by K. A. Ware
“We’re almost there,” Antonio shouted.
“Get my gun. I’m wearing a shoulder harness, just reach into my jacket,” Enzo ordered.
I swallowed hard and did as he asked. My anxiety reached new heights as my fingers grazed the cool metal. I left the safety on and held the gun awkwardly in front of me as if it were a rabid animal.
“Franny, baby, listen to me,” Enzo called out, grabbing my attention. “I can’t take my hands off the wheel in case he hits us again. If he pulls up alongside us, I want you to shoot. Do you understand me?”
I nodded numbly.
“Franny?” he bit out again, eyes trained on the road, reminding me that he couldn’t see me.
“Y-yeah, I understand,” I stuttered.
“We’re close; we can see your lights up ahead,” Antonio announced.
“What the--?” Enzo exclaimed at the same time Antonio let out a string of curses. The headlights that had been behind us a second ago were gone, leaving us completely blind in the sudden darkness.
“Shit!” Enzo roared, slamming a palm against the steering wheel.
“Where the fuck did he go?” Antonio asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t see or hear him anymore. He might’ve pulled off somewhere,” Enzo replied, letting the car slow back down to a reasonable speed.
“You keep going, get Frankie home safe. We’ll check the side roads and turnoffs for him. I’ll call you if we find anything,” Antonio said before ending the call.
“Goddamnit!” Enzo shouted into the silence and I flinched.
I felt another panic attack coming on, so I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned all the way forward with my head between my knees, trying to catch my breath.
“Franny, baby. Shit,” he said, slowing the car even further.
“Don’t pull over!” I screamed, my heart nearly beating out of my chest.
“Okay, okay. Calm down, I’ll keep going. Jesus, give me that thing,” he said reaching over to pull the gun out of my hand. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding onto it until he pried it from my cramped fingers.
“Do you think they’ll find him?” I asked eventually.
Enzo’s jaw ticked, and he looked at me out of the corner of his eye as if he were deciding whether to tell me the truth or not. Finally, he let out a sigh and shook his head.
“No, and it was too dark to get a plate number. We might be able to have Mallory take some scrapings from where he hit us, but without anything to compare it to, it would be useless.”
We could have died. This morning my biggest fear was telling him about the baby; now it’s that I might not get the chance.
I took a deep breath and started to talk before I lost my nerve.
“There’s something I need to tell you and it’s probably the worst possible time and place to do it, but I have to get it out. I don’t know, for some reason telling you in the dark when I don’t have to look at your face makes it seem a little more bearable. I’m sorry I’m rambling,” I sniffed, trying to hold back the tears I knew would eventually come.
“What is it?” he asked when I didn’t continue.
“It’s about before, there’s something I didn’t tell you.”
“Just tell me, Frankie.”
“I was pregnant,” I said in a rush, but the words just hung in the air. I was too afraid to say anything else; I just waited for him to say something—anything.
“Pregnant?” he breathed.
“Yeah,” I whispered, not wanting to crack the tension between us by speaking any louder.
“What do you mean was? Did you…” he trailed off. I couldn’t look at his face; I just stared at his hands as they gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“I lost the baby,” I choked out before I succumbed to my silent tears.
Enzo pulled off the road to a turn around and shut off the car. Turning to me, he grabbed me from under my arms and hauled me over the console until I was curled up on his lap like I’d been earlier. I buried my face in his neck and told him everything as he held me close. I told him about finding out and not being able to reach him, the first doctor visit and the last. I explained about the pictures in the hat box under my bed and why I’d lost it when I found them destroyed. And I told him I was sorry over and over again for not telling him all these years.
“Hey,” he said, pulling me away from him and cupping my face in his hands. “Stop. I’m the one who should be apologizing. My heart is breaking right now knowing what you had to go through, and I wasn’t there because of my stupid fucking pride. You will never know how sorry I am for not being there when you needed me, baby. I can’t even imagine what that must’ve been like for you. I promise you this, no matter what, I will always be there if you need me.”
“You don’t hate me for not telling you?”
“Franny, I love you; I could never hate you.”
My breath caught and I gawked at him through blurry eyes. “You love me?” I asked, my voice small and barely above a whisper.
He laughed and wiped my tears with his thumbs. “Always have and always will.”
“I love you too.”
22
Enzo
Present
“Do you remember what my mom said to us when she gave us these rings?” I asked as we laid tangled in the sheets. It was after midnight, and we were both exhausted from the drama of the night, but neither of us seemed to want to close our eyes and let the night end.
“Hmm hmm, she said it didn’t matter why we were getting married; the point was that we were making a commitment to each other and that’s what our rings represented. I always loved that,” she said, watching me play with the ring on her finger. I’d refused to move the car from the pull out until she’d put it back where it belonged.
“I’ve always loved you,” I said, kissing the palm of her hand.
She curled her body more fully around mine and rested her head on my chest and I breathed in her scent—it was a perfect moment. For just a minute there was nothing else but us—no crazy stalker, no jagged past, just us.
“You know, you never told me how you started working for Carlo,” she said suddenly, lifting her head to look at me.
“A guy I worked with overseas had a side gig that he needed help with when we were between duty. He had been hired to provide private security for an arms dealer that was meeting potential clients.”
“And you just went?” she asked.
“There’s a lot that you still don’t know about my past; but you’re right, for the most part. When I shipped off to basic training I was a different person,” I said, understanding her curiosity. I’d always been one to follow the rules. When we were kids, Eddie was always the one getting in trouble. I was the one telling everyone what to do and Frankie was just there to watch the show.
“Look, I’m not judging, obviously. We both work for Carlo and his soon-to-be wife is pretty much my only friend, but weren’t you a little worried about working for a criminal? It’s a weird question to ask after everything. Like with Mia, it makes sense, she was born into it, but we weren’t raised in that world.”
“True, but you still jumped in with both feet.”
She laughed. “Yeah, because you were already in the water. I knew that if you were working with him, it couldn’t be all that bad, but that still doesn’t explain why you went for it.”
I sighed. It was hard to explain a time in my life that I didn’t like talking about, but this was Frankie, and she deserved to know. “I got really good at compartmentalizing, I guess. I’ve been a part of things that I’ll never talk about—things that will be buried with me when I die. When I took the private security job after I got out of the military, I thought it would just be more of the same. I was going in blind; I had no clue what I’d be asked to do.” I scoffed and shook my head trying to erase the memories that the conversation had brought on. “Asked is the wrong word, more like ordered. That way I can pretend I didn’t have a choice.”
“If you had some moral conflict, then why would you go work for a guy like Carlo?”
I was quiet for a long time, trying to find the words. The things I’d witnessed; the things I’d done. How was I supposed to explain that meeting Carlo and punishing people that deserved it was like paying penance for the things I’d done before?
“I told you before that I’d changed, but I think it’s more than you realize. I was idealistic when I was a kid—everything was black and white, right and wrong. When I joined up and got shipped off on my first tour, it was still that way to an extent. Instead of right and wrong, it was the difference between following orders and disobedience. I trusted my commanding officer to make the moral decisions for me; we all did.”
“Okay,” she prompted when I didn’t elaborate.
“There were things that didn’t sit well with me, but I rationalized and finally came to the conclusion that sometimes you just have to deal with the casualties of war. Being in an active combat zone is like being in another world. The rules are different, even when you’re dealing with regular citizens. To them, we weren’t always the good guys. After a while you become numb to it. If you didn’t turn off that part of your brain, you were dead.”
What I didn’t tell her was that the enemy could’ve been anyone, even a little kid. Nothing could prepare you for a situation where you had to look an eight-year-old in the eye and decide which of you was going to die. I wanted to be honest with her, but there were some things that I could never say out loud. Those secrets would die with me.
“But you still went to the contract security side. If you thought it was going to be the same, why’d you go?”
“When I came home after being released, I felt empty, worthless. I didn’t have any real skills; I’d never had more than a cashier job before I joined the military. It’s not like the Marines specialize in accounting. I couldn’t work a spreadsheet, but I could assemble a rifle in less than a minute.”
And you were going off to college, there wasn’t any incentive to stay.
“There are plenty of resources for veterans; that couldn’t have been the only reason.”
“No, it wasn’t. I guess it was just one of the excuses I made for myself. You have to understand something, aside from everything else, being in active combat is a rush like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. Right before we’d raid a place or if we were in a convoy through an active area, you’d get this burst of adrenaline, and it was addictive. For some reason, when I met Carlo, I knew that working for him would be different. He may be a criminal, but he’s a man of integrity—something that’s hard to find in anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Carlo has his own code that he lives by and at the heart of it is loyalty. He’s never asked me to do something that I didn’t feel was completely justified.”
“I understand, but you still haven’t explained how you started working for Carlo.”
“Right. Remember the arms dealer I told you about?”
She nodded.
“Carlo was one of the potential buyers. I’d never met him before, but I was given a brief write up on everyone that was going to be at the dinner, so I at least had a name to put with the face.”
“Dinner?”
“This is organized crime we’re talking about; they’re sophisticated. It’s dinner parties and private jets, not all seedy motels and back alleys. Could you imagine Carlo going somewhere that didn’t require a suit and tie?”
She stifled a laugh. “I guess not.”
“Exactly. So this guy had seven potential buyers for an array of different weapons, according to what some of the other guys said. It’s not like this guy was spilling all his secrets to the hired help. We were given enough information about each person that would be at the party to do our jobs and no more. Even now I couldn’t tell you how it all went down; it happened so fast. One minute I was standing there guarding one of the entrances to the ballroom and the next it was raining lead. Carlo was the closest person to me so I just grabbed him and took him to the floor.”
“Are you serious?” she asked, sitting up further to look at me more closely.
“Yeah, it was crazy. Once the shooter had been neutralized, we stood up. Carlo stared at me for a solid minute, not saying a word. Finally, he pulled out a card and gave it to me. He told me if I ever needed a favor to give him a call. He said he’d never forget, and he’d do anything he could to repay the debt.”
“But how’d you start working for him?”
“His card had a Seattle address on it. It was like a beacon home—to you. So after my contract was up, I called him up and asked him for a job.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Except, when I got home, you were barely speaking to me, and Eddie wouldn’t even look at me.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you everything right away, but at that point my grief had morphed into resentment and I wanted to be as far from you as possible. Even though my heart didn’t really agree. After everything—missing you, being terrified each day that we’d get the call saying you were killed while you were overseas, the lust, the anger, the resentment, the grief and the pain, through it all no matter how much I thought I hated you—I still couldn’t deny that I loved you,” she said, with tears in her eyes.
“No matter what you will always be my number one. There will never be anyone more important than you for me.”
“I don’t know if I can have kids,” she blurted out catching me off guard.
“What?”
“I don’t know if I can do it. Have kids I mean,” she whispered, shutting her eyes tight.
“Like physically?”
“No, no everything’s fine. It’s just… I don’t know if I could make it through that again. Enzo, I was still in such a dark place when you came to me asking for me to help with that trace; I don’t know if you ever realized that.”
“I did. I didn’t know why, but I knew that there was something really wrong and part of me knew that it had something to do with me. That’s why I suggested Carlo bring you on full-time; I wanted to keep you close.”
“And he just hired me on your word?”
“No, I used my favor,” I said, smiling down at her.
“I thought you used that to get yourself a job?”
“Nope. When I asked him if he had a job for me, he said that it was a favor to him. He told me if I hadn’t called him by the end of the month, he was going to come track me down himself and offer me a job. Loyalty is Carlo’s most coveted virtue; you know that.”
“Wow, I had no idea.”
“Angelo was in Chicago with Mia at the time, and we could’ve had him do the trace from there, but I wanted an excuse to talk to you so I told Carlo I had someone that could do it instead. He’d already done a full background check, so he knew who you were, but he never mentioned it. After that one job, he thought it would be a good idea to have someone with your talent on the payroll, so he called me into his office and asked if it was okay to extend the offer.”
“He had to ask my husband if it was okay to offer me a job?” she bristled.
“It wasn’t like that. He knew how important you were to me, and he wanted to make sure I was okay with you being brought into the fold on a more permanent basis.”
“What did you say?”
I laughed. “I told him you could make that decision for yourself.”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“I did! I knew you’d do your research and make the right decision for you. It didn’t hurt that it meant I’d be able to keep an eye on you.”
I’d been desperate for a way to get close to her again, even if it was in a professional capacity. Just being near her soothed the void inside me, calmed the demons and gave me hope. We spent the rest of the night telling each other about the things we missed when we were apart. We talked for hours until finally, as the sun was peeking through the curtains, she fell asleep, her head still resting o
n my chest.
23
Frankie
Present
“I’m going to go crazy if I don’t get out of this fucking house soon,” I grumbled while I paced in front of Enzo as he threw jabs at the punching bag in the basement.
“You could work out; burn some of that pent up energy,” he offered between combinations.
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Yeah, not my kind of working out.”
“There’s another way we could work out,” he said suggestively.
“My vagina needs a break, buddy; I think you broke her,” I said rolling my eyes.
He stopped throwing punches and grinned at me. “Want me to kiss it better?”
“Jesus Christ, did you think that would actually work?” I asked in disgust, just as my phone started playing The Imperial March.
“Hey, Ma,” I greeted, earning me a raised eyebrow from Enzo. I just shrugged.
“Did you see the paper?” she asked immediately, not bothering with pleasantries, just launching into a conversation as if we’d been talking for an hour already.
“Not yet,” I said, totally confused.
“They found another body—a young girl same as the others,” she said and my stomach rolled. I knew, of course, but I suddenly felt bad for not letting my mom in on what was going on.
“That’s terrible,” I said numbly.
“I'm just worried,” she continued. “You're staying safe, aren't you?”
“Of course, Mom.”
“Locking your door? Are you using that stick I got you? The man at the store said it could withstand everything short of a battering ram,” she rambled.
“Yes, Mom.”
“Oh good. Anyways I was calling because Marcella invited us over for Rosa’s birthday dinner this weekend. She hasn’t been up for visitors since Eddie… Well, you know. Marcella thought it might cheer her up to have everyone over for dinner.”