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Checking his phone, he read the messages again.
Then again
And again.
The last words from his family.
The only clues he had of who did this.
Find Frankie.
Who the hell was Frankie?
Searching his memory, he tried to recall. Frankie?
Realization dawned.
The girl he would walk down the aisle with, Francesca, his new sisters-in-law’s youngest sister.
Wait.
She wasn’t there?
That meant two of them were alive.
He had to find her and keep her that way.
“I love you, son. Marry her.”
Of course, his mother’s final words to him would be an order to do the one thing he told her he would never do.
A lone tear stung his eye as he came to the end of the bodies.
There were two together, their hands interlocked. He knew, without uncovering them, they were his parents. They were very much in love, had spent their entire lives holding hands, and had died the same way they had lived.
Kneeling, he carefully uncovered their hands. He didn’t want to see their faces, not like this. He wanted to remember them alive and in love. Confirming it was indeed his parents, he slipped off their wedding rings. Removing his dog tags from under his shirt, he slipped their rings on top of them, reattached the latch, and put the necklace back on. He felt the weight of the added jewelry on his skin, next to his heart.
“Yes, Ma. I’ll find Frankie and marry her. I’ll keep her safe and protect her. I promise.” Whether or not she wants it. Her wishes meant little to him at the moment. He swore the promise over his mother’s dead body, and nothing, short of his own death, would keep him from fulfilling it.
“Pa, I’ll merge our families like you wanted. I will get retaliation on whoever did this to us. I give you my word.”
Shane spun on his heels, got into the truck, and slammed the door. Tires spinning as he left the grounds, he made one more promise.
They made a big mistake leaving me alive. I won’t stop until I find out who did this and put each one down.
Frankie
Her earphones in and swaying to the music, Frankie was enjoying having the large backyard garden to herself. Her father often reminded her they had hired help to pull the weeds and trim the bushes, but she found the tasks therapeutic. After her nonna passed away, her father had remodeled the garden, but Frankie had begged her father to leave her grandmother’s roses alone. He had given in without much of a fight, knowing what they meant to his youngest daughter.
Unlike her older sisters, she didn’t ask her father for many things. Give her a broken-in pair of jeans and a soft t-shirt, and she was happy. It set her apart from her older sisters and not in a good way. They had picked on her mercilessly for years. If she wasn’t her mother’s doppelgänger, she would have been convinced they had adopted her.
Ow!
Her wandering thoughts caused her to miss the weed she had reached for and grabbing a thorn instead. Falling backward onto her butt, she stuck her bleeding finger into her mouth. A darkening cloud fell over her, blocking the sun. The two shoes stopping before her told her it was a man, not a rain cloud blocking the light.
Weird.
She had left her family at brunch. She was alone. Glancing up, she took in the sheer size of this stranger. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. No, handsome wasn’t the right word for the masculine beast casting a shadow.
