Chapter 23
FRANKIE
Charlie and I are tied up with torn bedsheets and made to sit on the floor against the bed while two of the men have a short conversation.
Black spots flash behind my eyes as a wave of dizziness washes over me.
Charlie leans her shoulder against mine.
Her breathing is rapid, yet soft, and I wish she’d say something so I could be comforted by her voice.
But neither of us wants attention right now.
Besides, the third man just came back trailing the sickening scent of gasoline, and I need to pay attention.
Gasoline gives us a cursory glance and then tells the others, “We’re changing the plan.”
“That wasn’t the agreement,” the shortest of the three says. “We burn it down to ash.”
A small whimper escapes my throat, my pulse pounding so hard I feel dizzy.
As they continue to argue, it becomes obvious that they were sent here to set fire to the house—so that my piece of shit father can claim the insurance money.
And from the sounds of it, there won’t be anything left afterward.
Our childhood home, and everything in it, will be destroyed.
Even worse: Charlie and I are now a liability. There weren’t supposed to be any witnesses. I can feel my sister’s body go taut as a wire next to me as the men bicker about what to do with us.
Gasoline finally grabs the smaller man by his coat collar and shoves him against the wall. “Don’t you get it, asshole? We have the wives of two very rich men in our hands. We’ll get a hell of a lot more from them than trying to burn down this shithole for the insurance.”
“I’m in,” the other man, who looks like a ‘roided-up gym rat, agrees. “Insurance payout’s gonna takes months, and if Abbott gets caught—if he’s in jail—we don’t get paid. But we ransom these bitches, we might just get the money we’re owed after all. With interest.”
He leers at both of us. It makes me think the “interest” he has in mind isn’t monetary.
The other two men turn their eyes to us. Charlie trembles. I instinctively move to embrace her, but my wrists are bound behind my back and I can’t move. Anger punches through the fear inside me. How dare these fuckers tie us up and talk about us like we’re meat for the auction block?
“You have no idea who our husbands are, do you?” I say, glaring. “They don’t make deals with petty criminals.”
“Frankie!” Charlie whispers frantically. “Stop talking.”
Gasoline bends down until we’re face-to-face. He might have been handsome once, before decades of hard living and fights. Now he’s just a goon with something dead in his gaze.
“I am petty,” he tells me menacingly. “Petty as hell. And I know exactly who your husband is. He’ll pay.” He backs up and paces the room as he continues to talk. “And if I don’t get what I’m owed? I’ll get my payment another way. Maybe a few pounds of flesh.”
Turning toward us again, he takes a gun out of his jacket pocket and sets it on the dresser with a heavy clunk. At the sight of the weapon, the blood drains from my face.
When he comes back over, he crouches down and slides a hand into my robe, groping my bare breast with a harsh squeeze.
I throw myself back, struggling to get away, but he slaps me hard across the face.
The violence reminds me all too much of my father.
I cry out in fury as heat blooms in my cheek.
Gasoline tugs open my robe, and this time I don’t resist—but Charlie slams into him with her shoulder, desperate to stop him.
It’s enough to knock him off balance, but then he turns on her and punches her in the side of the head.
The sting on my face is nothing compared to the horror of seeing Charlie’s body crumple to the carpet. She lands on her side, not moving.
“Charlie!”
Gasoline rakes a hand through my hair, grabbing a handful and using it to drag me to my feet, his grip so hard that my scalp almost screams. With my arms bound behind me, I lose my balance and stumble into an antique dressing table.
The corner spears into my side, and I cry out at the shooting pain that goes through me. Maybe I’ve cracked a rib.
Unmoved, Gasoline wraps a hand around my upper arm and shoves me toward the other men. I drop to the floor before either of them catches me, my kneecaps taking the impact.
“Take them downstairs,” Gasoline orders. “The house still has to be rid of any valuables before we light it up. And you”—he turns back to me—“you two don’t act right, you’ll burn with it.”
Charlie moans. It’s an awful yet beautiful sound. Thank God she’s alive.
As we’re dragged down the stairs by the short, stocky man and the musclebound thug, I start to feel a wave of nausea washing over me. My face goes hot and sweaty, and the familiar lower back pain I’ve been hit with lately suddenly comes back full force.
When they shove us to the floor in the living room, the throb in my side rips into a sharp, blazing slice that makes my stomach cramp so hard it takes my breath away.
Wincing from the force of it, I clench my muscles in an attempt to hold the pain back, but it does nothing.
A low moan comes out of me, nausea burning my throat.
“Shut up and don’t fuckin’ move,” the gym rat says, and the two of them go back upstairs.
I’m in so much pain, I’m hyperventilating now.
“What is it?” Charlie asks, angling her body toward me. “Talk to me, Frankie. What hurts?”
My voice shakes as I tell her, “My stomach is…stabbing. And I have cramps. Like period cramps, but…more. Stronger.”
Tears are streaming down my face, but Charlie shushes me. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“I feel like I’m going to pass out,” I gasp through quiet sobs. “I think it’s the baby. Something’s wrong.”
The look on my sister’s face confirms my fear. She’s thinking it, too. And she would know all the signs of a miscarriage.
“You’re not going to pass out,” she says briskly. “Come on. Stay with me. Let’s take some slow, deep breaths, okay?”
She inches her way over to me, gently resting her head against mine.
“With me, come on. Breathe in…” She pulls in a slow breath through her nose, holds it for a few seconds, and then lets it out of her mouth. “And out. In…and out.”
I try to mimic her, but I’m crying too hard to be able to take very deep breaths.
“You’re doing great,” Charlie says, even though I know I’m not.
Heavy footfalls sound on the floor above us. Something crashes to the floor. The assholes are thumping around up there, trying to find anything of value to steal before the house goes up in flames. I hear glass breaking, and then something heavy comes toppling down the stairs.
Fresh tears wet my cheeks. This used to be my home.
And as broken as it maybe was, it’s still the place I grew up with my sisters.
Where we learned to stick together and watch out for one another like we’re doing right now.
As much as I hate the man who calls himself our father, this house still means something to me, and it’s killing me that intruders are smashing my childhood to pieces and stealing what they don’t destroy. And if I lose the lima bean—
“I don’t want to lose my baby,” I murmur. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t. You’re not losing anyone. They’ll come for us; I know it.”
Charlie is blinking back tears, too. We can’t embrace. We can’t do anything but bow our heads together.
“Do you still have your phone?” I hiss, suddenly remembering that I’d seen her tuck it into her robe after the FaceTime was over.
She shakes her head. “It’s still upstairs. I left it on the bathroom counter.”
“Fuck. How did they even get around winery security? That’s the part I don’t get. There are regular patrols around the whole property.”
Charlie frowns. “Patrols? What the hell is going on?”
“Someone’s been threatening the Bellantis,” I admit.
“Whoever took out Enzo tried to go after Marco next, but they got…intercepted first. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but…
we have a whole crew of mafia men stationed around Bellanti Vineyards and the Abbott compound 24/7. They’re supposed to be protecting us.”
“I never saw anyone here while I was setting up earlier,” Charlie says. “You think it’s a problem with shift changes, or is something else going on? This isn’t adding up.”
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice weakening as another cramp rips through me.
Urgent footfalls clomp down the stairs. My body stiffens in reaction, but the thug turns the other way, ignoring us.
We’re not making it out of this unharmed.
I feel this in my bones. These men won’t think twice about harming my baby or raping Charlie and me.
And then they’ll dump our bodies so we don’t become liabilities.
Even if they can figure out how to get away with ransoming us, they’ll never actually turn us over in the end. We’re dead.
Rain begins ticking on the roof, a branch slapping against the window. Another man comes flying down the stairs and into the living room. It’s the smaller, stocky one. He grabs Charlie by the upper arm. She shrieks, then recoils as if expecting a slap. His hand is raised, but he doesn’t let it fly.
“Tell me where all the good shit’s hidden,” he demands.
A hysterical laugh gurgles from my mouth as the combination of fear, shock, and rage comes to a head. “You think there’s anything of value left in this house? Our old man sold anything worth the price of a beer.”
Even his own daughter.
“You’re lying,” the man says. “A house like this? There’s money in these walls.”
“Look around! This place is falling apart. We used to have expensive paintings and furniture and family heirlooms, but they’re long gone.
Every wall has been stripped,” I tell him, disgust seeping into my tone.
“Hell, he even disconnected the original plumbing in the basement and sold it for the going price of copper. We didn’t have running water for three months. ”
“There’s nothing,” Charlie adds quietly.
I’m about to tell the guy to let go of my sister and fuck off, but suddenly my stomach cramps again, a fresh well of pain flooding my abdomen and lower back. There’s nothing I can do but moan in agony.
“Frankie!” my sister calls out, but her voice sounds far away.
Black spots dance in my vision as my entire body becomes a world of pain.