Frankie
I place a hand on it, claiming it, just not ready to open it. Not yet.
I clear my throat again. Ever since I saw the folder, it’s been hard to swallow. My throat feels like a pinhole. The envelope feels weighted, heavy in my hands. Filled with horrors that I’ll never be able to unsee. Things that will be branded on my soul. I will never forget. Her pain will live and breathe inside of me.
Whatever I see here, I need to remember it’s over. No matter how bad it looks, it’s already happened.
I catch the guy’s eye who’s refilling our glasses. “Double shot.” He nods and tilts the bottle of whiskey, filling my glass to the rim.
I caress the envelope in my hands. “It’s over, she’s safe now.” I mutter the toast, before knocking back the shot and opening it.
It’s Blue. As I envisioned her. Which makes it worse. All of my unspoken fears, come to life. Tied to a bed. Left like a mongrel dog no one cares about. Her eyes heavy with the secret relief of hope that she’s finally died and gone to heaven. Not able to believe that any rescue party would go out of their way for her. It’s all there, in her depraved eyes.
Gretchen watches, and I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to raise the edge. Protect Blue. Shield her unhinged private moment from casual glances.
She looks away.
Tony stands and takes her hand. She’s stiff, but lets him. “I’m sorry, we’ll give you a minute,” he says, helping her up. I watch them. The minute they’re away, she pulls her hand back like she’s touched a hot stove. The space between them unbridgeable. That action alone speaks volumes to me. I never want Blue to pull away from me like that. Tony didn’t keep her safe. I will never let that be Blue and I.
I crack my neck and try to steel myself.
But there’s no shield thick enough to protect my heart.
I suck in a breath. Breathing like a dragon, the only emotion I’ll allow, here. With these strangers.
There are three 8x10’s. Blue spread-eagled, tied to a bed. My fury rages as I realize someone crept in and took this picture of her while she slept. Invaded her privacy all in the name of evidence.
“Fuckers,” I mutter and look at them, in the kitchen. The men stand in a loose circle watching her. Gretchen stands away, staring off into nothing. I yell at one of the guys. “Hey, let my dog in, dude. It’s fucking cold out there.”
Then when there’s nowhere else to turn, I look back at the picture. Evidence of the sheer torture and abuse she lived through. She’s bruised, red gashes encircle her wrists above and below the heavy, leather straps. I don’t look away. I take it all fucking in. Every cut, every sore spot, I don’t miss a thing. She’s lying in filth. So pale.
He’s used restraints meant for the most violent psychotic patients and he locked them tight. They’re cutting deep into her flesh as, even in sleep, she’s unable to relax. Her arms are fully extended. There’s no give on those restraints. Her shiny hair snarled and matted to her head.
There’s dried blood on her arms. Between her legs. What kind of sick fuck? Some dogs need to be put down for public safety.
I tell myself. It’s a body, just a body. That’s all. She’s still the same. Just a body. She’s alive.
The next one is even worse but I don’t look away.
She’s staring into the camera, eyes crazed, and her face is frozen in a mask of horror, like she’s seen a ghost…or the Grim Reaper. My eyes move, back and forth, there is…darkness, madness there. I don’t even recognize her.
There’s no trace of the girl who giggled on the Ferris wheel, danced with me in the middle of a carnival. No hope in those eyes. Someone went to a lot of trouble to extinguish it.
I pray that it still smolders there, beneath the damage he’s done to her. I will fan those flames for her.
I don’t know if I can do it. See this insurance and keep from murdering that fucking donut-muncher. Hatred distorts my features. My hands ache with the need to break; I can’t stop my leg from shaking. Gretchen senses the overwhelming tension and comes over to me.
“Gretchen, can I keep these?” She nods, puzzled, and watches as I pull out a lighter. I light the corner of the envelope, holding it till my skin heats, and drop the flaming pictures into the massive stone fireplace. As I watch them burn, I say to Gretchen, “No one sees these.”
Her bodyguards run over like I lit her hair on fire or something.
I raise my hand. “I was raised better than that. I’m a biker, not a beast.”
Her eyes never leave Tony as she says. “I was violated. While he was out, protecting Senior, doing the boss’s bidding, I was left exposed in a world full of dark people. The worst one of the bunch. Raised better than that.
“His brother. The boss thought because I was big that he could be as rough as he wanted with me. He’d say, “Look it this, boys. She can take a punch like a man.”
Her hands shake and her color pales at the brutal memory, but her voice is clear as she instructs me.
“Tomorrow. Mail stop, 11:00 am. He’ll be in the black Suburban. I need to make this clear so you understand. Don’t kill him. We need him alive.”
She downs the drink and searches for something in the bottom of the empty glass, “That does not mean that he walks away unscathed.”
I want away from these people. I want to see Blue. I need to know that she’s safe.
“When Tony killed his brother, Everyone, including my mother-in-law, who’d been wishing for grandbabies a week prior, wanted me dead and thought Tony should be the one to put me out of my misery. I’d gotten a boss killed…it should be a boss to punch my ticket.
“Tony would sleep in the hall to make sure I was safe. Both of us knew it was just a matter of time before I’d be found, floating face down in the bath. Maybe, locked in my trunk on the bottom of some lake. Poisoned.
“When Tony found pure acid in my shampoo bottle.” She motions, with her palm up and touches the underside of her arm. “They’re the burns you were looking at on his hands. His neck. He used a dime-sized amount.” She flips her hair. “Imagine what it would have done to me.”
Inwardly, I cringe. What if it had gotten into her eyes?
“Something had to be done. Kill two birds with one stone.
“So Tony did the only thing he knew how to do. He asked for a Favor. From Senior. Thinking I’d be there a few months and things would blow over with the family. A safe house.” She rolls her eyes.
“Really, Tony secretly hoped I’d get over my aversion to him with distance. I ended up in crazy town, on a one-way trip. He had the cameras installed so he could watch me at all times. Like a ballerina in a child’s jewelry box, I danced for him. Swam for him. And lived my life without him. I started the Chubby House as a giant fuck you to him. A kind of ‘look what you can’t have.’” She sips her drink.
“Just so you know what’s at stake for me. This is the first time I’ve seen him this much in years. For Blue. If you kill Javi, his psychotic mother gets everything. I’m out on the streets with a price tag on my head.” She waves a hand at herself, feeling the whiskey. I motion to Gus, hold up a two, and mouth “Water.”
With the slur, I have to really listen. Her accent has gotten ridiculously Southern. “Now, if it was up to me, Sugar, I’d say kill the bastard. I’m sick of him, this life. I deserve a bullet to the back of the head for the things I’ve done.” She shakes her head. “But Tony will never allow that. Javi needs to be breathing when they put him away, that’s Tony and Blue’s condition. Can you control yourself?”
“Without a doubt.”
She lowers her voice. “Blue’s in the big house. Would you mind watching over her? It’s time for me to go.”
She squeezes my hand. “Give her what she needs. A taste of revenge, then heal her. Bring her back.” She looks me in the eye, her eyes look sober as a judge. “You said you loved her…prove it.”. Love her. That’s all she needs”
She waves, and one of the men looks uncertainly
at Tony. In a did you wanna get this one?
He gives a brief shake of his head and grips the kitchen island. It looks like he wants nothing more than to assist her to the car. A war plays out as he watches another man’s arm encircle his wife’s waist and lead her out the door, away. She never looks back, misses the anguish written all over his features, making him old before his time.
Once she’s out of sight, he drops to his elbows and runs a hand through hair that glistens with gray. To me, he says, “Frankie, if you’re smart, you will never let one man come between you and happiness. I think back to what I did, killed my twin for her. And I wish every day, I could have been a better man and done something different. Been different. Could’ve controlled my rage. Maybe I’d have my beautiful wife at my side now instead of encased behind glass. Where I can only peek through Favors. Never touching. We wanted kids, you know that? Of course you don’t. But my own brother made sure that would never happen.
“Believe me, she will never look at you the same way again, if you go too far with him. In the back of her mind, she’ll always remember that you’re capable of losing control. And if you did it before, there’s a chance you might do it again.”
We’ve all got our poor me stories, I just witnessed theirs.
We switch houses. All Tony’s guys get the guesthouse.
I get the big house and Blue.
……
I knock twice. “They’re all gone. But I’m here.” No answer.
I sit leaning against the closed door to her room in the darkened hallway. Jabba, my shepherd has her head and paws on my outstretched leg. I pull my hat over my eyes and wait. Eleven a.m. can’t come soon enough.
A quiet voice gets my heart beating. “Who’s there?” she calls. I hear the terror in her voice.
“It’s me, Darling. Frankie. I’m here.” I stroke the wood that separates us.
As if in a dream, she murmurs “Frankie.” And falls back to sleep.
The way she says my name. My carnival girls still in there.
Gretchen
“Gus, home please.”
He nods, and I lean back and take in deep lungsful of the mountain air, but it doesn’t help. I start to cry.
Tony looked so lost when I left. I want to run to him and hold him to me. I want to. But I can’t. He wears the face of my nightmares.
Just as Javi now wears the face of Blue’s.
I didn’t tell Frankie everything. I held back a little.
Just the part about the business I built from nothing. The only thing that mattered in my life until I met Sasha. I’m not about to give that up. Not to be a mobster’s wife. The thought disgusts me.
In the Chubby House, I make the rules. I’m the boss. I can’t get hurt. Not if they can’t get to me. And they can’t. The one thing I accept from my husband is top notch security. Men that are willing to die for me. Sure, I’m locked in a well-furnished cell. Even now, this meeting out here, away from the house, I’m too exposed.
She could find me. Dona, my mother in law. Who believes all of her family problems stem from me, and not the fact that she raised one perverted son, who caused his own death. At the hands of her other, murdering son.
I could be killed.
I’m at risk every time I leave the house. Tony didn’t want to do this for Blue. I only let him come so he wouldn’t try to stop this. I knew seeing me after all of this time would be too great a temptation for him to put a halt to my plans.
Sasha can’t know about this. About any of it. She doesn’t know enough to matter to Tony, and she’s leaving anyway. My stomach flips over at the thought of losing her. No, nothing happens to Sasha. I want her out of the way of all of this…nastiness. She was a temporary diversion, a chance for me to feel normal. That’s over now. I don’t want to add a target to her back too. Before I change my mind, I delete Sasha from my cell phone…and my life.
Gus does a quick check before giving me the all-clear. Another of Tony’s conditions. Gus, my ‘gardener’ always there to hear me shout. Tony knew the family he was fostering me out too or thought he did when he left me suitcase in hand, at the doors of Javi’s lair. But he didn’t know everything. The tiny detail? One little piggy was in the basement being fattened up to go to market, that he learned from me.
But there are no restraints on her now.
Yet she sits on her humongous ass down there and rings the little silver bell and eats everything that’s put in front of her.
I’m feeling generous and have one of my Gretchen moments. When all the ‘wet work’ is done, I’m shipping her out. To some rehab. Maybe she can get help and live a normal life.
No! She might get better, decide she wants her house back…and me out of it—maybe wants me, somewhere like prison. After all, I’ve known all along, arranged all the care and feeding of that lame horse.
I’ll buy a house and move the chef and her nurses there. Soon, she’ll have her own well-furnished prison all to herself.
I don’t think of these errant thoughts as selfish. No, I think of them as survival.
I was sixteen when Tony promised to love and protect me. I lived under the same roof as my rapist, his brother, who had full access to me, made me perform for friends, as if degrading me would somehow wound his twin. Why Adrien hated Tony enough to defile me, I’ll never know.
Tony couldn’t protect me then. There’s no way I’m leaving the security of the house now. Constant supervision is what I need. I can see into every corner, every crack, every conversation. I need it now. It’s a security blanket I’m not willing to give up.
Not to Maria. I will do whatever it takes to keep myself safe. Even if means Javi— I cringe at the thought. Javi. I pushed him too far.
I spoiled him. Gave him everything he asked for. Like cake to a diabetic. Force-feeding his fantasies to him in my Lady Book. Baiting him, encouraging him.
I bided my time. Waited. For Blue. Beautiful, not jaded like us. Innocent, no blood on her hands. Walking in like a proud warrior, into a den of delusion. I hadn’t counted on her falling for him.
Sasha
When I wake, it’s with up in the morning, I have new resolve. I’m going to the cabin. Riley ran Gretchen’s phone GPS last night. I asked and he did it. “Frankie’s there, too,” he says as I get my jacket and gloves. I’m his backseat bitch now. “Let’s roll,” I say.
Frankie
A scream shatters my dream. I’d been teaching her to snorkel when a huge shadow sped towards us. Flying, just under the water’s surface, right at her. I reached for her, trying to protect her and then a scream, like he’d got her. I shake myself awake…and a bloodcurdling scream jolts me the rest of the way.
I don’t even think about it, just run into her nightmare.
Blue
“No, Javi! Please, I’m full! Please, not the flan again, no!”
I flinch and try to fight as strong arms lift me into a warm embrace.
My body instantly relaxes, the nightmare forgotten.
“Ahh. That’s what I needed, thank you seal.”
Frankie
She looks up with sorrowful eyes, brimming with tears. “Don’t let go,” she whispers.
“Never.” My voice is rough as I repeat it as many times as she needs to hear it. “Never.”
Even as she sleeps in my arms, her hands clench my biceps, fingers digging in.
I’m careful not to wake her as I switch positions to lean on the headboard, one boot on the floor. I don’t want her to wake up, scared that I’m in her bed with her, so a foot on the floor it is cause I’m not leaving.
My dog curls up on the floor, on her side. Jabba’s seen her share of hard times. Life had been all about kicks and cigarette burns till she was so fed up; she’d bite anyone who came near her.
Kinda like Blue, in that respect. But I won’t let anyone hurt either of them, ever again. Blue will be loved, cared for, mine.
As I hug her tighter to my chest, I make a promise. “Yours, forever.”
……
I wake in an empty bed to a room filled with sunshine and happiness. Blue’s laughing!
I lay still and just listen. Jabba whines. It’s playful. I peer over the edge of the bed moving silently, not even breathing. Blue’s lying on her back, her face squinched but happy. Jabba licks every single inch of her face.
My heart smiles at the sight. Jabba jumps off, but in the air and whines. Then lays on her back, her feet kicking the air. My turn!
Blue giggles and gets to her knees. She’s stiff but doesn’t seem to notice, as she scratches the hell out of Jabba’s fat belly.
Jabba kicks her back legs like a puppy, rubbing the back of her head against the carpet.
“You eat my face and still expect a belly rub?” My sails fill as she giggles and has a moment of joy.
“I know you’re awake up there, Frankie. Come down here with us. Jabba wants some love.”
I grin and go to her. “It’s not stalking, when I’m invited.
Blue
He’s skittish, doesn’t know what to do or say, how to act with me. I don’t blame him. I don’t know how to act around me either. “Coffee?” I ask as I start to get up. Everything’s sore. No pain, just stiffness.
He’s there to help. Jabba barks and bares her teeth at him when he touches my arm.
Frankie
I look down at my faithful servant growling at me. “What’s going on with Jabba, Blue? She looks like she’s gonna take my arm off.”
Blue looks down at my hand on her arm.
Then she puts up a hand and my dog sits.
Black and Blue (Chubby Chasers, Inc. Series Book 3) Page 17