Frankie’s lips turned into a straight line as he stood up from his chair in a haste, the anger rolling off him. “I’m getting annoyed at your lack of trust in general.”
My eyes widened, and I leaned back further in the chair as he towered over me. “Dude, you kidnapped me!” Who trusted their kidnapper? Even I wasn’t that dumb.
“How long until you move past that part?” Frankie asked, blinking quickly as if he couldn’t believe I was still upset about the kidnapping part.
It took me a moment to process his words. “You are delusional.”
It explained his behavior. The man had a face carved by the gods, but something addled his brain. He’d obviously been in charge of his organization too long because he had messed up expectations of people’s trust in him.
Frankie only shrugged, as if I wasn’t the first one to make that accusation. “Maybe, but this suite has three rooms. You’ll have your own private bedroom and bathroom.”
“You’re just going to pat my head and send me off to sleep?” I asked the stupid question because if that’s what he planned to do, fine. It wasn’t my job to tell my kidnapper how to be a better kidnapper, but sometimes my mouth didn’t stay shut.
Frankie chuckled again, half of his anger lost. “You remind me of a few women from back home.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.” I stood next to him because even though I was a good six inches shorter while standing, it was at least better than him hovering over me while I sat in a chair. I didn’t like to feel smaller and weaker, but that’s exactly what happened with Frankie. He had a force all his own.
He stared down at me and even had the audacity to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. Great, he reminded me my hair probably looked like shit. Again, it wasn’t my fault I’d been kidnapped twice in one evening.
“I never said it was a compliment. And I’m going to trust you not to leave because you’re smart enough to remember that I have eyes on your mom and favorite aunt. But just in case you forget, I’ll also warn you about the two guards stationed in the living room and the line of them waiting in the hallway. They don’t sleep.
“A few are also stationed throughout the hotel in case your cousin gets reckless and pays us a visit. Never can be too safe when visiting Chicago. The streets are bloody in this city.”
His answers were so smug they matched his expression perfectly. I’d never wanted to hit a man before like I did right then. Well, except for the time Westley greeted my prom date at the front door with a gun. But this definitely ranked up there with the most annoying. He probably had a gun on him somewhere, too.
Frankie didn’t tell me which bedroom to use as my own, so I stormed toward the first door I saw—one sticking off the living room to my left. I walked right over to it as if I owned the place and swung the door open, finding not a bed like I assumed, but a small bathroom with a missing shower.
Frankie laughed. “Unless you plan to sleep in the corner, I suggest going one door to your right.”
I glared back and scowled at him but took a few steps to my right and stormed into that room. Which, thankfully, contained all the bedroom necessities. It resembled the living room, all white—from a white wooden bed frame to the white comforter with long matching white drapes pulled across the window. The cleaning bills here had to be astronomical.
Fall settled more over the city every day, but the sun would still come up soon, and I had no idea how I’d fall asleep.
I paced for a few moments and then eventually lay down on the bed, wrapping myself up in the covers, too tired to get undressed.
The day started out like any other, but finished shitty. I’d been kidnapped… twice. My mother and aunt were being stalked by a mad man from a weird town in Maine, I had a huge paper due by the end of next week, and I was being held hostage by a megalomaniac deluded with his own self-importance.
I shouldn’t have been able to sleep. My brain had a mountain of crap to work through, but I swore once my head hit the pillow less than a minute later, I passed out. How wonderful that on a regular evening my brain stayed awake for hours debating the conversations I had in third grade, but when truly in distress, I passed out like an exhausted baby.
One minute I was internally complaining about the injustices of life in a college classroom wearing a nightgown, and the next my eyes slowly peeled open to voices. It wasn’t one of those nice happy wake-ups when you take a good minute before you realize you’ve been kidnapped. I didn’t wake up in a happy slumber snuggled in the blankets, thinking everything was perfect. No, I came to and immediately remembered not only the kidnapping but also the drool on my pillow.
I had to pee, but I snuck to the door and put my ear to the wood to hear the talking in the other room. Listen, if you were a good kidnapper, the least you did was make sure your private meetings happened behind closed doors.
Well, more than one closed door. Frankie should have learned by now to never trust a kidnap victim. He shouldn’t talk so loudly if he didn’t want someone to spy on him.
I needed one of those glasses, like they used in the movies to hear better through doors. But the coffee maker and water glasses were in the other room.
“Ridge, sometimes finding answers means getting your hands dirty,” Frankie said. He spoke so loudly it was like he was right next to the door. He couldn’t be sitting on the couch in the living room unless he had a megaphone.
The person who responded sounded further away, and I had to guess he wasn’t in the room with Frankie but maybe on speaker phone. “Just tell me if you took his cousin.”
I pressed my ear to the door harder, hoping to hear better since I was the topic of discussion. Unless Frankie had a habit of going around kidnapping lots of cousins.
“You can see my room in the camera, Ridge. Does it look like I’m torturing anyone?”
Yesterday, my biggest question was who named their kid Frankie. Now, I had another one to double the list. Who named their kid Ridge? Where were these people from?
Before I heard his answer or had a chance to throw open the door and run out screaming that he had, indeed, kidnapped me—which was only useful if I determined Ridge played for team justice—I heard a heavy knock on the door. I jerked back almost as if it happened on my door, but it was too far away and the wood never rattled.
