Silva came to break up the quarrel before any blood was shed, but even without Frank and Bella having to put aside their differences and join together against the Cardinal’s guards of Frank’s imagination, they’d still bonded like those illustrious friends, and became inseparable.
He sat on the bed and took the nail polish from his husband before Vincent made it any worse. “When we’re through here, I want you to come back with us. Stay with us in France.”
Bella sat up, lifting the vegetables away from her eyes and snatching the nail polish from his hand. “I think you’ve sniffed enough of that.”
“I agree,” Vincent said.
“Malkolm will take charge the second Silva is dead. He will have you killed!”
“I can take care of myself.” She swung her feet off the bed, nearly kicking him in the face in the process.
“Like before?”
“Fuck you, Frankie.”
“I don’t know this story,” Vincent piped in.
Frank briefly put his hand on V’s mouth, shushing him for the moment. “I mean it. You cannot do this forever, Bella.” He had put the idea in her head. She would have a couple of weeks to think on it, and hopefully she would be too distraught over Silva’s death to put up a fight.
“Just because you gave up doesn’t mean I have to. And using Vincent as an excuse is a fucking cop-out. You left because you wanted to fucking leave. He was still working. He wasn’t pushing for retirement.” She went to wash her face, pretending not to hear over the sound of running water.
The inevitable argument over retirement would be a major one, the type of row that ended in tears and separate bedrooms. Frank was not looking forward to it, and sat for several minutes in silence, waiting for it to begin.
Vincent crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re supposed to consult me before inviting someone to stay. It’s my house too.”
He nodded obediently. Vincent was not looking forward to the fight either. He briefly set his hand on Vincent's back and kissed his head as he stood. “I’m going to call Maggie.” They had already decided to wait awhile before letting Bella know that Casey was okay. It was only fair. “Stay here, s’il te plaît.”
Frank went down to the garage before dialing, sitting in the driver’s seat of Vincent’s new toy. Squeezing the three of them into another tiny sports car for the drive back would be terribly unpleasant. There was less room in the Ferrari than there had been in Bella’s Maserati.
As the call rang through, he remained torn between wanting, and dreading, to speak with Casey. He held his breath until Maggie answered, sighing with the realization that he was not nearly as torn as he had thought. He resisted the temptation to ask for her son. It would have to be sufficient to ask about him.
“Hi, honey, it took Vincent long enough to relay the message.”
“Phone trouble.”
“Don’t start.”
“How is he?”
“In love,” Maggie grumbled. “He wants to go to Prague.”
Frank’s blood went cold. Casey. In Prague. Searching for Bella. Showing dangerous-looking men a sketch of his missing beloved, have you seen this woman? “Tell me you’ve talked him out of it.”
“Of course I did! Jesus, Frank,” she scolded. “Listen, Casey said something I wanted to run by you. Is it okay if we talk about…you know…on the telephone?”
With all the events of the past weeks, Frank had forgotten how little she knew about his world. If only it had stayed that way. “Be vague.”
“Well, Casey thought that maybe it was his daddy who ordered the…H-word. I mean, Rick did hate Gideon with a purple passion and—”
“For fuck’s sakes,” Frank said. He hadn’t even considered Rick. It was completely logical, and had he not known exactly who ordered the H-word, he would have felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. But he hadn’t thought of it. Casey had. Bella poisoned his mind. He was ruined. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
“No, I think he may have a point.”
“You let Casey say that about his father? What is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?” She had a heat to her voice that would have certainly come with a slap had he been there in person.
“His father had nothing to do with this, Maggie. Nothing!” He hung up and threw his phone against the dashboard, which did so little damage he had to get out of the car and throw it again. He was ready to go and stomp on it when he felt a presence behind him, and he spun around with his gun pointed. Joe Russell.
“I heard you were back.”
“Likewise,” Frank said, lowering his pistol. “You should know better than to sneak up on people.”
“You should know better than to let anyone sneak up on you. Women troubles?”
“No,” Frank said. Joe despised all things female. He couldn’t blame him, not after Joe’s wife deliberately poisoned herself and their young son with carbon monoxide in Joe’s car. But Frank also could not sympathize with someone who spied on him, no matter how loud his conversation had been. “Mind your own business.”
Joe smiled wanly and limped away. He always moved slower when it was cold out. Frank had had many broken bones over the years, but never all at once. He could only imagine the pain Joe must have still been in, all these years later, to have had them all broken together.
Frank picked up the pieces of his cell phone, only then realizing that he had grabbed V’s phone instead. This was one way of saving money on their phone bill. Another way would be cutting off contact with their American friends. Permanently.
Chapter Forty
Queer men were supposed to be naturals at all things cosmetic. Vincent hadn’t earned his tour. “You owe me,” Bella said, stepping into a pair of closed-toe Manolo Blahnik boots with a six-inch heel. She’d paint his toenails to punish him for her bad pedicure.
“Do you really think Frank was using my accident as an excuse to retire?”
Accident. That was a laugh. People didn’t get pummeled half to death on accident. Although she could see plenty of reason to harm him on purpose. “Frankie thrives on boredom. That’s why he reads so fucking much.”
She took Vincent's arm and they strolled out of her room. She called off nicknames of the occupants as they traveled down the hall, “There lives fuckhead, who got shot, and stupid fuck, who should be shot, and that room used to belong to Sir fucking idiot, I don’t know why he was here but he’s gone now.”
“Can we find the kitchen?”
She dragged him onto the stairway and paused, knowing that he’d appreciate this portion of the tour if nothing else. “This is where Frankie was standing the first time I saw him.”
Vincent was suddenly all smiles, an eager tourist. “He hasn’t told me this story.”
“If you’d shut up I’d fucking tell you.”
He pouted, which always made her want to choke him. Vincent’s neck was perfect for strangling. It was so skinny it barely supported his big head.
“Silva called me home once Frankie was here. I’d been in Ibiza, Silva’s way of apologizing for Malkolm.”
“You did that to Malkolm?” he asked, giving strength to Frankie’s argument of his supposed intelligence.
“Aye. We were gonna blow up a mark, and Malkolm said I couldn’t make a proper bomb because I was a girl. I happened to have been taught by the best bomb maker in the IR-fucking-A, so there you go.”
“Sounds like a girly bomb to me if that’s all the damage it did.”
She stomped hard on his foot with her heel, releasing his arm so he could fall without bringing her down. “If I’d wanted to blow him to pieces, I fucking would have!”
He gave her an insolent look as he rubbed his foot. “Prove it.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Vincent got back up, letting her take his arm once again and limping exaggeratedly down the stairs with her. They bypassed the second floor and made a beeline towards the weapons room.
Th
e first time she’d brought Frankie in there he looked around distastefully before picking a slim switchblade and a segment of piano wire. Vincent went straight for guns bigger than he was. Bella ignored his failed attempts to reach a rocket launcher on the tall display shelf while she collected supplies.
“Silva thought Frankie and I would get along. That’s why he called me. He needed someone to look after him while he was learning.” She smiled to herself. Frankie had come there to save his old fuck friend Charlie with an old fuck gun that didn’t even work. A house full of armed men, and all he could’ve done was bludgeon them. It was a good thing she hadn’t been there. She would’ve given him a worse beating than Boris just for being stupid. “The men on guard duty didn’t know me. We have an entry code so everyone can come and go. I was in, I knew the code, but Malkolm wanted to play fucking games. He told them I was intruding.” She hadn't been frightened so much as fucking pissed off that he would pull that shite with her. She would've taken as many of them with her as she could, and Silva would've killed the rest. “Frankie came downstairs to defend me, all fucked up and barely able to walk.”
“What happened to him?” Vincent asked, only then letting his attention drift fully from the toys.
She laughed. “He didn’t know the code. They beat the shite out of him. And his clothes! He was wearing secondhand fucking hideous pants and one of Charlie’s filthy shirts.”
Vincent shuddered. She’d shuddered too. “Then I yelled at him for defending me, for being chivalrous but mostly because his outfit was that fucking awful. And Frankie said ‘I wasn’t coming down here to save you, I was coming down here to shut you up.’” She’d liked that he talked back to her. She had every intention of molding him in her image, and taking him as a lover. Then she’d seen him drooling over a waifish blond male model in one of her fashion magazines and realized he was a lost cause.
Bella led his waifish blond husband to the front of the house. “If there’s anything in the car that you want to keep, take it now.” The fire was mostly out, and her Maserati was reduced to a blackened shell of smoking metal and melted leather upholstery. It didn’t smell like piss now.
Vincent touched the hood with his head lowered, lamenting the car like it was his own. She hadn’t considered that it would upset him. Not that it would’ve stopped her from torching it if she had. He went around the car and pried the trunk open, holding up blackened garbage. “Can we go put this in the other car?”
“Go ahead.” She started preparing her explosives.
“I’m not supposed to be by myself.”
She rolled her eyes. She didn’t know why Frankie was even letting her babysit after what she did to the last one. They still hadn't heard from Casey. Where was he? “No one’s going to hurt you. Except maybe Karl. If you see him, shoot first.”
“I’m telling Silva that you’re the one who gave me permission if I have to kill him.”
“I didn’t say kill, I said shoot.” As if little Vincent could kill Karl. Frankie couldn’t even kill him. But she would pay good money to watch Vincent try. “Go on then,” she said with a smile. “I’m right behind you.”
Chapter Forty-One
It was fortunate that Frank had left the keys downstairs so I could get into the trunk of my new car, but I’d still have to yell at him for not safeguarding my property. If I could get Bella to corroborate my story, that is. She’d just as soon tell him I was by myself to get me in trouble.
“It’s Vincent, isn’t it?”
I gasped at the stranger’s voice and turned around, shaming myself for only getting permission to maim. There was no way this guy wouldn’t die if I shot him. He looked like a rickety old rocking chair. Still, having an American, obviously an American standing before me, was comforting. He was wearing an un-tucked flannel shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, and behind his wire-framed glasses were tired but kind brown eyes.
“Yeah, I’m Vincent.” I sat against the trunk, not particularly concerned for either of our safety.
“I had a feeling that Frank was traveling with someone. His habits changed. All those cars were for you, right?”
I felt my eyebrows raise right off my face, like in the reveal moment of soap operas when lovers turn out to be relatives. “You were Frank’s associate?” When Frank was teaching me to drive, we’d smashed BMW after BMW to rid me of my car crash phobias. But Charlie had been out of town, and despite his usual patience Frank didn’t like waiting when it came to transportation.
Frank had told me that he didn’t trust this particular associate, and forced me to make myself scarce when he showed up. I’d defied his direct orders and stuck around to protect him when the car was delivered, appointing myself as Frank’s bodyguard as if there was anything I could do actually to help him.
I’d seen his associate, and he’d looked at me, and Frank was so mad when he found out that we’d gotten into one of the biggest arguments we’d had before or since. Then we ended up fucking on the furniture, so really I should’ve been thanking this guy.
“Joe Russell,” he said, and held out his hand.
By his face, I would’ve said he was in his late forties. But his hands and his body movements were those of a man twice that age. His fingers were crooked and arthritic like Charlie’s had been. Even though I usually aimed for pain when I shook hands to prove that I was butch, I took his hand like he was my grandmother.
“We saw each other.” I remembered how hard I was trying to be cool and spy on him, only to have him look right at me.
“Yes. You got on the 42 bus. Rode it in a loop all the way back to Frank’s hotel.”
Shit. “You followed me?”
“I did.”
“Frank would kill me if he found out!”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Frank would also kill Joe if he found out. “Thanks.”
“Frank’s a good guy. I’ve always liked Frank.”
“He doesn’t like you.”
“Yes, I know.”
I chewed my lip. I felt sorry for Joe. He seemed like a nice guy. Certainly nicer than Charlie had been. “It’s just because you’re not Charlie.”
“Yes, I know that as well. He was very loyal to Charlie, even though Charlie was far from loyal to him. When I saw you at the bus stop, I thought Charlie might’ve been setting Frank up. It wouldn’t be the first time he got a teenager to do his dirty work.”
Frank had been doing Charlie’s dirty work since he was fifteen. “You really remember the bus route?”
“I do. It was part of my job to notice suspicious things. You were suspicious.”
I smiled. “You were protecting him.” People always got protective of Frank. Anyone who looked at him could tell that he could handle himself, but if you actually got close enough to him, you saw that he was a bit off. There were times when Frank just wasn’t present. Like when he’d focus so hard on a hit that he’d forget to eat for two days.
“That was also part of my job.” It was weird to think of Joe doing the same thing as Charlie. The old man hadn’t exactly been a spring chicken, but at least he was mobile. Joe was so…weary. He practically creaked when he moved.
“You had to come all the way to the Czech Republic to be redundant?” I asked, realizing how bad it sounded only after the words were out of my mouth. Like usual.
He smiled just slightly, like someone who didn't have much to smile about these days. “Silva decided not to fill Frank’s position. It left little for me to do.”
“I’m sure you could find something to do in America. Not that I’m complaining about Prague. Or wherever this is, outside Prague. It’s nice enough, if that’s your thing. They have a big clock.”
“That they do.”
“Where are you from?”
“Originally? Las Vegas.”
“And you say there’s nothing to do in America,” I laughed. Frank had never taken me near Las Vegas. That was probably a good thing. “I’m from Illinois.”
&n
bsp; “Is that where you and Frank met?”
“Yeah, in Chicago. Did you know that we were…together?”
“I figured as much when you bought him flowers the day after I saw you.”
I groaned and held my head. Frank was really going to kill me! We had changed hotels specifically to avoid Joe. “We got into an argument. About you. Well, about me not listening to him and getting seen by you. I broke his nose. That’s what the flowers were for.”
He snickered. “Romantic.”
Joe was about to say something else when a sound louder than a hundred gunshots bellowed through the air, shaking the walls and setting off the alarms of every car in the garage. It made my body hurt. I could only imagine the effect it had on Joe. I yelled, “That was Bella!” I was barely able to hear myself. He clenched his jaw, his eyes seething. I pressed the button to turn off our car’s alarm. It did little to alleviate the noise. “Maybe we should—”
The door leading into the garage opened, revealing Malkolm, who had an expression of hatred on his face equal to Joe’s. Karl slithered in behind him, like he hadn’t even noticed the noise. He honed right in on me. Without Frank.
He drew out a knife from his inside jacket pocket and pointed it at me. I would’ve bet my allowance that was the knife Frank had stabbed him with.
Joe pulled his gun as Karl took a step forward. “Don’t.”
Karl stopped his approach but otherwise completely ignored Joe, focusing on me and saying something in Russian. He nodded his head along with his monologue as if he was greatly pleased by whatever he was saying, then he kissed the knife, leaving it pressed against his lips. Blood pearled around the tip of the blade as his lips spread in a repulsive smile, and he laughed, baring a mouthful of red teeth.
I looked away, hating myself for letting him intimidate me but that’s exactly what he accomplished. Every time I saw my scar, I thought about how it had felt to have that knife inside of me. Not the first wound, where it was strictly self defense, but the damage Henry had inflicted for his own enjoyment. It was violating, the penetration of the knife and the control Henry had over how much I suffered. The control he had over my life. It didn’t help that Frank hadn’t recovered from my attack either, and was still keeping his distance from me.
Les Recidivists (Chance Assassin Book 2) Page 24
