by K. A. Ware
I heaved a sigh and turned to look at her. She was gorgeous, like always. And like always, she was also a pain in my ass.
“Come on, Frankie, be real. Do you honestly think that I planned to just sit on the sidelines and not try to get you back? I bought the house with you in mind. It’s in a good neighborhood and a good school district,” I said, momentarily forgetting her unsteady stance on starting a family.
She looked down at her computer and took a deep breath before looking back up at me. “I told you, I'm not sure if I want to have kids,” she said in a small voice.
I could tell I’d upset her, and I wanted to kick myself for not thinking. Placing a hand on her knee I squeezed, trying to give her some sort of reassurance.
“I know, babe. If we decide not to have kids, then that's fine; but if we do, the house has the room to accommodate a family. Besides, your place is too small for more than one person. You don't even have an office,” I said, hoping to get her mind off the track I’d put it on.
“Whatever,” she said rolling her eyes at me.
Crisis averted.
“Is that ‘whatever, I give in’?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she said immediately. “That’s ‘whatever I don’t want to talk about this right now, and we’ll figure it out later.’ So, any big plans for Carlo's bachelor party?” she asked changing the subject. The wedding was two days away and the guys and I were throwing Carlo a bachelor party at the hotel the next day.
“Not really. We’re going to have a couple card tables set up in the penthouse and play poker all night,” I said with a shrug. None of us had really done the bachelor party thing before and it was the best idea we’d come up with. Carlo wasn’t really close with anyone and even getting him to agree to a party almost took an act of God. Every one of us would take a bullet for the man, but just hanging out and shooting the shit? The whole situation was beyond bizarre.
“Yeah, right. You mean to tell me that there's not going to be a single stripper there?” she asked, her eyes accusing.
Is she fucking crazy?
“Are you kidding me? Mia would murder us if there was even a woman within fifty feet of that penthouse,” I said, shaking my head at the thought. Frankie may be Mia’s friend, but she didn’t have a clue how completely unhinged that woman could become.
“Okay, you have me there,” she said smirking.
* * *
Frankie gripped my hand as we watched Carlo and Mia exchange vows. I knew I should probably be watching what was happening in front of us, but I couldn't help but stare at her. She was gorgeous, and she was finally mine after all these years. It felt surreal, almost like it was too good to be true. The pessimist inside me was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
A round of applause broke my concentration and I looked forward towards the bride and groom who were smiling happily at each other. The twenty or so guests stood as they made their way back down the aisle. Neither Carlo nor Mia had much in the way of family so they’d decided to keep things, in Mia’s words ‘intimate.’ From the looks of things, I’d clearly misunderstood what she meant.
The backyard had been transformed. A huge tent was set up just beyond the pool, complete with propane heaters to combat any chill the early spring air brought. The tent housed a dance floor, tables and chairs for the dinner that would happen later, and a bar in the corner. Extravagant flower arrangements sat atop each table as well as on pillars set up around the perimeter. Strings of lights were hung inside the tent, and hundreds of candles were floating in the pool. I had to admit, she’d done an amazing job.
Everyone disbursed, and I guided Frankie to the tent where the reception area had been set up. The skin of her bare neck under my fingers brought on memories of the past few weeks. The elation I felt at being free to touch her whenever and however I wanted was incomparable.
Carlo and Mia were surrounded with guests offering congratulations and well wishes. Taking the opportunity for a clean getaway, I grabbed Frankie’s hand and hauled her toward the house.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to pry away from my grasp. She didn’t have a shot in hell. I pulled her into the hallway bathroom and slammed the door, twisting the lock. She stared at me with wide eyes as I stalked toward her. I couldn’t help it; Frankie brought out every primal instinct in me. I had to have her—now.
I easily lifted her and set her on the counter before diving in and kissing her like my life depended on it.
“What was that for?” she asked when I finally pulled back.
“I love you,” I said taking her head in my hands. I didn’t know why, but for some reason I needed her to really hear those words from me, needed to make her understand how much she meant to me. Her eyes grew soft and she smiled up at me, linking her hands around my neck. I leaned in for another kiss but she pulled away.
“Enzo, we're at a wedding,” she protested.
“I know,” I said, gripping her hips and pulling her closer so she could feel how much I wanted her.
“Jesus, you’re going to fuck up my makeup,” she muttered, wrapping her arms around my neck.
I smirked and pulled her off the counter placing her on her feet before spinning her around to face the mirror.
“There,” I said. “Now I can see all of you.”
I quickly bunched up the skirt of her long dress and unfastened my pants, eager to get inside her.
“No underwear again?” I asked, catching her eye in the mirror.
My cock was pulsing with need and the anticipation of getting to watch her face when I slid into her heat. She bit her lip and arched an eyebrow in response to my question. I kissed down her neck, running a hand over her shoulder, while I positioned myself behind her.
“Don't make a sound,” I warned before slamming into her. Her hips pitched forward but the counter prevented her from going far. Her mouth fell open and a look of pure ecstasy adorned her face. I roughly yanked the front of her dress down, releasing her breasts. I was momentarily hypnotized by the image of them bouncing in the mirror in time with my thrusts. Placing a hand around her neck, I pulled her towards me as I reared back and slammed back into her at a bruising pace.
The sound of our heavy breaths amplified as they echoed off the tile of the bathroom. She didn’t call out, she didn’t moan or scream, but her breath hitched telling me all I needed to know. I let the hand that had been encircling her neck slide down between her breasts before traveling lower to find her clit. Within minutes she was falling apart all around me.
“You’re pretty damn pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” she asked after she’d cleaned up and I’d shoved my still half-hard cock back in my pants. She was the only woman I’d been with that could make me hard immediately after I’d just come.
“What gave it away?” I asked, enveloping her in my arms and bending down for a quick kiss.
She glared at me.
“You better wipe that shit-eating grin off your face before we go back out; otherwise, everyone will know,” she warned before opening the door.
Stepping up behind her, I leaned in, brushing a tendril of hair off her neck. “So what?” I whispered before giving her a quick shove out the door. She stumbled into the hallway laughing, turning to flip me the bird before heading back to the party.
Try as I might, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I finally had the girl, and it was everything I thought it’d be.
25
Frankie
Present
I adjusted the bodice of my dress as I made my way towards the backyard, stopping in the hallway to check my lipstick in the mirror. A secretive smile played on my lips at the flush in my cheeks and my slightly messy hair.
At least the just-had-sex look is a good one.
Heading over to the bar at the far end of the tent, I grabbed a drink and tried to act like I hadn't just had wild bathroom sex. Considering the look Mia gave me across the dance floor, I wasn't fooling anybody.
After
dinner, everyone seemed to scatter. The alcohol was flowing and the dancing had commenced. As much as I enjoyed playing on the pole, I wasn’t much for humiliating myself in public. Antonio and the rest of the guys had dragged Enzo off with promises of Cuban cigars a few minutes ago, so when I spotted Mouse at one of the high-top tables, I made my way over and saddled up next to him.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, taking a sip of my gin and tonic.
“Good. Headed off to MIT next year,” he said with a goofy grin.
“I'm glad everything worked out for you,” I said sincerely. Mouse was good people. I may have acted like a bitch towards him at first, but to be fair, he was kind of encroaching on my territory.
“You too from the looks of it,” he said, taking a sip of his beer.
I gave him a curious look. “What do you mean?”
“Mia told me about what happened with the stalker,” he explained. “And I've seen the way Enzo’s been clocking you all day. I may be a techy, but I do have eyes.”
“That obvious, huh?” I winced.
“Yeah, kind of,” he laughed.
We chatted about operating system updates and the new innovations in programming being made in only the way two computer nerds could. The only thing that stopped us from launching into a debate over which of the twelve doctors was the best was Mia coming over to announce that they were about to cut the cake.
“Hell yes, I need to get a picture of you shoving cake in his face. Oh the blackmail possibilities are endless!” I exclaimed, reaching for my purse, but it wasn’t there. “Shit, I must’ve left it in the bathroom. I’ll be right back. Don’t start without me, okay?”
“All right,” Mia laughed, and waved me off.
I headed towards the back doors to the house only to find Pauline standing directly in my path, talking to Angelo.
Jesus, she’s a hugger.
I debated taking my chances with her tentacle arms but thought better of it. Instead, I opted to walk around the house and go in through the main entrance. I was almost to the front of the house when the voice of a ghost called out behind me.
“You just had to let him touch you, didn’t you?” it asked.
I spun around and froze, my heart stuttering in my chest.
It can’t be! He’s dead!
But he wasn’t. He was standing right here in front of me, alive and well, holding a gun pointed directly at my chest. My thoughts were spiraling with unanswered questions, until realization dawned on me. The flowers, the letters, the scratched out photo—he was the stalker.
“Wha—” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“Now’s not the time for a chat. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up later. Now, move,” he ordered, gesturing with the gun for me to continue towards the driveway.
“I thought you were dead,” I breathed.
“Yeah, everybody thought I was dead. All part of the plan. Now start walking,” he hissed in my ear, his hot breath on my skin made me want to vomit.
I took a few unsteady steps forward, my heels sinking slightly into the soft grass. When I didn’t move fast enough, he came behind me and dug the barrel of the gun painfully into my ribs. I tried to pick up my pace, my mind racing. I had nothing on me that I could use as a weapon, nothing to defend myself, no phone to call for help. No one even knew where I was.
I wanted to scream out, call for help—anything—but my voice was trapped in my throat. We made it down the long driveway to an old beat-up sedan, and the panic became paralyzing. I stopped dead in my tracks.
He spun me around to face him, shaking my shoulders. “I'm so disappointed in you, Frankie,” he snarled. “Whoring yourself out to him. I can't believe you did that to us.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Why?” I croaked out, finally finding my voice. He glared at me before opening the door to the backseat and forcing me toward it.
I felt his damp breath on the back of my neck before I heard his voice—full of disdain—utter the words that I’d feared above all else.
“Because you're mine.”
26
Enzo
Present
“So, how's Leo doing?” Antonio asked. We were standing just outside of the tent, where we had been banished by the bride because she didn’t want us stinking up the reception area with cigar smoke.
“Surprisingly well, since I put him with Michael. Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking about pulling him in on some other things,” he answered cryptically.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
He just gave me a pointed look. Typical Antonio, never one to give you the whole story. The man seemed to think that everything was on a need-to-know basis. It was just as well; his mind was not something I wanted insight into.
“Have you seen Frankie?” Mia asked, coming to stand next to us.
“No,” I said hesitantly. “I've been out here; I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“I can’t find her anywhere. She said she was going to get her phone so we could cut the cake but that was twenty minutes ago,” Mia said, worrying her lip.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I took two quick strides to the edge of the tent and my eyes quickly scanned the crowd, not finding her. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones.
Antonio must have sensed my uneasiness. “Angelo and I will search the house,” he offered, stomping out his cigar and taking off towards his brother. I nodded and turned toward the house.
“Get Carlo and Mouse and meet me in the control room,” I called to Mia over my shoulder as I ran around the pool to the backdoors.
My hands shook and my fingers fumbled the keys as I tried to unlock the control room. Even in the most stressful situations when my life was in imminent danger, I’d never felt as scared as I did in that moment.
When I was finally able to find the right key, I pushed the door open and flipped on the light and a bank of blue screens greeted me. Hurrying across the room, I sat at one of the stations and frantically typed in my access code.
Before I had a chance to even find the file that opened the security footage, Mouse was at my side, pushing me out of the way.
“I got it,” he said taking my seat.
Mia and Carlo stood back. She was watching Mouse work frantically, and he was watching her closely. A pang of jealousy stabbed at my chest at the sight of the two of them.
Where are you, Franny?
Mouse’s hands flew over the keyboard and suddenly the monitors came to life, each one showing a different vantage point of the grounds.
“How long did you say she's been gone?” Mouse asked.
“At least twenty minutes,” Mia said. Her voice held the slightest edge of panic.
“Okay, I’ll take the tapes back at thirty minutes and we’ll fast forward from there,” Mouse explained as he cued up the footage.
“No sign of her,” Angelo said as he and Antonio walked into the room taking their place behind me. We were all staring at the screens as Mouse started to fast forward the footage.
“The night vision lens makes it grainy as hell so it might take a few passes. Tell me if you see anything,” he instructed.
“There!” I shouted. “The far left screen.”
Mouse nodded, pulling up the footage I’d indicated on all four screens. He pressed play and I watched as a man with a gun led Frankie down the side of the house and out to the driveway. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled down so I couldn’t get a clear shot of his face. Frankie and the man stopped at a sedan parked at the far end of the driveway.
“Can you zoom in on that?” Mia asked, taking an involuntary step forward.
“Yeah, give me a second,” Mouse said, clicking away until we had a close-up of the two of them.
My jaw clenched painfully and a deathly rage settled over me as I watched the man on the screen grab Frankie’s shoulders and shake her violently. It looked like he was yelling at her.
The movement caused his hood to slide back but he was still turned away so I couldn't see who it was.
“Get that license plate,” Carlo ordered. He sounded livid, but I didn’t turn around; instead, my eyes were glued to the screen.
The man opened the door to the backseat of the car and crashed the butt of his gun into the side of Frankie’s head causing her to immediately fall limp. He shoved her into the back and slammed the door. When he turned around to get into the front seat, we finally got caught sight of his face. Mouse worked quickly enlarging the image.
No, this can't be possible!
But there he was. Illuminated on the screen was the man I used to call my brother taking the woman I loved away from me.
“Is that?” Mia asked.
“That’s Eddie. How? You saw him die,” I said, looking from Mouse to Mia, hoping one of them could somehow explain what was happening.
“Yeah, we all watched Kashnikov shoot him and then drag his body into the warehouse,” Mouse reiterated what I’d already known.
“Do you have any idea where he would take her?” Carlo asked.
“I have no idea. Everyone thinks he’s dead,” I said, shaking my head, still stunned.
“The car’s the dead-end,” Mouse called out. “It was reported stolen last night.”
“Fuck!” I shouted, pacing around the room. My mind was spinning with possibilities. I knew it was too good to be true.
“What about the members of his gang?” Angelo offered.
“No, they all think he's dead. I still don’t understand how he’s alive,” I muttered, running my hands over my head in frustration. “It doesn’t make any sense, why would he let us think he was dead?”
“He wanted Frankie for something,” Antonio said, his tone grave.
I felt the blood drain from my face as realization dawned on me. “The stalker. It fits. He knew things no one could know. The flowers. I sent Frankie the same kind of flowers every year for her birthday. I never sent them to her office, so there was no way her assistant would know,” I said out loud, piecing it together.