Chapter 183

“We begin,” Frankie says, turning his eyes back to the road, “with a frank discussion of how fucked we actually are.”

My eyebrows go up a little at this, but I steel myself against the emotions that begin to well up in me – especially the idea that I dragged Frankie into this, that he’s only fucked for my sake. “And how fucked is that?”

“Quite,” he says, sending me a little glance. “It was crazy in that house after you got knocked out, Bambi – absolute chaos. People heard the noise – me amongst them – and the kitchen got flooded with people. It was like…a horror movie, blood everywhere, Christian going nuts hauling a corpse off of you, smacking your cheeks, trying to wake you up.”

I drop my eyes to my lap as I hear about how scared Christian was, how concerned for me. And this is how I repay him?

“That’s why you woke up in that room all alone,” Frankie says, and I look up at his tone now. “We checked to make sure you were breathing, and then a doctor came and confirmed that Elio had given you a pretty simple roofie – something which that scumbag apparently has readily on hand. But he gave you a lot of it for it to hit you that fast. The doctor told us to let your system work it out and so Christian put you in the room and locked you away and had me guard the door. And then he went to fucking work trying to deal with the fallout.”

“What was the fallout?” I ask, a little breathless.

“It was bad,” Frankie murmurs, glancing over at me. “Giuseppe completely flipped – called Christian a sociopath, made it quite clear that he doesn’t think that Chrisitan’s fit to lead the family because he’s…well, he’s been killing a lot of people in the family.”

Guilt wells in men then, because I know a lot of those deaths were for my sake.

“So, Giuseppe left the house and made some really bad phone calls to the other families in power, attempting to rally support for a coup against Christian. Chris spent all day working on countering that – but he came up and visited you, too, Iris.” I look up at him now to see him looking at me, like he wants me to know it. “He was…devastated that that happened to you.”

I hold Frankie’s gaze for a moment as tears fill my eyes and then I drop my head as I shake it, looking down at the empty coffee cake package in my lap. “He promised me it was over, Frank,” I whisper. “And then one day later…”

“I know,” Frankie says on a sigh, reaching out a hand and placing it comfortingly on my knee. “I just…wanted you to know the whole story. The truth. Christian is…not an uncomplicated man and…he maybe did go to far with a lot of this. But he loves the hell out of you, Iris – and in his place? I’d have cut Elio’s throat too.”

I look up at Frankie again, anxiety welling in me. “Are you…trying to talk me into going back?” I whisper.

Frankie holds my gaze for as long as he can before he has to look back at the road. “I’m not, Iris,” he says quietly. “I think…well. Why don’t you tell me why you left, instead of me putting words into your mouth?”

I shake my head a little, not sure I’m going to be able to get into it without a total breakdown – because I still do love Christian very, very much. “It was going to kill me, Frank,” I whisper, saying as much as I can in as few words as possible. “Or…even if I survived, it was going to tear me apart, turn me into a shell of a person. It’s…it’s not about leaving Christian. It’s about leaving that horrible world behind – I can’t…I can’t survive there.”

Frankie nods, giving my knee a squeeze before taking his hand back. “Good,” he says, giving a single nod. “That’s what I assumed, and it’s why I agreed to help you run. I agree with you, Iris – I…do not think that world is for you.”

We’re silent for a long moment.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” I whisper, my voice trembling a little. “For…asking you to give it all up. For everything you’ll lose.”

“No, I’m glad of it,” Frankie murmurs, considering the road ahead. “I think…I’ve been looking for a way out for some time now, Bambs. Just…never had a good enough reason to cut and run.” He turns then, giving me a small smile, and I blush a little, guilt welling in me, at the clear implication that I’m worth everything he’s lost.

I sigh, and look down into my lap again, utterly confused about how I feel.

“On to the less maudlin practicalities of all of this,” Frankie says then, forcing some brightness and cheer into his voice. “Can I tell you what I think is going to happen next?”

I nod a little, knowing he will see it, still looking down into my lap.

“Christian surely noticed pretty fast that you were gone – at most an hour after we left. We got out quickly and with minimal people knowing what happened but…Christian’s not dumb. It took him maybe half an hour more to check the whole house for you and figure out what happened – so that’s the lead, at best, that we’ve got on the Romanos.”

“And you think they’re chasing us?” I ask, turning to look out the back window of the car like I’d actually be able to see a fleet of black cars gaining on us or something.

“Oh, they’re coming after you, all right,” Frankie replies, his voice low and perhaps with a tinge of fear to it. “Christian is never, ever going to give you up, Iris. He will tear this world apart looking for you.”

My hands go a bit cold as I snap my head back to look at Frankie. “You don’t think he’ll eventually let me go?” I ask. “I mean, once he figures out that I…want to be gone?”

“No,” Frankie replies, looking at me evenly, shaking his head. “He not only loves you very intensely, Iris, but…you’re a mafia boss’s wife now. You’ll be seen as being taken by me – kidnapped. He’ll do everything to get you back – it will be as much about saving face as it is about wanting the woman he loves by his side.” He grimaces a little. “Sorry, that’s the truth, even if it is…less romantic than we might want.”

“Why…why would he assume you kidnapped me?” I whisper, baffled. “He knows us, Frank – he knows you wouldn’t do that without me, in some way, agreeing to it. He also knows how unhappy I’ve been in that house, in this world!”

“It doesn’t matter, Bambs,” Frankie replies, his voice almost sorry. “Women in this world…they are not seen or understood as capable of this sort of thing. It will be me that’s the villain in this story – at least on the family’s surface. I’m just…telling you how it is. I don’t agree with it but…that’s the story they’ll tell.”

I sit back hard against my chair then, my hands loose around the scraps of paper in my lap, quietly contemplating this. Thinking that I lost a great deal of my identity the moment that Nico carried me out of that strip club – that I became an object to be hoarded, and kept safe, and locked away, and traded, and held hostage…

That it’s never really been about the life I wanted or where I wanted to go or how I wanted to live.

Hell…I didn’t even have shoes in that house. Not that Christian ever would have denied me shoes it’s just…

If I wanted to leave? I absolutely could not have gone.

And that…I think quietly, staring out the window with my eyes half-focused…is pretty much the story of our relationship. That no matter what I wanted, no matter what I did, I could never leave the protected little world that Christian made for me. And even when I tried to escape, tried to work in his father’s bar, it was still just the transition from one boss’s world to another.

And Christian – he’d always had his man on me, Frankie was always there keeping me safe. But also, as far as Christian knew, to keep me from running away.

And then, when me being in his father’s bar failed to keep me safe…Christian simply used the danger as another reason to wrap me up tighter, to keep me safer, to tuck me further away from the world.

To marry me, presuming it would mean that no one could touch me.

I hang my head a little, letting my eyes fall shut, coming to terms with some of the stark realities and the darknesses of my relationship that I just needed a little air and space to see clearer. Because I know that Christian did it all out of love, but the result was the same – me bound up, locked away, prevented completely from being able to leave or make my own choices. And now that I see it…god, it’s just so hard to look at.

“Where are we going now?” I ask quickly, needing a distraction, needing…something concrete to focus on.

“South,” Frankie says quickly, obviously not knowing the direction of my thoughts but perfectly willing to help me move on from them. “As far as we can and as fast as we can, until we run out of road. And money. And then…we’ll see where we are and go from there.”

“Okay,” I whisper, nodding once, accepting it and letting Frankie take charge.

As he drives, he reaches a single hand out and places it on my shoulder, warm and supportive.

And I lean into that hand like it’s the only thing keeping me sane.