Chapter 12 - Jonathan
JONATHAN
I’d been maintaining a heart-stopping level of rage for hours.
Though I’d cooled my exterior off enough to only show my usual level of mild annoyance, I still felt like my insides would explode if someone looked at me wrong.
Or really, if they looked at Frankie wrong. Hell, if anyone but Alex, Devin, or I looked at her at all, they’d have to answer for it with blood. No one threatened her or anyone she loved without hell to pay. She was under our protection.
It was more than that, too.
But I didn’t have time to consider what the ache in my chest meant, or what the hell I should do about it, since it was more important that we find whichever spineless son of a bitch had dared to threaten a woman like Lois Taylor.
The second Devin told me about the threatening mailbox note, my idea had been to move Frankie to my house.
Partly out of some feral protective instinct that wanted her as close to me as possible, but also because I couldn’t rule out that we were being watched at Alex’s penthouse if whoever had sent the note knew she’d be visiting her mom that day.
Frankie had just about demanded not to be moved without her mom, which made sense. I’d have done the same for my family.
Loyalty was something I understood in my bones, something carved into me by blood and violence and the brutal expectations of my father. Frankie had it naturally. Purely.
Maybe that was why the rage in my chest felt so personal. Someone had threatened a woman who raised a daughter like Frankie—steady, brave, sweet.
It took a lot of convincing, but Frankie eventually accepted that it’d be best to keep Lois in the dark about the danger for now. Especially for her fragile health.
Stress couldn’t be good for her.
When we finally got her back to the penthouse, the four of us gathered in the living room.
Frankie stood near the windows, hugging her arms around herself.
Devin leaned against the bar, pretending to be relaxed. Alex sat stiffly on the sofa, cold and unmoving as ever.
“Alright.” I let my voice fill the room. “We need to talk about what happens next. For your safety, Frankie.”
Frankie looked over her shoulder at me, her expression tired but defiant.
She had a secret firecracker energy to her that drew me in just as much as the sweet innocence did. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Devin said immediately.
Alex added, “It’s not a matter of opinion.”
Frankie’s fingers tightened around her arms. “I mean, I’m scared, but it can’t be that serious, can it? How much harm can a note do?”
I exchanged a look with the guys. We knew damn well how much harm the people who sent that note could do. Maybe someone from Ferrara’s crew, maybe a rogue Antonov grunt, or some entirely unknown threat, which would be even worse.
But we couldn’t exactly tell Frankie everything we were involved in.
She’d be safer if she was out of the loop, or at least that was the logic we’d been following until this point.
And sure, part of it was that I didn’t want to see the look on her face when she realized exactly what kind of men she’d been sold to at that auction.
Somehow, I doubted any amount of mind-bending sex could make her okay with fucking criminals.
Devin tried first. “Angel, you need to trust us on this. There’s a bigger picture here you don’t need to worry about, because you need to let us worry about it. Complications. Stuff that spills into other places.”
It was vague and more serious than Devin usually allowed himself to get. That alone probably set off some alarm bells for Frankie.
“Complications,” she repeated flatly.
“That’s one word for it,” I said. God, this whole thing was useless. A waste of precious time. But the planning I needed to do with Alex and Devin was too sensitive for Frankie’s ears, and none of us wanted to leave her alone yet, so we were at the world’s most irritating impasse.
Her stare sharpened, her own frustration growing unbearable, and I struggled not to get distracted by the attractive flush her emotions painted across her skin.
“What kind of complication threatens my mother’s life and mine?
” She looked at each of us in turn. “What the hell is any of this supposed to mean?”
Silence. Thick and suffocating. She was too smart and too perceptive for us to keep skating on half-truths, but what other choice did we have?
My rage was threatening to boil over with every second.
Not at her, but at the whole bullshit life I’d allowed her to be dragged into.
She let out a breath, shaking her head. “I swear, the three of you talk like you’re in some kind of—”
She froze. I saw it hit her, saw the puzzle pieces slam together behind her brown eyes. I almost relished the oncoming disaster.
“Oh, my god,” she whispered. “I knew it. I knew there was something weird going on.” Her gaze bounced between us. “You’re really in—in the mafia, or something”
Devin muttered, “There it is.”
Alex didn’t deny it. He never denied the truth.
I just stared her down, my gaze unwavering even as I uselessly wished for some way out of this mess. Fuck.
Frankie’s breath trembled. I could see a rising tide of panic threatening to sweep her under. But I could see the way she resolved not to let it, too. The girl was a goddamn superhero.
“Of course you’re criminals. Because who else would have been at the auction? Because why would I meet normal men? Why would my life be simple?” She let out a long-suffering sigh, then a half-laugh of a realization. “I work at a library.”
I could see the absurdity of it getting to her. It almost made me want to laugh, too, but I still had the knowledge of her life being in danger holding me steady with rage.
None of us had any response, and that pause gave her a moment to shift gears.
Accusation was her next tactic.
Her voice pitched upward as she pointed a shaking finger at me, making my brow raise automatically, a string pulled.
“You,” Frankie said. “I should’ve known with you. Your whole hot darkness thing. That…swagger. You’re like a textbook mafia guy. Like something out of a movie.”
Devin laughed, and he didn’t shut up when I shot him a warning glare. If anything, it made him laugh harder.
“And you’re about as sneaky as a wrecking ball,” Frankie said, turning her guns to him now.
“Hey,” Devin protested, offended. “I’m subtle.”
“No, you’re not!”
Alex snorted under his breath.
Frankie groaned aloud. ”And Alex has organized crime written all over him, too. I just hoped…I don’t know. Evil CEO.”
“A decent guess,” Alex agreed wryly.
“God, how could I let myself believe anything else?” Her voice cracked and something inside me did, too.
“Sweetheart—” I tried to break in, surprising myself with the gentleness of my voice, but she shook her head took a quick step back.
“No. No, I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I just want my life back. My job. My boring routine. My own bed. I can’t believe—”
“Your own bed?” Devin broke in, voicing what we all were thinking.
“What, is our bed not satisfying you enough, angel?” He was smirking now.
Like fucking always. His smirk turned to Alex, then to me, full of a scheming energy he used often in our line of work.
“Maybe we should try a little harder, guys.”
Frankie’s entire face turned bright red.
My mouth curved before I could stop it. She wore that blush like a blanket, soft and warm, like she didn’t have any idea how tempting she was.
How badly the three of us wanted to devour her right here, right now.
The idea of trying harder to show her our bed was where she belonged…
yeah, that sent a tingle of anticipation crawling through my blood.
Frankie sputtered, “I—I didn’t mean—not like that—”
Alex murmured, “Mm. Sounds like she did.”
She groaned miserably into her hands.
I stepped close enough that she had to look at me. “Frankie,” I said quietly, firmly. “Listen.”
She lifted her chin, furious and embarrassed and still trembling.
“You can be angry at us. You can hate that we didn’t tell you, and that we pulled you into this world, though I think you were in it long before your father forced you to the auction, you just didn’t know it yet.
But what you don’t get to do is pretend nothing’s happening.
You don’t get to go back to your normal routine now. It’s too late for that.”
She bristled instantly. “Excuse me?”
“You heard him.” Devin moved behind her and resting a hand on her hip.
Alex rose from the sofa, his voice low. “It’s not safe. And you know it now.”
I cupped her jaw, tilting her face gently toward mine. “You stay with us. You listen to us. You don’t take risks. That’s how this goes now.”
Her lips parted, breath shaky. “Jonathan…you can’t just—”
“Yes.” My voice drops into command. “I can. And I will.”
Because there was no universe where I let her walk back into danger. Not when someone out there was watching. Not when history told me that note was just a warning shot. And not when she meant what she meant to me.
Frankie swallowed. Her anger flickered, her body betraying her even as her mind rebelled. The tension between us pulled tighter, hotter, unavoidable.
“I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate being told what to do.”
“You don’t hate it when we’re the ones doing the telling,” Devin murmured against her ear.
A tiny shiver ran through her.
Alex stepped closer, his voice like dark velvet. “You love to obey. To surrender.”
Frankie stared up at me—frustrated, overwhelmed, wanting despite herself.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said softly. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until we’ve dealt with the threat.”
Her breath hitched.
“And until then”—I brushed my thumb across her lower lip— “you’re staying right here. With us.”
Her lashes fluttered.
Just like that, the fight melted into something hotter, deeper, reckless and inevitable. The danger outside didn’t matter. Her protests didn’t matter. What mattered was the way she leaned into my touch, the way her pulse leaped under my fingers.
“We’ll take care of you, angel,” I murmured. “In every way.”
The look she gave me—half defiance, half surrender—promised exactly where this was heading.