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This was like a palace compared to what my life could be like. Six feet in the ground or worse… tied to Maximillian.
I walked over to the lone window in the one-room apartment and leaned against the frame. The landlord said it was painted shut, but if it got to stifling, I could always go down to Leo’s corner store and pick up a box fan. I had to snort at that. Although beggars couldn’t be choosers. I’d be safe here. Ambiguous, anonymous.
Despite it being a weekday and pretty late, the streets were pretty packed, cars and taxis moving back and forth, businesses open, dingy lit storefronts showing the shitty items they had for sale. There was a pizza place across the street, probably the worst slice I would ever have, but I liked that it was convenient, easy access. I was all about that.
I’d seen a small grocery store on the corner, if it could even be called that. It was probably mainly prepackaged, processed food, but I like the convenience. This was definitely a shitty area, but things were so crammed together that it made everything easy access.
I closed my eyes and lifted my hand to rub them. I was so tired, exhausted down to the bone.
I turned away from the window and looked at the bed. It was nothing but a mattress on a box spring, and the stains on what was once probably white made it now dingy and disgusting-looking. Thankfully, after the piece of shit motel I’d been staying in prior to this place, I invested in a pair of cheap sheets.
I was insane for coming back to town, but it was as if this magnet was pulling me to Frankie. It was so damn crazy, not just because of my circumstances with the bratva, but because it had been years since I’d seen Frankie.
I grabbed the sheets I had shoved in my bag, walked over to the bed, and made it quickly before sitting down. It creaked painfully, protesting, and despite it being an awful mattress and no doubt I’d be sore as hell come morning, it felt good to just sit here and do nothing.
I didn’t even bother taking my shoes off. I’d gotten into the habit of being ready at any given moment. My fear was too real, another person in me, one I’d grown accustomed to for the last few months.
I lay back and pulled the sheet up to my chin just as I heard a car alarm go off right outside and people scream at each other somewhere in the building. The walls were paper-thin, the sound of rodents scurrying around plain as day. I stared at the ceiling, the shadows too dark to make out anything more than the water stains that made intermittent dark blots.
I would have cried in this moment if not for the fact that my tears had long since dried up.
I was on my own, or maybe not. Maybe Frankie was waiting for me like I waited for him, my heart always his.
Or maybe these were the delusions of a very broken, lonely girl.
11
Frankie
I sat in the van off the side road of where Mackerel’s was located. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, feeling anxious and not knowing why. The blood rushed through my veins, my heart a war drum in my chest. I couldn’t even blame this feeling on the job. I never felt this way before we did one.
I just felt… uneasy.
I was the getaway, and although I preferred to be in on the action, a hands-on type of guy when we did a heist, I didn’t mind this one instance just hanging back.
All day, I felt off, as if something were going to happen, something big. The other shoe to drop. I’d brought it up to Wilder, and he blamed it on the job, told me to chill the fuck out and keep my head on straight. But on his face, I could see he was confused, a little worried even, because I never got this way. I was always calm and collected, cool and organized. I had my shit together.
He worried I’d fuck this up. And I couldn’t blame him, because I worried about that too.
I exhaled and curled my hands around the leather of the wheel even tighter, my knuckles turning white momentarily before I forced myself to loosen my grip.
I focused on the greasy pizza joint, seeing dirty and questionable people coming in and out, stumbling because they were drunk or high—hell, probably both.
I turned my focus to the laundromat directly beside that, the windows old-looking, foggy and cracked. The light inside flickered, needing to be changed, giving this almost ominous appearance to the interior of the place. There was only one person inside, a woman who had her hair piled high on her head like a rat’s nest. She kept flinging her arms back and forth, as if tweaking, pacing in front of the washer, the clothes inside turning in the circular window in front. It was impressive she was tweaking yet still doing laundry. Comical even.
