And just like what had gotten me into trouble multiple times in my life, curiosity reared its ugly head, and I followed Frankie right out to the bathroom into the crowd of people scurrying by toward the front of the Navy Pier. “Are we going to the hotel?”
Would we just go back and hang out for a few hours until my cousin packed up the rest of the money? By now, I no longer thought Frankie might kill me or do something else horrible, but I had no clue about his next steps. Did he have a plan?
It didn’t seem like he had a plan.
“No,” he said, stopping at the outside of the building and scanning the cars as they drove past in front of us. “We’ll go see a few of my friends.”
I tried to jerk my hand away and make a run for it, but Frankie held strong. “Okay, no. I am no longer participating in this situation. You and my cousin can figure it out on your own time. I am not going to go see your friend because his name is probably Clamps or some other horrible nickname he got from the torture devices he uses to murder people,” I said the whole thing in one big long breath without pausing and then had to gulp in air at the end so I didn’t pass out.
Frankie tilted his head in my direction and stared at me as I panted, as if he considered me the crazy one in the situation. “You watch too many movies.”
I contemplated my best response when the black car we’d driven in stopped in the middle of the road blocking traffic. Frankie and both bodyguards flanking us walked in that direction, but I couldn’t get in the car. At some point, Frankie would stop being nice to me and start being the criminal, which had earned him a big enough reputation to easily walk away from millions of dollars.
If I got back into the car with him, I’d be as good as dead.
We were halfway to the waiting vehicle when six men ran at it from the other side of the street. I flinched, getting ready to make my break after seeing my cousin’s men here to rescue me. Except all at one time as if they were synchronized swimmers, they pulled guns, took aim at the car, and fired.
“Shit,” Frankie yelled and dove to the ground, taking me with him. He placed his body over top of mine and we did a weird version of the crab walk as he pulled me closer to the car and out of harm’s way. Two more bullets bounced off the sidewalk, hitting somewhere close enough that pieces of the concrete flung into my back.
“What’s going on?” I yelled like a dumbass because it was pretty clear with the bullets and everything. Those weren’t my cousin’s men. No way would he risk shooting at me.
Right as I almost told Frankie that it wasn’t my cousin—because for some weird reason, I wanted him to know it wasn’t Westley—the same big black van from the other night with my original attempted kidnappers roared to a stop behind the black town car. It didn’t stop in time and instead slammed into the bumper, pushing the black car forward, but not as much as I expected it to move.
Frankie made it to the back door of the car as his men returned fired at our assailants. People in the street screamed, and panicked crowds ran in opposite directions while Frankie’s bodyguards flooded out of the pier. I heard sirens in the distance, but in all the madness, the person next to me remained calm. Frankie got us to the door and held it open.
I jerked my hand again, wanting to get free, but he never let go. I just stared at Frankie, meeting his gaze with a hundred thousand questions as the melee carried on around us.
In a split-second Frankie seemed to read what I asked, and even as a bullet smacked into the concrete on the other side of the car, he grinned. “I’m your only way to safety, Shiloh.”
CHAPTER 7
I wish I could say I embraced the moment and jumped in the car, headed toward my future full blast, but that is not what happened. Not at all.
I stared at Frankie, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me and him. It was as if the entire world froze around us, and I didn’t care what was happening on the streets. At least until one of the van doors opened.
I might not have had any guarantees about what Frankie planned to do with me, but whatever awaited in that black van was by far worse. With no argument at all, I let Frankie push me into the car, and I never objected when he slammed the door and tapped the back of the seat.
Our vehicle peeled away from the curb, the tires squealing, and the motion threw me back against the seat as I scrambled to buckle my safety belt.
“Get us to the airport,” Frankie yelled to the driver as the car pulled into traffic and the bodyguard who hadn’t left his side fumbled with his seatbelt, taking three tries before he got it in the right location and clicked it in place.
It wasn’t until the snap of the metal belt that his words connected in my brain. “Wait. What?”
I jerked on the door handle trying to open the door, even though I still had on my seatbelt. It didn’t matter anyway because they locked the doors, even as I put my full weight against the piece of metal as we barreled through Chicago traffic. The driver honked the horn any time a car got in the way, forcing him to slow and swerve in and out of traffic.
Frankie reached over and stilled my hand. “It’s obvious the city is not a safe place for you.” His words were so calm, his voice not at all stressed. Frankie was the movie hero who lived through a high-speed chase down a busy city street and didn’t even blink or work up a sweat.
Beside him, my heart felt as if it was going to burst out of my chest, and I thought there was a high probability I’d have a heart attack.
“Me not safe? I’m not safe from you!” Everything had been fine in my life until Frankie showed up in the alley.
The car swerved and threw my body against Frankie’s. He placed his hand on my shoulder to steady me. “You’re safe with me.”
I righted myself in the seat and tugged my seatbelt tighter. “What’s this then?” Never once had I been in a high-speed chase until I met Frankie.
As if he read the accusations in my voice, he gave me one of those devilish smirks that I couldn’t decide if I loved or hated. “This is a proper kidnapping.”
A proper kidnapping? What the hell was that? Was there a bad guy handbook out there with a definition of what counted as a real kidnapping and what was a practice?
