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“You’re awake,” Jack sighs, his voice dribbling with relief over the phone. I’m numb, my heart ice and my blood more frigid than the breeze cutting my cheeks and ankles. Hugging my coat tighter around me, I clench my jaw hard against the fierce banging against my eyes. “I know this morning took a lot out of you, Heather. So, tonight, I ordered your favorite pizza for 9:30. Have you figured out what movie you’ll be watching yet?”
I can barely make out what Jack’s saying, much less a reply, and I hang up on him. All I can hear is our fight this morning. Why’d I answered the phone for him?Because it says ‘Answer me on the caller ID.I look out the windshield and over the wheel at the entrance to the park. My muscles are tense as I slowly raise my legs. My knees are squeaking, and even with my sneakers on, my toes are freezing. I'd left the door open and am now nearly frozen.
How did this happen? Why me? What do I do now? I’m not sure.
Frankie might have answers for me, but I can’t trust him either. I can’t trust Frankie even less than I can trust Jack. Anything he says is a lie, and the only truth he’d give me is to hurt me. Just like every other man in my life.
Shutting the driver’s side door of my car, I walk down the path leading down to the main veranda of the park. The smell of the bay is almost overwhelming; we’re so close to the ocean that the air stings my eyes and nostrils.
“You came,” I pause at the deep, slithering voice that rolls up my back, and I twist as Frankie comes out from behind a tree. He saunters towards me underneath a light pool. He’s got a face tattoo. What kind of idiot gets a face tattoo? “Hold your arms up.”
“You look different,” I say, my breath puffing white as Frankie reaches me. He’s clearly muscular under his thick, woolen coat when he grabs my wrists to force my arms out. Briefly, his eyes find mine, and he pauses to grimace.
“You look sad. I don’t blame you,” His voice is soft before he pats me down, taking out my cell phone to suck his teeth lightly. Stepping away, he shakes his head and drops my cell, stomping on it sharply and with purpose. “You know he has access to your phone, right? Not just where you are— everything you say within a distance of the microphone. All your texts, all your calls. He can even look through your camera, and you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“I don’t care,” I answer tiredly, and Frankie frowns at me under tightly knit brows. “I came because I wanted to punch you in the face for coming to my school—interacting with my kids. That’s all.”
“That’s a good reason, yeah,” Frankie nods. His voice is irritating. More than I remember it being. The way he looks at me now is less creepy and more like I’m an object. The way that I hate; like I’m something. “You’re pretty pathetic, coming here for that when you’ve murdered so many people at the word of a man like Jack Murphy. Don’t you feel hypocritical at all? Don’t you hate yourself?”
“That’s it?” I blink when Frankie looks at me wildly, and I chuff a wry laugh. “You’re a tiny, little man. I’m not pathetic, but I am stupid for thinking you’d give me an answer. I even had the one thought that you might try to help me. But no. You’re too small-minded to live up to even the barest expectations, Frankie. I’m leaving.”
Turning around, I take a few steps before the familiar click of a gun sounds crisp through the air. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle, and I slowly turn around. Frankie’s holding the gun up high, his face stone cold and impassioned. A tickle in the back of my mind tells me this is about more than just me and Jack.
“Oh, I’ll help you, Heather. It’s all over your face that you’re tired,” My throat tightens at Frankie’s revelation, and my eyelid twitches in aggravation. He’s gonna kill me? Jesus, just what I need. “It’s gotta be done, though.”
“Why do you men... why can’t you lie about the right things?” I sigh heavily in disappointment. I stuff my hands into my coat pockets and finger the popped seam and the gun hidden in the hem. “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak with my feelings in mind? Why can’t any of you fucking men—why even bother opening your stupid mouths? You and Jack are exactly the same.”
Frankie’s face twists in rage at my lamentation, and I tense when he lunges for me. Backhanding me in the face, his knuckles cut my cheek, and the pain is explosive. The sting is intense down my neck and up into my eyes, and I stumble to the side to clutch my face. Blood pools in my mouth, but I can’t spit it out before Frankie grabs my hair and yanks me back. He throws me onto my ass, and I cover my head with my arms, but no more blows come.
“Don’t you dare compare me to that piece of shit! I’d never do what he did to you, to you, Heather! All you had to do was fucking kill yourself when he approached you, and none of this would’ve happened!” Frankie shouts, spittle flying from his mouth and glistening under the low light. I glance up under my forearm, watching him fling out his hands. His gun glints coldly. “You wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just sucked it up and done that one thing! You’re a useless fucking cow who can’t do anything right! I’m not gonna let you ruin my life because you’re incapable!”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, rolling onto my back to stare up at the sky. This is surreal; I almost want Frankie to shoot me, so I don’t have to fucking listen to him anymore. I made a mistake coming here. I should’ve just ignored him. “You know what? I don’t even care. Frankie, you’re the one who never could take responsibility for your own bullshit. You blame everyone else, so you don’t have to deal with your problems yourself. So, go ahead. Shoot me. It won’t change anything, anyway. Not after today.”
“Myproblems? You’re the one running around fucking shooting people and makingmyproblems!” Frankie shouts, his voice crackling through the air. I sit up, tightening my coat around me as I shuffle to my feet. I spit out blood and snot while Frankie paces erratically. “You think I don’t know you’re his little whore assassin? He’s got you doing things you have no right! No right! You’re the one that put me in this position, Heather! And I did everything to try to stop it! I sent a fucking FBI agent after you to make you back down, but you’re just too busy bending over for Jack to have a coherent thought for yourself!”
“If you knew about it, why didn’t you step up to help me?” I shoot back, and Frankie scoffs harshly. My mind whirls at what he reveals. “Why didn’t you help me before I accidentally killed Liam? Why did you stand back and let Jack do this all to me? You didn’t lift a finger to help me, you selfish bastard!”
Frankie’s silent at that, his eyes wide, the veins bulging in his forehead with rage. I throw up my hands in exasperation, gripping my coat near the pockets. If I can just get to the gun... “You thought I’d kill myself? For what? Why! Look at your watch! Look at your clothes! Clearly, you could’ve paid something to get Jack off my back, but you abandoned me just like your mother abandoned you! To a horrible man who uses and abuses everyone around him, not caring about the damage he causes!”
"Where are you going through this?" Frankie asks, and my throat tightens. “Why let him use you like that?”
“Because I love him, for better or worse, and I have hope for the future,” I say sternly, and Frankie’s jaw ticks hard in the gloom under the park lamps. “Haven’t you ever loved anyone? Wasn’t there someone who made you think it was worth it all?”
“I did, once, until she turned ‘worth it all’ to ‘risk it all,” Frankie reveals, a shadow passing across his tight expression. “That little bitch nearly ruined everything, and I got her out of the way, just like I’ll do to you. Everything I’ve done was for my future. I won’t end up alone, an addict, despised by everyone who knew me. Not like Dad.”
“You really are a scared, little boy under all that bravado and cruelty.” The air itself seems to stop moving at the cold, stony tone that wraps around me, surging towards my brother. Twisting to find Jack standing there, I gasp in shock. What’s he doing here? I yelp when Frankie grabs my arm, holding his pistol to my temple. His breath curls under my ear, but Jack doesn’t twitch. “You’re gonna kill your only family, Frankie?”
“I’m doing her a favor, getting her away from you.” Frankie breathes hotly, and I hold my breath as my heart hammers against my chest. Slipping my hands into my pockets, I stay very still as Jack saunters toward us. He doesn’t have a gun flashing even as his coat flutters in the violent breeze off the bay.
“Is that what you said to yourself when you murdered my sister before running away to New York?” Jack asks, and Frankie stiffens against my back. His breathing stops, and I gulp down the dense lump in my throat. Kill... Jack’s sister? Frankie did that? “Frankie never helped you, Heather, because I never wanted your money. I never even wanted you to take jobs. It was never about your father. It’s because... Frankie murdered my sister four years ago before scurrying away like the rat he is.”
“She should’ve introduced us like I wanted, and I wouldn’t have had to kill her,” Frankie says, an edge in his voice. Fear? Is Frankie so afraid of Jack that everything he’s done the last few years was reactionary? I look back at my brother as a cold sweat beads on his forehead, and his chin trembles slightly. “No one knows how to do their fucking job, but I persevered. I made something of myself.”
“Mmm, but you’re wrong, Frankie. You’re alone. You have no one you can trust, even the gang you joined. You have no one that tells you, ‘I believe in you just because you open your eyes in the morning,” Jack’s eyes find mine, softening, and my own well with tears. “You have no one that makes you want to be better. You have no one who you’ll be hurt by losing. You are alone. You’re addicted to the fear now because it’s the only way you can survive. You’re worse than your father, and I pity you.”
I hold my breath when the barrel of the gun leaves my temple, but I can’t relax when Frankie props the weapon against my hip. Alarm bells ring in my head, but they’re drowned out by the horriblebangof a shot. My body rattles, and I automatically jerk away before the wind knocks from my lungs. As hot blood stings my cold skin, pain rips through my upper abdomen, making me gag and gasp. Falling over, I clutch my side as shock rakes up my spine, and the world spins in slow motion as Jack leaps for Frankie.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
