Page 32 of Complications

“You two need to go and lie low. My friend is working to shut down the investigation before it even gets started, but that takes time.”

“The guy today?” I interjected.

“Maybe working with Sam? Maybe something else? Sam’s been disposed of, but things are messy as shit at the moment, and I’m not sure what the fuck is going on. There was no reason for him to try to take Connor. That’s more than a business deal. Something isn’t adding up, but Sam being only a sellout feels off. But given how wrong I’ve been lately, what the fuck do I know?”

“We each going to a house?” Frankie asked.

He almost sounded bored with the whole thing, like we were talking about the weather or whether the garbage had been taken out.

“No, you two are safest together.” Matteo let that bomb drop without even a hint of irony. “I want you both to come back alive.”

“No goddamn promises,” I muttered under my breath.

Frankie had the decency to keep his mouth shut and only nod. Tension settled over the room like a heavy, choking blanket of smoke.

“You’re going to my mom’s cabin,” Elio said with more confidence than I expected. “It’s secluded and off the beaten path. No one finds it by accident.”

“How long?”

“What difference does that make?” Frankie asked. God forbid I had a question. “If it’s too long, are you going to come back and put everyone in danger?”

No smart-ass comment came to mind. I’d fucked up so much lately that he wasn’t completely off base, and that pissed me off more than anything.

I stalked out of the room instead.

Fuck me. Guess I was wrong about the day not getting worse.

If I was going to hell—and that meant being stuck anywhere with him—the sooner it started, the sooner it could end.

“I can pump gas, you know.”

“I’m aware,” Frankie answered. “And before you say it, I’m also aware you know how to drive.”

Frankie said it so nonchalantly that I wanted to punch his smug face. Rough it up a little because it was too pretty. His dark hair was never out of place, never messed up. He was taller than me, thinner, but always dressed like he was supposed to disappear. Dark suit, dark shirt, dark shoes. Every damn day.

Unlike the rest of his blue-eyed family, Frankie’s eyes were a hazel green with shards of gold and brown mixed in. They almost looked like the kaleidoscope my gran kept on her living room bookshelf. But when they looked at me, it was with disgust, so fuck him.

“So why don’t you let me do it?”

“Because I’m better at it.”

That bit of bullshit didn’t deserve a response, so I hunkered back in the passenger seat of the SUV and forced myself to stare out the window.

It was nice, if you liked nature and shit. Off in the distance, I caught a few deer that I hoped stayed on their side of the guardrails. I was a city boy, through and through, so no need to get up close and personal with wildlife. Squirrels in the park were about as rustic as I got, though a tiny part of me wanted to see something interesting—like a bear, or an elk, or fuck, I don’t know, a moose.

If it were one of my men, I would have said that aloud, but instead, I sat in silence and seethed. He hadn’t asked what I wanted to listen to, but he’d put on classical anyway. It bugged the crap out of me that he knew I preferred that over the annoyingly strong bass lines or techno beats of radio hits. The one exception was my girl, Tee Swifty, but he didn’t need to ruin her for me.

“Are you hungry?”

“Don’t you think that’s why I asked to stop at a gas station with a store?” I sneered. For a supposedly smart guy, Frankie was dense as shit.

“Gas station chips won’t make you less hungry,” Frankie answered calmly.

That tone—the one that said I was dumb muscle—had me flexing my fist where it lay in my lap. I thought I was being subtle until he glanced down at my hands.

“If you’re going to punch me, wait until the car has stopped.”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”