Chapter 181

Frankie moves quickly, pulling me through the bedroom to the closet, and I immediately cede him control. “Get dressed,” he murmurs to me, dropping my hand and moving for the door, quickly flicking the lock. “Fast. Put on…whatever, Iris. Something warm. And shoes.”

I do as he says, stepping into Christian’s huge walk-in closet and beginning to put on layers of clothing – a t-shirt, and then a long-sleeved shirt, and then a sweatshirt. On the bottom I pull on a pair of his shorts and then sweatpants, which I roll over and over. When I turn to his shoes I just stare for a moment, because…I don’t have any shoes here.

God, why the fuck don’t I have any shoes?

Something about Christian keeping me barefoot and pregnant quickly flicks through my mind – but then I brush it away and grab for a pair of black slides that I see on a shelf – probably the only thing I can wear.

Then I turn, heading out of the closet, to see Frankie standing outside, his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for me.

His eyes flick over me once and he frowns as he looks at my feet.

“Iris, I told you to get shoes.”

I shrug and hold the sandals out towards him so he can see that I did my best. “Nothing else will fit me, Frankie.”

“Fine,” he snaps, shaking his head and dismissing the point, reaching out and grabbing my hand again, tugging me closer. Then he looks down into my face again. “You’ve got nothing else on you, right? No…phone? No electronics – nothing?”

“Nothing,” I say, looking up into his face.

He pauses for a moment, staring down into my eyes. “This is your last chance to back out of this, Bambs,” he whispers, looking at me quite seriously. “Because after we walk out this door…”

I stare up at him, truly considering it, wondering if…if it’s worth it. If it’s enough.

But when I think, even briefly, on the life that I’m signing up for by staying in this room… “Let’s go,” I whisper, even as tears fill my eyes.

Frankie clenches his teeth as he looks down at me, fighting some emotion I can’t understand. But then he nods once, and squeezes my hand, and pulls me towards the door.

Things move incredibly fast from there.

Frankie cracks open the door and peers outside, but when he apparently deems it clear, he tugs me out into the hall where we stride quickly in the other direction – away from the kitchen, towards Lucy’s room. But we don’t stop there – of course we don’t. Instead, Frankie surprises me by taking me to yet another back stair that leads up to the fourth floor – an attic space lined by a wide variety of shut doors.

Frankie leads me expertly across the space, still walking fast, completely silent. I follow as fast as I can, my bare feet padding, the sandals clutched in my other hand. Perhaps as Frankie predicted, we don’t meet anyone as we cross the house to a door in corner. Frankie yanks it open and I nearly flinch in surprise as I see that behind it is a very steep, very winding spiral stair. He heads in, and I immediately follow as we curl down, down, down to…well, I don’t know where.

There’s a dark hall at the bottom, again lined with doors, and Frankie hurries down them towards the steel door at the end.

Where he stops, turning towards me.

“Thirty seconds, Iris,” he whispers, looking at me seriously. “I’ll be back for you in thirty seconds, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, nodding and looking up into his face.

And then he’s gone through the door, letting it swing shut behind him. I look down at my feet, my hands shaking a little, counting under my breath. Ten seconds pass, then twenty.

Twenty-five.

I’m starting to wonder if I counted wrong – or, horribly, if he got caught – when suddenly Frankie appears again, reaching a hand for me.

“Come on,” he says, not bothering to pitch his voice lower anymore. I take his hand and he pulls me into a garage, leading me quickly towards a black SUV in the corner. I glance down and see a key in Frankie’s hand, wondering how…

But there’s no time as he opens the back hatch, quickly flipping open the floor where the spare tire is kept and pulling out a black blanket before pushing the floor back down and gesturing towards it with one hand. “In,” he says.

I just stare at him, not understanding.

“In, Bambs,” he murmurs, dropping my hand and giving my shoulder a nudge towards the car. “Just for a little bit, okay? And then I’ll pull over and you can ride shotgun. But no one can see you leaving this house with me.”

I stare at him for a second, the true realization of what we’re doing hitting me in an instant – because even though I haven’t changed my mind, and I still want this, I’m…I’m putting Frankie’s life at risk too now, aren’t I?

And Frankie, if he gets caught stealing me from beneath Christian’s nose…god, but Christian will kill him.

He’ll absolutely kill him.

My hands begin to shake.

“No going back, Bambs,” Frankie says, taking my chin sharply in his hand. “We already decided. Yes?”

“Yes,” I whisper, realizing the truth of this – that we’re already too far deep. That I can’t just…wander back into the house now from the garage and explain why I was there, or how I got there, or who showed me what it was without drawing major suspicion. And so I pull my chin from Frankie’s hand and quickly climb into the trunk area of the car. When I’m laying curled on my side, Frankie murmurs an apology and then spreads the blanket out over me, tucking it in strategically so that it can’t slip and so I – presumably – look like a vague mass of groceries. Or something.

It's all noise and sensation from there. The sound of the back hatch closing and the driver’s side door opening. The engine starting and then the car moving, smooth at first but then over bumps.

Frankie’s mumbled conversation by what I assume is the front gate, a moment during which I shut my eyes in the darkness and hold my breath, praying and praying and praying…

But then the car moves again, over another bump and then out over smooth roads.

I lose time as Frankie drives, doing my best to simply breathe in and out, counting my breaths and starting over again every time I reach one-hundred.

I lose track of hundreds before the car slows, and then pulls over, shutting off.

I know…well, I know I can probably sit up now and take the blanket off.

But somehow, I don’t. I just wait.

I listen as the back hatch opens and then breathe in a cool gust of air as Frankie pulls the blanket off of me.

He stares at me, his face quite serious, as he tosses the blanket aside and holds out his hand towards me. Quietly, studying him as well, I put my hand in his as I sit up. Then I let him pull me to my feet.

We stand together like that, staring at each other, on the side of a dark back road somewhere…I have no idea where. And I find that I don’t particularly care as I just stare at him, this man whose life I just destroyed, who gave up everything just because I asked him too.

A strong, heaving wave of gratitude rushes through me as I stare at him – his steady face, his mouth, so serious now, when it almost never fails to smile.

“So,” Frankie says quietly, slipping his hands into his pockets but not looking away from my face. “Where to, donna.”

“Not donna anymore,” I whisper, raising my chin and looking into his pretty brown eyes. “Never again.”

“All right,” he says quietly. “Then who are you?”

“Bambi, I guess,” I whisper, and I’m gratified with a small twitch of his lips when I say the name – his pet name for me. “Iris Smith is long dead. Iris Romano…in hiding. So…I’m Bambi now.”

“All right,” he says again, tilting his head to the side this time. “Where to, Bambi?”

“I have no idea,” I whisper, giving a little shrug. “Any…ideas?”

“Oh, I’ve got a few,” he sighs, stepping forward and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “All of them horrible.” He gives a tug and starts to lead me around to the passenger seat of the car. “What do you say we just…drive for a bit? Give me some time to figure it out?”

“If you say so,” I say with a little sigh – though I realize in that instant that I’m not precisely…frustrated? Or sad? I don’t know.

I don’t know, at all, how I feel.

Frankie pulls open the passenger-side door and I sit down in my seat. Then, a little patronizing but also incredibly sweet, Frankie buckles my seatbelt for me, patting me on the shoulder like a little pet that’s incredibly precious to him as he straightens up.

I smile, just a touch, as he does it.

Then he closes my door, and moves around the car, and gets into the driver’s side, turning the car back on and putting it immediately into gear.

Neither of us say a word as he drives off into the night.

Instead, I just look up at the stars in the black sky.

And realize that the thing that I feel, resonating behind my guilt, and my fear, and the aching hole that is me beginning to miss Christian as I realize that I’ll never see him ever again…

Is…freedom.

Because for the first time since that night at the strip club so many months ago…I am nobody’s captive. And I feel completely free.