Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Frankie
“It’s been a week, Franks. Don’t you even want to at least know what he has to say for himself?”
I close my eyes, the pain still fresh despite the days that have passed. My mind keeps replaying what I found on that laptop—the security footage from Pretty Kitties that showed my father’s body in a private dance room. And then Foxy...
I squeeze my eyes tighter and cover my mouth with my hands, willing my stomach not to revolt as I remember watching her wrap my father’s body in plastic sheeting. She didn’t even flinch. It was like… like she’d done it a hundred times, and it was just another day at work.
“Aww, babe. I’m sorry.”
“Bane was involved, Trin.” My voice breaks on his name. Knowing that he was part of everything—the cover-up, the lies—while I slept with him makes me feel like I somehow betrayed my father. Like I danced on his grave with the enemy without even knowing it.
“But he said—”
I narrow my puffy eyes at Trinity, staring at her through the FaceTime connection. “No.”
Trinity leans closer to her web camera, her expression softening. “You look like shit.”
Some of my anger fades away as my nose wrinkles in mock offense. “With a bestie like you, who needs enemies?”
Trinity laughs. “You love me because I always keep it one hundred with you.”
“You’re the only one I can trust.” And it’s true.
Trinity sighs. “Now you’re just being dramatic, babe.”
“Am not! Everyone I thought I could trust lied to me. Bane most of all, and I hate him for it.” I hate him for making me love him. I hate that he looked me in the eye every day and said nothing.
A knock on my door interrupts my thoughts. “I’ll call you back later,” I tell Trinity, disconnecting before she can protest.
Wiping my eyes, I check the peephole, and my stomach drops.
Foxy.
Part of me wants to pretend I’m not home, but I know she’s too smart for that. Steeling myself, I pull the door open but make no move to invite her in. “You’ve got a lot of damn nerve.”
“Frankie,” she sighs, her eyes pleading. “Can I come in? Please?”
I cross my arms over my chest, making it clear that I have no intention of letting her inside my apartment.
She nods, accepting the boundary. “Fair enough.” Shifting nervously, she wipes her hands on her shorts. It’s strange seeing her so unsure of herself. The Foxy I know is all bad ass bitch and sass.
“Well...” I pop a brow.
“Right.” She shakes her head like she’s trying to organize her thoughts. “It’s Bane,” she throws out a hand animatedly as she starts to pace in a small circle on my doorstep. “He’s... It’s bad, Frankie. I’ve never seen him like this.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with me,” I say, starting to feel dizzy watching her.
Foxy comes to a stop and smiles sadly. “Please, Frankie. If you could talk to him, maybe—”
Has she lost her fucking mind? “No. NO!” The anger that’s been simmering inside me for days boils over. “I don’t owe any of you anything.”
“You don’t,” she agrees quickly, holding up her hands in surrender. “I was just hoping... He’s drinking and doing stupid shit.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I say, hating that it’s probably true. “He has Destiny.”
I remember what Destiny said to me that day at the clubhouse, her words cutting deeper than she could have known. I’ll be back in his bed when he’s done with you.
Foxy drops her gaze to the floor, and what’s left of my heart shatters into a million pieces. Guess it’s already true. Good to know I meant so little to him that he didn’t even wait a week before welcoming her back into his bed.
“You should go,” I manage, my throat tight with unshed tears.
“He’s my family, Frankie,” she begs.
I laugh bitterly at the fucking nerve. She’s pleading with me to go out of my way for her family when she helped destroy mine.
“You know what, Foxy?”
Her eyes spark with hope.
“Fuck you.”
Before she can respond, I shut the door in her face and slide down it onto the floor.
How could they? How could they make me feel like I belonged when they knew none of it was real?
“I hate you,” I sob as deep, wrenching sobs are ripped from my very soul.
I cry for my father, who I now know never abandoned me. I cry for the weeks I spent hating him, believing he’d walked out of my life without a backward glance.
I cry for myself, for being so naive, for falling for a man who could look me in the eyes every day knowing what his club had done.
And, lord help me, I cry for Bane. For what might have been if things had been different. If he’d told me the truth from the beginning.
But he didn’t, and I can’t forgive that.
No matter how much my heart aches for him.
The next morning I force myself into the shower, scrubbing away the tears and self-pity. I can’t keep living like this, can’t keep hiding in my apartment.
Wrapping a towel around myself, I march into the kitchen and grab my laptop. I haven’t touched it since I got back to my apartment, too afraid of what else I might find if I started digging deeper. But now I need answers—real answers, not the sanitized version the Kings tried to feed me.
I need to know exactly what happened to my father.
Settling at the kitchen table, I boot up my system and get to work. I may not have access to the Kings’ secure server anymore, but I don’t need it. There are other ways to get information.
Hours pass as I work, piecing together fragments of information. According to what I found on the Kings’ server, my father was meeting with the Sinners at the Pretty Kitties the night he died. Something went wrong. There was a fight, and my father ended up dead.
But why was he meeting with them in the first place? What business did the mayor of Odin have with an outlaw motorcycle club?
My eyes burn from staring at the screen, but I keep pushing. I need to know.
Opening a file on my father’s personal server, I start scrolling through meeting minutes, public records, and financial disclosures.
And then I see it.
A series of wire transfers from an offshore account to my father’s personal bank account. Large sums of money, too. Fifty thousand here, seventy-five thousand there. Money that can’t be explained by his salary as the Mayor of Odin.
The deeper I dig, the worse it gets.
Shit. Running my hands through my hair, I lean back in my chair. “Shit.”
My father was taking bribes from every player in the game. The Sinners. The Kings. Some Russian named Ivan, that’s his contact with the Valenciaga family.
The same family that’s running a human trafficking ring in Odin with the Sinners.
My blood runs cold.
My father was helping them—maybe looking the other way while they operated in Odin, maybe providing some kind of cover. Whatever it was, he was involved with them.
“What happened, Daddy?” I whisper, wondering what changed. He met with the Sinners at the Pretty Kitties, and he ended up dead.
Did he try to back out? Did he threaten to expose them? Or did he simply outlive his usefulness?
Biting my lip, I debate what to do next. I could leave all of this alone and never look back, which would be the smart move. Or I could go back to the Kings and find out the truth.
All of it.