“How do you afford it?” His house said he didn’t hurt for cash.
“As I said, business is good. Accidents are rare, and I take care of my team.”
“Your team? You’re good at marketing. I’ll give you that.”
“We are a team. It helps form the family unit. The mob has always been based around family. Fear doesn’t last. If you want to keep your men, they need to feel like a family. Vacation time and 401(k) matching help much more than a pair of cement shoes.”
“And,” I said, the truth of his words finally settling, “there’s less jail time for murder.”
Frankie didn’t scowl or condemn me like I expected. He only threw his head back and laughed loudly. “Yes, it is good to know I won’t be spending any time in the clink for murder.”
Wow—a crime leader who wasn’t just a crazed killer sitting in his mansion and giving orders to everyone else. I knew they existed because I believed the best about my cousin, but I didn’t know there were other decent mobsters out there.
A weirdly familiar silence stretched between us, but I didn’t have a gnawing need to fill it with chatter. Frankie’s silence implied he felt the same.
“I don’t understand you,” I finally said when I tried hard to wrap my head around all the things he told me but still couldn’t place them in the right puzzle.
Frankie didn’t take offense to that either as he merely nodded. “Few do, but make no mistake. I may be a businessman at heart, but I will do what’s necessary to keep my operation and family safe.” His words were much more than what I expected from a person in his position and they sent shivers skating across my arms.
Ten hours later, after Frankie led me to a bedroom on the second floor of his home with a strict reminder about the many cameras and the number of associates guarding the exits, he left me with a firm reminder of the ten million at stake if I agreed not to try an escape.
I probably should have tried to get away, but rather than work out a way from my comfortable prison, I spent the evening contemplating his words. A sweet older woman who told me to call her Maria led me downstairs the next morning to a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and a side of hash browns she said she’d made from the potatoes she grew in her garden.
Frankie joined us when I’d almost finished shoveling the last pancake into my mouth. The prospect of having a home-cooked meal made me forget about whose home I was eating in. Frankie didn’t stop to consume his own plate of food but instead quickly drank a protein shake. It made me feel less excited about the calorie-laden breakfast I’d wolfed down. It also reminded me of all those damn candy bars.
I pushed the plate away from me and watched him suck down the chocolate malt looking thing while doing my best not to stare at the way his throat moved. It didn’t work, and even though I could almost guarantee Frankie saw me watching, he didn’t call me out on my blatant behavior.
Instead, he waited until I followed him to his office to show me a brand-new laptop waiting for me on the opposite side of his desk. A chair, matching his, had been wheeled into the location as well. He’d set us up as joint workers, and it seemed I’d be spending a lot of time with Frankie in the near future.
I hadn’t yet decided how I felt about the prospect.
Irritated, of course. How rude of him to expect me to work while he stared at me.
However… I also felt something else I wasn’t ready to name yet. A slight tingle. A happy tingle. That or the heart attack returned with a vengeance.
I decided to believe it was the latter.
“Find something good?” Frankie asked, drawing my attention from my laptop to the gaze he set on me. That stare of his did things to my insides that I also refused to acknowledge.
I finished typing my sentence, my fingers moving over the keys as my gaze stayed on him. “Yes, I’ve decided to change the focus of my paper.”
“But you had so much to learn about employee motivation.”
I lowered the screen of the laptop. “Oh, it’s still about that, but now I’m comparing traditional mafia motivation techniques to the new way of running things. The possible mafia of a twenty-first-century world.”
Frankie tilted his head and raised one eyebrow. “Hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course. We all know the mob is dead.”
“Hmm.” The sound came out like a caress. “This could be interesting. A proposal of sorts on how the mob should have moved into the new era if they evolved with the changing times.”
“Exactly,” I replied with bright eyes, excited he saw the potential.
He chucked again, which made his eyes shine in the light. “I can tell you a lot about the old ways, too. This is a family business, after all.”
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” I asked, my sheer curiosity getting the better of me.
I realized I didn’t want to hear his answer right before he spoke. “A teddy bear picnic.”
