I expected we’d drive through town and end up in a maze of police cars and fire trucks finding our way to Frankie’s destroyed warehouse, but he took the road outside his home and drove north before turning down one of the side streets in the main section of Pelican Bay.
A big white two-story home sat next to a tinier version Cape Cod home. Frankie pulled into the driveway of the big house and turned off his car. I was too stunned to ask questions and instead quietly followed beside him after he exited the car and helped me out of my seat—a true gentleman even in times of distress.
We were halfway up the walkway before my brain kicked in and I realized maybe he’d brought me to the house he used to torture all his victims. But then he stopped at the front door and knocked. A man who owned a dungeon probably didn’t have to stop and knock to get into it.
We waited for less than two minutes before the door opened, giving way to a man the size of… a gigantic man. There wasn’t any other way to describe him. If you took all those wannabe football players I’d seen the day before and gave them a leader, this guy was it. He had dark brown hair cut short, and his shirt was slowly suffocating his muscles. Definitely had to be somebody with a military background.
I’d been around criminals most of my life, and this man was not one of them. Unless—the idea hit me quickly and I stiffened beside Frankie. He noticed the movement and turned in my direction with a question on his face, but he only shook his head. The only criminals I knew who walked around looking like regular businessmen were in Chicago.
But we weren’t in Chicago. No one, my cousin included, had figured out which side of the field the new Chicago players considered themselves. Good guys or bad? They were buying up real estate right and left as if they planned to take over the city. No one could figure out their end goal. So far, the four men had only had mild skirmishes with the Grandmaster’s crew, but if they were on the side of good, why did they need goons in the first place? They hid behind well-fitted suits and businesses, but everyone knew more lurked underneath their facade.
“We need to talk, Ridge,” Frankie said in place of a standard greeting.
Oh, so this was the famous Ridge Jefferson. The bakery girls talked about him and his other men extensively. It was good to put a name to a face and make the connection. The football guys were part of his team. They considered themselves the good guys, but they were working with Frankie, so I wasn’t sure.
Ridge opened the door wider, and then his phone rang and he stopped us halfway over the threshold. He turned around with one eyebrow higher than the other, giving Frankie an expression that I didn’t want to put a name to.
“This about you?” he asked, showing Frankie the screen of the phone with the name Anderson displayed.
Frankie sighed, apparently knowing exactly who Anderson was, and nodded. “Yes.”
Ridge let the two of us into his home, past the living room and down a small short hallway into an office. Frankie used the short walk to fill him in on exactly what had taken place that morning, and I tried to pretend it wasn’t all my fault.
Ridge stood by his desk and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the chair rather than sitting on it. “I don’t want to get involved,” he said a second after Frankie quit speaking.
Frankie and I never took seats in the chairs, which made it possible for him to lean his body across the desk, his palms down flat on the wood. “After everything I’ve done for you? The things I’ve risked?”
The two men glared at one another, and I was seconds away from raising my hand and asking exactly what Frankie did for the adult football team when Ridge kicked out his chair and finally dropped his body into it. Frankie followed suit in the chair next to him. I didn’t want to be the only one standing, so I sat as well.
Ridge blew out a breath at the same time his attention jerked in my direction. I wasn’t particularly happy to be in his line of sight, and I twisted a piece of hair around my fingers in nerves. “I had the Grandmaster under control and then you went and kidnapped his cousin. Explain to me how that’s my problem?”
It was an interesting word choice, and I dropped the piece of hair to stare at Frankie, interested to learn exactly how he’d respond.
He huffed out a breath and did absolutely everything in his power not to glance in my direction. “I will not waste an opportunity when I see one.”
That hurt. And ticked me off. I was not just an opportunity. I was not a bargaining chip,
“Hey!” I yelled, drawing both the men’s attention before I remembered it wasn’t a great idea. “I’m sitting right here.”
Neither man found my outburst helpful. Ridge typed something out on his phone and then dropped it on the desk with a heavy thud. “I’ll look into it with Anderson. Between the two of us, we’ll pick up whoever we can. That warehouse was clean now, right?” he asked, giving Frankie a particular look as if he knew what Frankie kept in the warehouse.
Frankie smirked. “Spotless.”
I raised my hand, but both men ignored it completely. From the way ladies talked at the bakery, Ridge was what you considered a good guy. He and his crew brought down more than their fair share of criminals in the area, but what good guy would know the contents of Frankie’s warehouse? What man who considered himself on the side of the law risked associating with Frankie Zanetti in the first place? So much more was happening in Pelican Bay than people would ever admit.
Frankie spent a moment asking about Tabitha and their post wedding plans. I nodded along, trying to put all the pieces I’d learned together, but by the time we made it to Frankie’s car and I was back in the passenger seat, I hadn’t gotten any answers.
Rather than return home, Frankie drove us right down Main Street to the little diner a few blocks away from the bakery.
Still lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t ask questions while he parked and led me into the back. The place reminded me of a small ma and pa restaurant we had on the south side of Chicago with cheap lunches.
A woman named Trish with a smile on her face, even though her steps were slow and scuffed against the black and white tile floor, led us to a table and placed two menus in front of us. “You can still get breakfast for the next thirty minutes,” she said before dropping a thick brown mug on the place beside Frankie and then filling it to the rim with coffee.
“Any for you?” she asked
I shook my head and waited until she left before I started my interrogation. “Now you’re the one being calm. Why is that?” I asked Frankie as he sipped at the full cup of coffee.
Steam rose off the top of it, and I wanted to reach out and touch the side to see how warm it really was, but there were a few curiosities I could not fall prey to that morning. “Your cousin thinks he understands how every criminal unit works, but this is not Chicago, and things happen differently in Pelican Bay.”
