And what exactly did that make him?
He waited for me to get into the car first while scanning my surroundings. I wondered if I made a break for Chicago how long it would take his guys to track me down and drag me back to Frankie. I was too far away, and too many of his men were surrounding us.
I ducked my head and slid across the seat. “But why do you have so many men working for you?” My cousin definitely had a lot of foot soldiers, but even he didn’t surround himself with so many willing to take a bullet at his expense.
Frankie paused for a moment, as if considering how to answer my question, which made me wonder if he’d be truthful. But his response was too ridiculous not to be an honest answer.
“I find I enjoy having more than this guy named Ridge. It’s a principal thing. I was here first. As the girls would say, he doesn’t get a monopoly on badassery.”
He used that name again. The same man he’d been talking to when we were in the hotel in Chicago. Was Ridge another one of his crime associates? Were they two evil monsters who occasionally worked together for the greater bad? Maybe copresidents of the weird name club.
I had so many questions, but I didn’t want to ask them and give Frankie the false idea I cared. Instead, I sat in my seat quietly and watched as the scenery flew by the car windows. It was one long stretch of road after another. The sides were surrounded by trees until we made a turn, and on the side of the road stood a huge wooden pelican. It sat atop a sign that said "Welcome to Pelican Bay.”
Just a little past that, we hit a long building that had to be a school of some sort, but I didn’t get a good look at the sign. Right after that was a downtown street littered with shops. A tall black building seemed out of place before the long row of small Main Street shops like you saw when watching a Christmas special on the Hallmark Channel. They were all two or three stories tops, and all the brick on the outside matched with each shop sporting a different colored awning. The store names etched across the windows were all different, and I stared as we drove past.
People walked the streets going about their day, completely unaware Frankie Zanetti kidnapped me. The town looked like its own version of Mayberry. They couldn’t comprehend a kidnapping. I’d bet nothing exciting happened here.
And as we made our way through the town at a slow pace with the lack of people chasing us or firing guns, I thought of more questions, all of them pertaining to Frankie. How did he live somewhere as sweet looking as the small town? Did his neighbors know what he was up to in his spare time?
A large beach acted as a buffer between the downtown area and the ocean. Wow, the ocean at their fingertips… toes. It was so different from Lake Michigan. I’d spent a couple of summers in Florida when Westley took a vacation or had other business in the area, but something was different about the beach in Pelican Bay. It was rocky and a little cold looking, not the warm retreat found in Florida or Mexico.
The car slowed at a big driveway, and at my right sat a large mansion. No other word could describe it. I’d been in big houses. My cousin lived in one, but this sat right on the beach. If the windows had been open, I’d be able to hear ocean waves pounding on the shore from inside.
“Before we leave the car, I’d like to make you an offer,” Frankie said, and I twisted my attention to him. “I’ll give you the full ten million from your cousin if you stay in my home and never try to escape.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked before I even processed the full reality of his offer. I didn’t really need ten million dollars. If I wanted something, my cousin gave it to me, but I also wanted to make my own way in the world one day.
“You don’t seem to be very involved in your cousin’s business, so you don’t know what’s going on, but this situation isn’t about you. You’re just a casualty of war.”
A casualty of war? Was my cousin fighting a war? One he never mentioned? A war that stretched all the way to Maine?
“You never told me about why you kidnapped me.” Why were two men kidnapping me off the street on the same night? Especially if I wasn’t involved. I had a clue on the first attempt—although I’d never admit it—but I didn’t know Frankie.
Frankie shrugged, as if talking about this was no big deal. “It wasn’t about you. My men heard about a plot to take you, and it seemed like an excellent opportunity to insert ourselves into the situation.”
“Kidnapping me was literally a crime of opportunity?” He had to be joking. Fucking criminals. None of them had any decency.
“More than likely, your original kidnappers had their own reasons for trying to make your cousin fall to their demands.” That they did.
His hand hovered on the door, but I wasn’t ready to get out of the car yet. “Don’t you guys care about your victims?” Did Frankie really not concern himself with how he ripped me from my life? Was I only a pawn in his stupid game?
He dropped his hand from the door handle as if he sensed my reluctance. “You don’t seem to have a problem with what your cousin does, but you curse me for it. We are the same beasts just in different operating zones. All crimes have victims, but people tell themselves they aren’t as bad as long as no one gets hurt. Or if the only people who get hurt are rich. There are no victimless crime. Someone somewhere always feels the punishment.”
I pondered his words and regretfully found them to be true. Frankie’s earlier words also rang true. I didn’t want my cousin dealing drugs or selling guns, but if he ran a false investment scheme and slowly took money off the top, I didn’t blink an eye. I thought it was genius.
“This still doesn’t help me with my paper deadline.” I didn’t have much more to argue about, but I didn’t plan to give in so easily. My life was important too.
Frankie shook his head and tapped the back of the passenger seat before opening the door and leading me out to the front steps of his home. “I promise if you stay here without problems or incident, I’ll take care of you. Since I wasn’t expecting a guest, I’ll have one of my men do a supply run.”
Frankie led me up the stairs and opened the front door to his home. I spun in a circle, getting a look, but it didn’t remind me of those mansions from Scarface.
Frankie’s home looked… normal. Like a home you’d find on the beach in the northern United States. He could take off his jacket, put on a pair of boat shoes, and look right at home with Martha Stewart.
A weird unsettling feeling wrapped around me at the same time his home gave off a calm alluring presence.
“Big Tommy is officially your new helper.” He pointed to the guard who’d stayed closest to him in Chicago.
“You mean prison guard?” I shot back at Frankie while still staring at his home and marveling at his open dining room with a long wooden table in the middle of it. Did he normally have twelve people over for dinner?
