much money from organizing other people’s trash. The biggest hint that something was off was when her father returned home late one night - far past when Fran should’ve been asleep - with knuckles so bloodied and raw against his fair skin that she could see them from her hiding spot behind the staircase bannister.

The next day, she confronted him. At first, he denied her accusations, but when she revealed that she’d seen him come home the night before, he gave in. He didn’t go into the gruesome details, for her own safety, but informed her that the family business wasn’t all that it seemed. It had started years before she was even born; her father, young and trying to make a name and fortune for himself and his future wife, got involved with another family’s scheme. With trucks and men funded by them, they were able to enter the waste management business fairly easily. From then, it wasn’t long before each high ranking member was given a company of their own to run in different neighborhoods, all to offer the same, fixed prices across the board that undercut their competition. They rigged bids for contracts, and eventually ran out all the competition - either through their pricing or through more physical persuasions.

With an entire network of trucks capable of hauling heavy loads all across the city, this opened the doors for more illicit activities. Drugs, firearms, and other contraband could be transported without a bat of an eye. It wasn’t like the police had any reason to search a garbage truck, nor would they likely even *want* to.

He assured her that he had no expectations of her to have anything to do with the business - in either sense of the word. In fact, he had hoped to keep her in ignorant bliss for her entire life, in case anything did go south. Fran was, obviously, shocked to find out the true nature of her father’s career. It took her weeks to come to terms with the revelation, though when it finally came down to it, she accepted the reality of their situation. As with the waste management front - Fran was indifferent; as long as her lifestyle could remain unchanged, she couldn’t care less on how the money came in.

To keep with her father’s wishes, she kept her nose out of the company’s private affairs, which wasn’t hard to do. When he had meetings at the house, Fran went out with a generous allowance from him. When she would receive a pair of designer shoes, or a new piece of golden jewelry completely out of the blue, Fran would run to try it on without any questions asked. It was a system that worked for them.

### Teen Spirit

As she grew older, Fran realized that her lifestyle did come with a price, albeit a small one. When it came to friendships, and matters of the heart, it was clear to her that many people surrounded themselves around her because of the image she upheld. Designer clothes, gilded jewelry, and perfectly styled hair certainly exuded an air of wealth around her. She was so used to getting what she wanted that, when it came to relationships, the confessions from school boys and gifts they showered her with were simply boring. There was no fun in a boy’s offer to rent out an entire arcade for the night with his parent’s money when she could already do that without them. While she enjoyed going out with her friends most nights, the same old cycle of shopping, roller skating, and going to movies started to become a drag. She craved something *exciting*.

So, she ventured further and further downtown. To keep her father from finding out, she never used their family driver, and made all of her trips on foot - only exploring a new block or two a night before circling back to familiarity. One night, filled with overconfidence, she’d made the mistake of bringing a flask filled with some amaretto from her father’s liquor cabinet. Unsure of how much she’d need to drink before the alcohol started to kick in, Fran found herself stumbling in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the middle of the night. The street signs were unreadable in her blurred vision - not like she’d even be able to orient herself if she *could* comprehend them.

Leaning against a brick building, trying to steady herself against the spinning world, the sound of a motorcycle engine forced her heavy eyelids open. A man in dark attire called out to her, commenting how absolutely fucked she looked, and asking if she was okay despite his apparent amusement at the situation. Fran managed to slur out that she was drunk, and lost, and wanted to go home and sleep.

If she were sober, Fran likely wouldn’t have accepted his offer for a ride back to her place - but in her drunken stupor all she could think about was getting home as fast as possible in case the alcohol made her any worse. She gave him the street her house was on, climbed on the back of his bike, and wrapped her arms around his waist as they sped off down the city streets.

With the night air whipping past them, cooling her warm face, and the slope of the man’s back being just the right angle for her head to rest against, Fran fell in and out of consciousness the entire ride back. When she was nudged awake by the man’s shoulder, she slowly blinked the sleep from her eyes, and found herself on a familiar street. With his help, she got off the motorcycle, and spotted her house just a few doors down from where they stood.

That was the first night she ever met Vincenzo Toscano. When she woke up the next morning, despite being afflicted with her first ever hangover, she couldn’t stop thinking about the man on the bike. She only knew his name, and yet, she was intrigued by him. The motorcycle he rode, the clothes he wore, the bruises and scrapes on his face that she could notice even with her drunken vision - they all represented a life totally different from her own. And for the first time in a while, Fran was *excited*.

The next time they met, a few nights after her drunken foray, she tracked him down with the guise of repaying him for the ride. The more they talked, the more she realized Vinny was absolutely the opposite of other guys in her circle - and that only wanted her to see him *more*. Eventually, the two began an unlikely relationship, and their frequent rendezvous showed Fran much of the city she had never seen before.

And then, one day, he disappeared. She never heard from him again, and though she wanted to ask around to know what happened, she found that there weren’t many people she *could* ask. Just as spontaneously as he’d entered her life, Vinny was gone from it.

From then on, Fran rarely dated anyone for longer than a few months, and mostly moved from fling to fling. None of the men she was with ever were important enough to bring home to her father - and even if they were, she doubted he’d ever approve of any of them. Throughout her young adult years, the trend continued, until her father approached her one day with a proposition that changed her life forever.

### An Ill-Fated Proposal

He had found a man who was a manager at one of his plants, and intended for them to marry. Fran, confused at the sudden input into her romantic life, expressed as much to him. He doubled down on his decision, and informed her that he didn’t want her to end up unhappy and alone because he cared about her. Leo, he contended, was a good man with a stable position in his company - and with a promising shot at taking the company from him when he himself retired. Fran, enraged with the realization that he was essentially marrying off his only daughter to a man that could become his puppet through their relationship, refused to go along with it. When she was threatened with being cut off from the family funds entirely, she begrudgingly accepted her fate.

Leonard Romano, by all accounts, wasn’t an awful man. He was respectful, and considerate, despite their situation. While he did his best to dote on her, Fran felt nothing romantic towards him. She certainly *tried* to love him, but nothing worked. Furthermore, it was harder to separate her lavish lifestyle from her father’s business when she was married to a man directly tied to it. All in all, after a year of marriage, Fran knew she needed out.

It took time to think of the perfect plan, but eventually, she had everything figured out. She paid a person to rough her up enough to send her to the hospital - but not enough to leave any lasting scars or imperfections. When her father - who was her emergency contact - came to her aid first, she carefully delivered the story she’d crafted. Leonard had a temper, and she’d been concealing it for months, but this time was too much for her to hide. Her father, his eyes burning with a cold fury, squeezed her hand, and told her he’d take care of it.

The last time she ever saw Leonard was when he signed their divorce papers in her father’s home office. He appeared disheveled, with a wrinkled suit and tousled hair, and made a point to not look Fran in the eyes once. She never saw or heard from him again.

Fran never intended for much harm to come to Leo with her plan. She expected some retaliation from her father, as his only child, but she only used the cover to give a good enough excuse for a divorce for the two. She likes to think that he was simply sent out of state, but she never dared to ask her father for the specifics of his disappearance.

After that, it didn’t take much convincing from her part to get her father to agree to stay out of her personal life.

### A Change of Scenery

For the next few years, Fran spent her mid-late 20s doing anything and everything she wanted. A modeling stint here, a few months in Europe there - anything that piqued her interest, she did. Her father didn't mind, either - whether it was from the guilt he harbored or just a desire to keep his daughter happy, Fran didn't know.

With her 30th birthday fast approaching, and her father not getting any younger, a realization struck Fran. Here she was, nearing an age when most people had families and business of their own, still living in her father's house when she wasn't jetting off to a dream destination. What's more, if her father retired soon, she'd either have a serious cut to her access or be forced to take over the company to keep up her lifestyle - something she desperately wanted to avoid.

It was time for her to get serious. To make something of her own, to be successful without her father's money or influence, so that if the time came for her to inherit his business, she could sell it off to the highest bidder and continue to work on her own career.

Getting down to business, however, was a lot easier said than done. Her father, of course, supported the idea of Fran being an entrepreneur and focusing on more productive hobbies - but Fran knew that if she stayed in New York, it would be too easy to fall back on familiarity and convenience if things got rough. She needed to go out somewhere new, and different, and far.

So, she invested in a few stocks here and there, and pawned off some of her lesser used jewelry and accessories - which were all gifted to her for her birthday or Christmas, not bought using her father's money, to really make it feel like she was doing this all without his financial support. Eventually, she made enough to afford a few trips out to Los Santos to scout the city out.

Fran had visited Los Santos before. With all of its glamor, it would've been impossible for a girl like her not to. But, she'd only visited the wealthy, glitzy places. She'd only stayed in 5 star hotels and ate at the best restaurants. She had no clue what it would be like to live in that city, or even where to begin hunting for work. All she knew was it was as far away from New York as she could get in the country, and the weather was always gorgeous.

It was during her birthday trip that Fran found another persuading reason to make the move to Los Santos.

Winter in New York was too bitter and cold, so Fran decided to ring in the New Year somewhere sunny and warm. It didn't dawn on her that she barely knew anyone in the city, and therefore didn't know any of the best places to celebrate the countdown until the 31st itself. Most of the clubs and bars she stopped into were not her scene at all; but still, there was good music, decent people, and plenty of alcohol. What more could you ask for?

With less than five minutes until 1985, Fran was leaning against a bar with a drink in hand at some club she'd already forgotten the name of. It didn't matter what it was called, seeing as she definitely knew she wouldn't be coming back to it again. In fact, if it hadn't been so close to midnight already, she would've already been out the door in search of a new place to explore. But, she'd decided to at least stay till then, join the crowd in one dance, and then bounce.

When the DJ announced there was only a minute remaining, Fran finished the rest of her drink and made her way to the dance floor, where the crowd was a hectic mess of drunken dancing. She weaved her way through the bodies and eventually found a decent spot to stop at. Soon enough, the countdown began, and everyone around her started counting down from 10 in slurred and excited voices.

A particularly rowdy stranger to her right flung his arm up in the air when the collective countdown reached 5 that Fran sidestepped to her left to avoid getting hit, only to bump shoulders with the man next to her. She looked over at him to apologize, and was struck by how... well, attractive he was. The apology died on her tongue and was instead replaced with a smile and a greeting, to which he returned.

The crowd around them yelled out one in unison, and a loud chorus of "Happy New Year!" started. Without breaking their gaze, a knowing look crossed both of their faces, and they closed the remaining distance between themselves. When they finally pulled back for air, well after others who shared New Year kisses had resumed their dancing, it was to breathily figure out who's place they were going back to.

That was the first night she spent with Jordan Pierce.

During that trip alone, they spent a few more nights together, in fact - but that was the extent to their relationship. Whenever Fran was in town, over the course of the next few months, she could usually count on him making an appearance at her hotel room at least once or twice. It was casual, and it was fun, and it didn't need to be any more complicated than that.

She did learn more about Jordan in the limited amount of time they spent talking before they got preoccupied with other things. He was a police officer, and the fact that she was even with a man like him was outside of her usual preferences. Still, there was something… magnetic about him that she couldn’t get enough of.

Eventually, Fran figured out that the news was a great career option for her to start with. It was a job that paired well with her limited professional skills but plentiful knowledge on all things popular culture. Finally, Fran was ready to pack her bags for Los Santos for the last time and make the big move across the country. For perhaps the first time in her life, she was hopeful about the road before her.