29 - Frankie
29
Frankie
—
An inhuman bellow of rage singes the air, sending a chill across my scalp.
“No!” I spin, slamming into Kody’s chest.
His arms come around me. Behind him, Leo stalks toward the drunk man with a calmness that lifts the hairs on my nape.
“Whoa!” The man’s hands fly up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to—”
A fist cracks across his face, whipping his head to the side in a spray of blood. His body follows the momentum, crashing onto a table and breaking it.
“Leo, no!” Pulse spiking, I shove against Kody’s grip. “Stop!”
Leo tackles the man to the floor, letting his fists fly in a haze of homicidal fury. Over and over, his knuckles connect with sickening thuds, a Viking waging all-out war.
Kody breaks away in a blur, joining in the assault, his strikes precise and relentless.
The man sprawls beneath them, his cries drowned by the sounds of smacking flesh and cracking bones.
“Stop it! Both of you!” I shriek, my voice lost in the chaos as I try to wrestle them away. “Please, stop!”
They don’t hear me. Don’t feel me pulling on them. I’m not strong enough, and they’re lost in their rage, their need to protect me overshadowing all reason.
Blood splatters, and sweat and tears permeate the dining room, painting a grotesque picture of their wrath.
“You’re going to kill him!” I scream louder, my vocal cords burning.
The crowd recoils in horror, their whispers of alarm jangling in my chest.
When I hear someone mention the cops, I know this will only get messier. And soon. The police station is a block away.
The urge to vomit the nerves in my stomach overwhelms me. I whirl toward the entrance to alert Carl and Jasper. But they’re already inside, shoving through the crush of bodies.
They grab at Kody and Leo, trying to pull them off the man, but it’s like separating wolves from their prey.
My mind wails.
Kody whirls on Carl, his fist connecting with the man’s jaw with a crunch. Carl stumbles back, clutching his face, blood seeping through his fingers.
Every nerve ending fires with fear as I search for a safe way to end this. I’m at a loss.
Jasper lunges at Leo, who twists and lands a vicious kick to the man’s midsection, skidding him across the floor.
The guards fight back, their efforts becoming more desperate. Carl locks down Kody’s arm, twisting it behind his back.
“Kody!” I rush in, attempting to capture his eyes. “Look at me! Calm down!”
He roars in fury, his free hand swinging back to strike Carl’s temple, and the impact crashes the guard into a nearby table.
Leo snarls, eyes wild, as he takes down Jasper with a swift, brutal punch to the gut.
The sound of sirens just outside the door sends a ripple through the crowd.
A man shouts, “The cops are here!”
Tears sting my eyes, and my throat closes.
They’re going to jail. They’ll be handcuffed and separated from me. That won’t go well.
The guards redouble their efforts, finally managing to subdue Kody and Leo with the help of reinforcements from the crowd.
In the end, it takes eight men to wrestle them to the ground, their bodies still thrashing, breaking my heart.
Blood and sweat slick their skin, their breaths coming in harsh, ragged gasps. Pinned to the floor on their stomachs with several men kneeling on their backs, they look battered and bruised and absolutely terrifying, like avenging gods in the aftermath of battle.
A flurry erupts outside the front door.
The cops.
I have less than five seconds to prepare them for what’s about to happen.
Dropping to my knees beside their prone positions, I rest my hands on them and talk fast. “Listen carefully. You’re going to be arrested, handcuffed, and taken to jail. Remain silent and ask for your lawyer. You’ll turn over your IDs and give your name and address, but do not say anything else. Don’t talk to the officers. Don’t talk to your cellmates. Assume every conversation will be recorded and used against you.” Spotting the approaching police, I rush through the rest. “Don’t unlock your phone for them. They need a warrant for that. You’ll be searched, photographed, and fingerprinted. Don’t resist.”
“Step back, ma’am.” An officer nudges me away as four others climb over Leo and Kody.
Handcuffs click into place, the sound of cold metal shattering through me with harsh reality.
Their possessive glares stay with me, and slowly, their bloodlust fades, replaced with a startling realization.
They’re going to be taken away from me.
I edge closer, squeezing through the mob as they’re hauled to their feet.
“I won’t be able to see you until Monty arrives, and maybe not even then.” A sob rises, and I choke it down. “You’ll probably spend the night in jail.”
Maybe longer.
“What about you?” Leo clenches his jaw, teeth grinding to hold back a roar.
“I’ll stay with the guards until Monty arrives. I’m fine.”
I’m not fine.
I’m barely holding it together.
“I love you.” Lunging past the nearest cop, I crash into Leo and take his blood-soaked face in my hands. “Remember what I said. The lawyer will fix this.”
As they rip him from my grip, I reach for Kody, capturing his elbow for a brief moment before they take him, too.
I watch, helpless and trembling, as they’re dragged away, their eyes burning into mine until they’re forced out the door and into the back of a police car.
The man they attacked lies on the floor, a mauled mess of blood and bruises, as paramedics treat him.
One drunken mistake nearly cost him his life.
The consequences of their actions compress my chest, making it hard to breathe. I brought them to this. It’s me. I’m at the center of every brawl, my presence the catalyst for their rage. They have aggression issues, and I make it worse.
I want to cry, to beg for forgiveness, but the sounds die in my throat. This is my curse, my never-ending cycle of pain and retribution.
The chaos in the restaurant closes in around me, diners murmuring in shock, employees cleaning broken furniture, and officers taking statements.
“We need to call Monty.” Carl sits on a stool, his face bloody from Kody’s fist, as a paramedic tends to him.
“I’ll do it.” I glance around for a quiet corner.
It’s too loud in here. The noise, the panic…I can’t hear myself think.
“I’m stepping outside to make the call,” I say to Jasper, my voice trembling.
He nods and gestures for me to lead the way.
“Are you okay?” I give him a clinical once-over.
“Yeah.” He smirks. “Just another day in the office.”
Outside, the drizzling summer rain pricks my skin like needles.
I step beneath an overhang and pull out my phone, my hands shaking. As I scroll to Monty’s number, my phone buzzes with an incoming call from an unknown number.
My lungs seize. My heart stops, and sinking dread buckles my stomach.
Jasper notices my hesitation and glances at the screen. “Answer it on speaker.”
The security team knows about the threats. Monty made sure of it after the text messages.
I nod, swallowing hard as I accept the call and switch it to speaker. “Hello?”
“You’re not alone, little girl.” Cold and mechanical, a computerized female voice trickles down my spine. “I’m here, always watching. You can try to stay out of my way, but I’ll get you, my pretty. I’ll come for you and your guard dogs, too.”
“Who is this?” My stomach wrenches.
“When you call Daddy Strakh to bail out your dogs, ask him who hid those flight logs in Rurik’s wine cellar.”
The call ends abruptly, leaving me in stunned silence.
Jasper’s eyes harden, and he looks around, expecting danger to materialize from the shadows.
My breath bursts in shredded gasps, panic rising in my chest.
Someone is watching. How else would they know I was alone?
If I can monitor Monty, maybe he’s doing the same thing to me.
“Can you give me privacy while I call my husband?” I angle my screen away from Jasper.
“I’ll be right over there.” He strides a few feet away to stand beneath another overhang.
My insides turn inside out as I launch the home monitoring app and open the most recent motion-activated recordings.
Instantly, I locate him in his bathroom, in the shower, and oh, damn, Monty.
He stands with his feet braced apart and a hand planted on the wall while his other works his cock, stroking himself aggressively, brutally to completion.
His head drops back, his jaw clenched tight, and although I have the live video muted, I know exactly what those gravelly, orgasmic groans sound like as they scrape past his lips.
Fuck.
He’s not the stalker. I have the proof right here.
He couldn’t have called me while he’s in the shower, jerking off. I don’t care how horny he is, he can’t come that fast. Unless the phone was in his hand when he started.
I don’t see it in the bathroom. The camera angle encompasses the entire space.
Only one way to know for sure.
With a shiver, I keep the video open and call his phone.
His head snaps toward the doorway, and he slams off the water. He doesn’t bother with a towel as he charges toward the camera, bringing those rippled washboard abs closer, and closer, filling my entire phone screen.
My breath hangs in my throat. All I see is the thin, dark trail that leads to the semi-hard cock that I worshiped for three years.
Montgomery Loshad Strakh, you wicked, gorgeous man. What am I going to do with you?
His real name still sounds foreign to me, but it fits.
He’s built like a sculpted Russian god of seduction and fucks with all the stamina and endurance of a stallion.
Damn him.
I hate how violently he can still make my body react. It feels like cheating.
Cheating on my lovers with my husband.
He steps out of the bathroom, out of view, breaking the spell.
Shit!
I quickly close the app and hold the phone to my ear.
“Frankie,” he answers, out of breath. “What’s wrong?”
“Leo and Kody were arrested.”