I didn’t have enough time to calm down or ask more questions from my latest freak-out before the car slowed and we pulled into an underground parking garage in a part of the city I’d never been. We were definitely no longer in the area the Grandmaster considered his territory.
The car door opened and a barrage of men waited only steps away. They encircled us as we got out and left me absolutely no way to run. Not with this big of a group.
“We’re going to get out of the car and walk calmly to the elevator. Everything will be fine as long as you play along. Nobody in this hotel is going to help you anyway, so let’s just get the hard part over with. Shall we?” he asked, as if he’d invited me out to see a movie, and now we had to pick out snacks.
I swallowed hard and shook my head. There wasn’t much else to do. If I played along and bought my cousin enough time, maybe he’d rescue me.
“First,” I asked before I took his hand and let him lead me away from the safety of the vehicle, what little safety it contained, “what’s your name?”
“My name, Cara Mia, won’t do you much good, but my friends call me Frankie.”
My nose crinkled at the name, which I hoped was only a nickname and not what he was born with. But it was enough clue to let me know he considered himself of the Italian distinction. The Grandmaster would not want to get into a fight with the Italians, but he would if it meant rescuing me. And he would definitely consider kidnapping me as the start of war between the two of them.
I allowed Frankie to lead me to the elevator without a struggle or any screaming. His smile, I once found so breathtaking in its beauty, now looked sinister.
“What are you planning to do with me?” I asked quietly once the elevator doors closed and there was no getting away. “I’ll fight back no matter what.”
Frankie looked down at me as the two men beside me at the other end stared at the wall, acting as though I hadn’t spoken. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insinuate what I think you did. You see, I find it highly offensive. I’d never treat a woman that way.”
“Then why take me?” I asked as the elevator rose.
We crossed thirteen floors when he answered. “We’re going to step off the elevator and into my suite, and then you and I are going to become closely acquainted… but differently.”
That was the part I worried about the most. The elevator stopped, and the doors flung open on the highest floor of the building.
Frankie, who still held on to my hand as if we were lovers, stepped forward. “Come, Cara Mia, let’s get to know one another.”
A shiver crawled up my spine, but I followed him off of the elevator to my doom.
CHAPTER 3
Frankie—I really needed a nickname for him because that one sucked—held the door open to the only room on the hotel’s floor. No one to hear me scream. It would have been my best chance to get away except for the line of men in the hallway.
Frankie turned back and gestured for me to walk as two of his guarded hovered at the entryway.
He waved his arm again, doing his own little version of Vanna White. “Cara Mia, your prison cell.”
I rolled my eyes and then straightened my back. If he thought I wasn’t entering his room because of nerves, I’d show him exactly how nervous I was.
In reality, I was terrified. Not so much of what might happen to me if I went into the hotel room, but what my cousin would scream when he found out I willingly walked in to the enemy’s supposed prison cell. Only a moron followed the directions of her kidnapper.
Oh well. Too late now. I stepped in and froze.
You weren’t the favored cousin of one of Chicago’s worst criminal overlords without staying a few nights in fancy hotels. I may have come from humble beginnings, but I’d grown up with opulence as Westley carved out his position in The Masters gang. Still, I’d never been in a room as nice as Frankie’s.
The ceilings had to be at least twenty feet high with long, tall windows and skylights letting in a view of the city. Everything else was white—from the windows and the carpet to the couch and two chairs in the large living room. The space was probably bigger than the entire house Westley and I grew up in before he joined the gang as a teenager.
My earlier speculations looked truer by the second. I couldn’t trust Frankie, but he probably didn’t plan to kill me. At least not in the stark white space. That would leave too much evidence, and I couldn’t imagine he’d get back his security deposit with bloodstains.
Think of the charges.
Frankie didn’t tell me where to go in his grand hotel room, but I was sick and tired of listening to him anyway, so I picked one of the white chairs in the middle of the living room and sat. It put my back to the door but gave me a spectacular view of Lake Michigan. We were definitely not in The Masters’ section of Chicago any longer. I’d stayed in all the fancy hotels in Westley’s territory, and this one was brand new.
Frankie took the chair across from me. He balanced his elbows on each arm rest and stared at me as if he was trying to unwrap my inner workings.
It’d take a long time because even I didn’t know what the hell I thought most of the day.
“Why is the Grandmaster in Pelican Bay?” he asked after tapping his chin one time with a long, outstretched finger.
