“So you stayed in our town for the pie and not for the money?” Frankie asked, still leaning too much of his body over the table. It felt like he was sucking up all the space, leaving me with spots that smelled of his expensive cologne.
“Money?” I asked while leaning back to get away from the scent that made me want to jump the bones of the man across the table. Definitely needed a therapist.
Frankie’s eyes twinkled, and then my memories returned.
Fuck. How did I forget the man offered me ten million dollars if I didn’t escape? Even though I never lacked for cash in Chicago, it was still a ton of money. Enough most people would agree to anything. Ten million meant I’d finish up my master’s program and take a few years off before finding myself a legitimate job in my field rather than going to work for the family. But as much as I pretended I didn’t want to be involved in all the seedy things Westley found himself in, the truth was, I didn’t care. We all did what we had to do in order to survive.
“That’s what I thought,” Frankie said as he stuck his fork on the edge of my pie and stole a piece of the crust.
My eyes widened and not just because of his words but the audacity it took to steal from a woman’s piece of pie. Plus, everyone knew the crust was the best part. It was your reward for eating the rest of the delicious concoction.
My mouth opened to argue with him. To find a retort to make me seem like a normal functioning human, but the ring of a phone broke our silence.
On the table my fingers twisted together as I crossed them, wishing for it to be anyone but my cousin. Frankie handled the destruction of his warehouse with incredible grace, but I couldn’t guarantee the emotion would stick if more destruction came to his empire so soon. And Westley definitely wasn’t finished.
Someone spoke on the other line, but Frankie barely responded. As each second passed, his eyes hardened and the carefree expression he’d worn died. He didn’t say a word for most of the call.
Not until a tight lipped, “I’ll be right there,” escaped. Then he hung up the phone with the air of authority.
I waited on my side of the table, now done with my piece of pie, curious but not dumb enough to ask what happened.
Thankfully, as if he read my expression, Frankie answered, “That was the Clearwater police, Mont Sheree. It seems one of my warehouses met with an accident this morning.” His eyes did a quick glance through the diner as he explained.
I took it as a cue and schooled my expression into one of shock. “Oh no. I hope no one was hurt.”
Frankie shook his head, and then a hand clasped his chest as if he was having trouble breathing. “Only my heart, at the tragic loss of my building. The structure has been in the family for years. It was dear to me.”
My brow furled at his emotion over the concrete structure and even more so when Frankie slid out of the booth, not perplexed in the slightest.
“Really?” I asked as he held his hand out for me and I accepted it, even though being slightly off balance made it harder to slide from the seat.
By the time I stood next to Frankie, my shoulders sagged. Did my cousin really blow up a family building with memories? Who made memories at a warehouse? Oh right, mobsters. Maybe he killed his first person there or something. Favorite torture location.
Frankie tugged me tightly to his side, and we walked out of the diner together after he threw two one-hundred-dollar bills on the table. “No, I won it in a card game three years ago,” he whispered into my ear as we walked to the car.
By the time he was holding my door open for me, the twinkle had returned to his eye and I felt his excitement myself. Frankie had a playful side, and you never knew when it might come out. In ways he wore his emotions on his sleeve, but in reality, they were only true half of the time. He was one of the most closely guarded men I’d ever met. Frankie was an enigma that I had a hard time wrapping my head around, let alone explaining.
The most troubling part of the whole ordeal was how much I liked it. I may have never known when he was joking, but he never aimed his wrath at me.
I spent the drive back to Frankie’s home staring out the window at the people walking down the street, their arms loaded up with shopping bags. No one realized that a few feet away, a mobster drove his kidnapping victim back to her lavish prison.
“It’s the fall color season,” Frankie said, always aware of my thoughts.
“You realize I have no idea what that means. Right?”
He chuckled, turning onto Bay Street. “People from all over flock to see the trees change color. It’s the town’s last big chance to suck all their money out of them before the winter months hit and tourism dries up until the spring.”
It made sense to me. Who visited northern Maine in the winter? It was practically Canada.
Frankie stopped the car in front of his house in the circular driveway rather than pulling into the garage. He made no motion to get out, so I didn’t either. He stared at me and then reached across my lap and, right as my muscles tensed, popped open the glove box of his vehicle. Sitting on top of the stack of papers, he had a small pistol.
Frankie removed the gun as I observed. Guns didn’t scare me, but the people holding them sometimes did. Yet, even in that moment as the two of us were in close confines with no one to save me if Frankie decided this was his moment to take me out and gain retribution for his warehouse, I couldn’t find it in me to muster an ounce of concern.
Rather than hold the gun to my head and threaten me, Frankie placed it in my hands. Definitely a man who trusted too easily.
“I need to drive over to Clearwater and speak with the police. You should stay here. I highly doubt they know who you are, but today is not the day I want to explain your presence.”
I held the gun, and the cool plastic settled in my hands. So many people envision these big metal gleaming silver machines, but you only carried those if you wanted to look a certain part. The tiny plastic Frankie handed me got the job done just as well as the shiny ones.
