The Promise

by Kristen Ashley

  “Right. Later, Sal.”

  “Later, figlio. And Benny?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re a good man.”

  Great.

  He had approval from Salvatore Giglia.

  Sal disconnected.

  Ben went to find a bigger bag.

  * * * * *

  “What?” Frankie asked on a muted scream thirty minutes later when Ben was in his SUV, heading down to the ’burg. He’d called Frankie to tell her he was coming for an extended visit.

  She sounded partly freaked, mostly excited.

  He liked the excited, wasn’t big on the freaked, and more, wasn’t big on the fact that when she found out why he was coming down, that freaked would get freaked.

  “I’m headed your way. I’ll be at your place around the time you’ll be at your place and I’ll explain everything when I see you.”

  She sounded a lot less excited and now quietly freaked when she asked, “Explain everything about what?”

  “Babe, I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Absolutely not.

  “I’ll see you in a few hours and explain it to you then.”

  “Is Theresa okay?” she pushed.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Vinnie?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “Manny and Sela?”

  “Everyone’s okay, Frankie,” he said patiently. “There’s just somethin’ you need to know and somethin’ I need to do.”

  She gave him a beat of silence before she stated, “This is weird, Benny.”

  “I know, baby. But I’m not sayin’ anything while you’re at work. A few hours, you’ll have the story.”

  “While I’m at work?” she asked leadingly.

  “Babe,” he said a lot less patiently. “I’ll. Explain. Everything. When I see you.”

  “Yeesh, Ben. Come on. You’re bein’ mystery man. I’m gonna be curious,” she replied.

  Ben sighed.

  “Oh shit,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “I’m going out with Cheryl tonight.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Ben, honey, she’s lookin’ forward to this.”

  “She can look forward to it another night.”

  “I love you. I want to see you. I’ve been away from you not three days and I’m freakin’ thrilled I’m gonna go home and you’ll be there, or I’ll be there and you’ll be there right after me. But she’s a sister. You don’t tell a sister who needs to get laid you can’t be her wingman, bagging on her last-minute.”

  “You cannot be serious,” Ben stated, hoping she was not.

  “I totally am.” Her voice lowered when she finished, “I’m sorry, honey. Hopefully she’ll hook up fast and I’ll get home early.”

  Ben made another decision. “I’m comin’ with.”

  “Holy crap, you can’t do that,” she returned immediately, sounding shocked. “I can’t be a wingman with my boyfriend with me.”

  Ben clenched his teeth.

  Then he said, “We’ll talk about this later too.”

  She read his tone and he knew it when she replied, “Probably a good idea.”

  “Leave at five, babe.”

  “Like you’re headed down here and I’ll kick back and clean out my inbox,” she murmured.

  “Frankie?” he called.

  “What?” she answered.

  “The answer to ‘leave at five, babe’ is ‘all right, honey,’” he informed her.

  “Annoying,” she muttered.

  At that, he grinned.

  Then he said, “See you soon.”

  “All right, honey.”

  At that, he chuckled.

  And after he told her he loved her and got it in return, he disconnected.

  * * * * *

  Ben had just let himself into Frankie’s place, minimized the devastation Gus could make by putting him in her guestroom, got a beer and was taking a tug, when he dropped his chin and the bottle and caught sight through her living room window of her Z sliding into her parking space.

  He put the beer on her bar, headed to her door and through it, and the instant he came out from the recess of her front door, he saw her stop walking from her Z and start skip-running.

  On heels.

  Fucking Frankie.

  He smiled.

  She smiled back, threw herself in his arms, and banged him hard with her computer bag on his bicep.

  “Oh, sorry,” she whispered, her face close to his.

  He said nothing.

  This was because he didn’t give a fuck about her bag hitting him, but he did give a fuck about the fact that her mouth was close.

  So he ignored the first and took advantage of the second.

  He broke the clinch, took her bag from her, then took her hand and pulled her into her apartment.

  She threw her keys on the table by the door and moved in, turning the second she cleared the entryway, saying, “Well?”

  “You wanna get changed?” he asked, bending to set her bag on the floor against the wall by the table.

  He also saw she was wearing spike-heeled slingback pumps and another business-type dress, high neck, short sleeves, black.

  Skintight.

  Short.

  Jesus.

  “I wanna know why I got a Benny Bianchi surprise visit,” she answered.

  “You wanna get a beer first?”

  “I already answered that question.”

  “You wanna let me get my beer and relax after the drive, seein’ as I got here about five minutes before you?”

  “Benny,” she snapped.

  “Not even ten seconds, baby,” he said softly, moving toward the kitchen and right to his bottle of beer.

  She didn’t follow, just pivoted, so when he took a pull and turned to her, she was facing him.

  “Well?” she repeated.

  “A while ago, I did something.”

  Her body went still and there was a look on her face he didn’t get and couldn’t read. It was the first time in a long time she gave him a look he couldn’t read. Especially one like this one.

  One that was not good.

  “What’d you do?” she asked.

  “You told me that guy in your company got whacked, so I went to Sal to see if he could find out who did it and maybe find out why.”

  He could read her face then. Her eyes got huge and her mouth dropped open.

  She snapped it shut to ask, “You went to Sal?”

  “Yep.”

  “For a favor?”

  “He and Gina are invited to our wedding.”

  At that, her face got soft, her eyes warmed, and the tenseness in her body loosened so much, he braced to catch her if she folded to the floor.

  “Our wedding?” she asked softly.

  That’s when he got the reaction.

  “You might wanna shack up for the rest of our lives, but I don’t wanna put up with Ma’s shit if we do somethin’ like that,” he replied. “Not to mention, I want a lifetime of catching sight of my rings on your finger. So yeah, that’s where we’re heading. Our wedding.”

  That got him love and marvel, like she couldn’t believe he was real and she couldn’t believe her luck, and he fucking loved that. Loved it.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t take advantage of it in that moment.

  “I think I wanna kiss you all over,” she said quietly, and he grinned, preferring her to do that but needing to get this shit done first.

  “You wanna know what this is all about?” he asked.

  “Okay, I think I wanna kiss you all over after you tell me what this is all about,” she amended, and his grin grew into a smile.

  He felt it fade when he shared, “Not sure you’re gonna be in that mood when I’m done, baby.”

  “Oh shit,” she replied.

  “You wanna sit down?” he offered.

  “Do I need to sit down?”

  “My guess? D
efinitely. With a beer. At least.”

  “Oh shit,” she repeated.

  “Sit down, cara. I’ll get you your beer.”

  She gave him a long look, then moved to her couch. A big, overstuffed, pillowy, muted green couch that was unbelievably comfortable and would look great in his living room with her muted blue, overstuffed, pillowy armchair and ottoman. Not to mention switching out her ace square coffee table with his beaten-up rectangular one. Partly because it was ace, partly because it wasn’t beaten-up, but mostly because it was bigger and would hold a lot more shit, like beer bottles and bags of chips.

  He was nixing her purple wingback chair, mostly because it was purple and partly because he was keeping his recliner.

  When he came to her with her opened beer, she was in that muted green couch, shoes off, legs curled underneath her.

  He gave her the beer, sat down next to her, and shoved his fingers in the bend of her knee, yanking her closer and keeping his hand there.

  “You know a guy named Peter Furlock?” he asked, and her brows drew together as her head tilted to the side.

  “No.”

  “He works at Wyler Pharmaceuticals.”

  “Okay,” she replied slowly, her gaze turning alert and her body again getting wired.

  “He’s a computer guy and Sal found out he’s had a hit put out on him.”

  She gasped, her eyes going huge in a way that was still cute but he didn’t like as much, and she cried, “Oh my God, Benny!”

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “Did you call the cops?”

  He drew in breath, held her eyes, and answered, “I can’t, baby. Sal got this intel. Sal put himself and his name out there to get it. We don’t know what’s goin’ on or who’s behind it. The hit isn’t interrupted by anyone but Sal, Sal is gonna be vulnerable, and Sal doesn’t like to be vulnerable.”

  “Shit,” she mumbled, getting it. Then she focused intently on him and asked slowly, “And you’re okay with that?”

  “I’m okay with it ’cause Sal’s lookin’ after this Furlock guy. He’s also lookin’ into this whole situation fully. And if I wasn’t okay with it, then Sal wouldn’t be okay with me, and I’m about two months away from bein’ really fuckin’ happy. I don’t need that shit, but more, we don’t need it.”

  She looked worried. “Do you think he’ll take care of this Peter guy?”

  “I think Sal would not make me live with a decision he’s gotta know I didn’t like very much and let this Peter guy swing.”

  “Okay, I…okay…” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

  “Sal doesn’t get it either. But he’s goin’ to and I’m gonna help.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Your colleague, the guy who does the East Coast sales, he’s bangin’ his secretary.”

  Her eyes went huge again as she breathed, “How do you know that?”

  He cocked his head to the side. “You know that?”

  “No, I was guessing,” she told him.

  “Were you guessing in a way that anyone around could make that guess?” he asked.

  “Probably. They’re not out about it, but body language and the time they spend together screams it.”

  “Is that frowned on in the company?”

  “Well, I was pretty good at reading my employee handbook when I started, Ben, but I didn’t memorize it. That said, even if it wasn’t against policy, it’s still frowned on.”

  “If Bierman has that on your sales guy for the East, does he have leverage over him?”

  Her hand lifted to her mouth, and through it, she said, “Oh my God.”

  That meant yes.

  He studied her and decided to lay the easy fix on her.

  “Frankie, baby, this sucks. I hate sayin’ it to you, but the entire drive down, I’ve been tryin’ to think about the best way to end this for you, to get you safe, and that best way is you got no choice but to quit.”

  Her hand dropped. “What?”

  “Babe, that place is a mess, a bad one—hits-taken-out-on-people bad. You gotta get the fuck out.”

  “But I need a job, Benny.”

  “Work at the restaurant until you find one.” Her eyes started to get squinty so Ben gave her knee a yank to make his point, even as he said, “Francesca, your co-workers are getting investigated by PIs for doin’ the dirty with their secretaries and hits are being taken out on them. You got…to get…the fuck out.”

  “It’s Tenrix,” she said absurdly.

  “Come again?” he asked, and she scooted even closer to him, her knee on his thigh, her hand on his chest.

  “Listen, Benny, what I know is, Bierman is obsessed with Tenrix, the product we’re launching at the end of the year. He’s gung ho on the salespeople pushing it and it hasn’t even been launched. My boss is not letting him get up in our shit about it and he’s also pushing him to get information that couldn’t be found on the servers about the product. The information was finally handed over, but the files might have been tampered with. The lead scientist on that projected was murdered, a professional hit for what seems like no reason. And now some random IT guy has a hit out on him.”

  “You’re tellin’ me this because…?” he prompted.

  “I’m tellin’ you this because I’m thinking that IT guy is the guy who was talking with Tandy and the other girls in the parking lot the day I told her to stand down and advise the others to do the same. They didn’t look like they were discussing where they were going to have a drink after they all decided to stop sticking their noses into shit. They looked like they were discussing the shit they had their noses into.”

  “So she didn’t stand down,” Ben noted. “Like I said before, babe, her consequences.”

  She shook her head and got closer.

  “No, Ben, what I’m sayin’ is, the IT guy might be able to ascertain if the files were tampered with. And if he has access to the servers and backups, he might be able to get his hands on the original files.”

  “Babe, I’ll say it again, this is not your problem or your business, and it would be less of your business if you quit and came home to Chicago.”

  “Benny,” she said quietly. “You aren’t gettin’ me. Important files about a pharmaceutical product that’s soon to be launched have been tampered with. The scientist heading the project is dead.” She got even closer. “Ben, I think there’s something we don’t know about Tenrix, and there shouldn’t be anything you don’t know about a drug. In development phase, everything is strictly confidential. But once it’s out there, it has to be transparent. And the only thing to hide about a drug that’s imminently being rolled out is that drug is dangerous.”

  He stared at her. “Who would hide shit like that?”

  “Bierman, the director of research and development, who might get a rather hefty bonus for a successful launch of a product and who has been backing this product for years.”

  “Putting unknown numbers of people who take that drug at risk?” Benny asked, unable to wrap his head around someone doing something that unbelievably dickish.

  “It’s highly likely the side effects that are dangerous don’t occur in the entirety of the subjects that took it or they wouldn’t be able to hide it. It’s probably that it happens very rarely and only came out in the later phases of the trials, which could mean the longer the drug is taken, that’s when the adverse effect is experienced. And at this juncture, dumping Tenrix, the loss of capital on that product would be colossal.”

  “That makes it okay?” Ben pushed.

  “No,” Frankie answered. “But for someone like Bierman, it might make it worth the risk.”

  “The FDA has to approve that shit, Frankie.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “But what did they approve?”

  “Fuck,” Benny whispered, getting what she was saying.

  “If that drug is dangerous, Ben, I can’t let it launch.”

  Fuck.

  There it was. Frankie getti
ng a wild hair and wanting to get involved.

  “You’re not stickin’ your nose in this,” he stated.

  Her eyes got wide again, and this time, it was in a way he absolutely did not like.

  “So I leave, turn my back on this, Bierman succeeds in getting Tenrix launched, and people in a couple of months of taking that drug, or a couple of years, or a couple of decades, suffer unknown consequences? Consequences that were worth quashing data and two men getting dead?”

  “I thought you said your boss has his own concerns.”

  “Yeah, but you blow the whistle on something like this, you gotta prove there’s been a foul on the play. You can’t make allegations without anything concrete backing it.”

  “So let him find the concrete.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  He turned to her and shot back, “And what if you do?” He lifted a hand, curled it around her neck, and yanked her closer so they were near nose-to-nose. “This guy is desperate enough for this drug to go through, he’s killin’ people and you’re already on the firing line ’cause he wants to take down your boss who’s askin’ questions. You get involved in a deeper way, what will he do?”

  Her eyes slid to either side before coming back to his when she announced, “That’s where you and Sal come in.”

  He dropped his hand and sat back in the couch, resting his head on the top to look at the ceiling, before he muttered, “Fuck me.”

  He lifted his head when he felt Frankie positioning to straddle his lap, something she set her beer aside and yanked her skirt up to do. A dirty play since he liked her there too much, he liked her skirt up around her hips more, she knew it, and she hadn’t even started talking yet.

  Then she started talking.

  “I’d like to talk to Lloyd, but I can’t. Not yet. Not this early. I’d like to talk to Colt, but I can’t do that either without throwing Sal under the bus. So what I have to do is talk to Tandy, speed shit up, get just enough that it won’t make it look like seriously nasty office politics if I go to Lloyd with my concerns about Bierman. It can’t be hard to find. Nurses worked on those trials all over the country. There have to be witnesses, data, files, and not all on a computer. This drug has been in testing for ages. There has to be something.”

  He looked into her eyes and stated, “You do know that I carried you through a forest with you bleedin’ from a gunshot wound.”