Chapter 21 Frankie
FRANKIE
I lied when I said I was going to the bathroom. I must have been getting better at this bad habit after all. The guys were a bad influence in that way.
I didn’t even try hard to make it look convincing; didn’t ask someone in stilted, amateur French where I could find the salle de bain, didn’t pretend I planned to come back.
I just ducked around the nearest shelf, wove through a cluster of whispering tourists, and slipped out the front door of Shakespeare & Company with my heart rattling in my chest.
The second the cool Paris air hit me, I almost turned right back around. But my throat was aching, my face pinched tight from trying not to cry in front of them.
If I stayed, if I let Alex see even a single tear, he’d probably twist it into something humiliating. Or worse, he wouldn’t care at all.
So I kept walking. The tears started to fall, hot and fast and embarrassing, even when I was alone.
If I’d been in a better mood, I might’ve appreciated the little details of the street—the sunlight glinting off the river, the accordion music somewhere in the distance, the flutter of a pigeon hopping between café tables.
But everything blurred through the wetness clinging to my lashes. Instead of magical, Paris suddenly felt too big, too cold, too empty without the three men I’d come here with.
And I felt stupid. God, I felt so stupid. Why did it hurt so much, what Alex had said? He’d just been stating a fact.
We bought you.
He hadn’t said it gently. No regret in the words, either, or in those icy blue eyes I’d started to see as beautiful and crystalline instead of cold, almost scary.
He’d said it like he wanted to ruin me a little.
Like my happiness irritated him.
The worst part was that I knew he was right. I just didn’t know he still thought of me, of us, as a transaction.
“I should’ve gotten my money and run,” I whispered to myself pitifully, thinking back on the first night I’d stayed in the guys’ bed, the tumultuous journey we’d been on since. I should’ve tried to get away before they’d ever touched me.
Maybe someone stronger, a woman with the fortitude to handle three men in the freaking mafia, would’ve been able to do that.
I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing my palms up and down my sleeves as I drifted aimlessly away from the bookstore.
People passed me—couples laughing, families pointing at landmarks. Everyone else seemed to fit into this postcard version of the city.
I felt like a smudge across the bottom corner.
Some part of me knew Jonathan and Devin were probably panicking right now. And Alex, well, he was probably angry. I didn’t know which was worse.
“You’re someone we bought.”
The words replayed like some poisonous lullaby.
It wasn’t as though he’d said anything untrue. I was technically their prisoner. I might’ve gotten used to nicer hotels and better food and Declarations of Protection? that came wrapped in affection, but, at the end of the day, they owned me.
So why did it feel like he’d punched through something fragile inside me?
Maybe because I’d let myself forget.
I ducked down a side street, then another, not really paying attention to where I was going. My thoughts kept spiraling.
Was this Stockholm Syndrome? Was I falling for people who literally kidnapped me? Was I some kind of idiot who confused survival instinct with romance?
Did I want them to love me?
God. Was I falling in love with them?
A fresh wave of tears burned my eyes.
I wiped them away impatiently and looked around, trying to get my bearings. The buildings all looked similar—old stone facades, wrought-iron balconies, little chalkboard menus outside bistros. It was pretty, sure, but also confusing in the way mazes are confusing.
I turned around, hoping to spot the Seine, the bookstore’s green shutters, something. But the street behind me looked as unfamiliar as the one in front.
Okay. Great. I’d gotten myself lost in Paris.
Panic crept into my chest like cold water seeping under a locked door.
I reached for my phone before remembering I didn’t have international data. The guys had said to stick with them if I needed to call or navigate anything. And now they weren’t here.
Because I’d run.
And now I was alone.
A shaky breath escaped me. “Okay. Calm down. Just retrace your steps.”
Except I couldn’t remember which way I’d come. Everything had blurred together while I was busy wallowing in emotional meltdown territory. I took one hesitant step back the way I thought I’d walked from—
“Bonsoir, jolie fille.”
I flinched.
A man leaned in the doorway of a nearby shop, dark eyes raking over me with unmistakable interest. He pushed off the wall and approached, his smile too smooth, too practiced.
“Uh…hi,” I said carefully.
He said something else in French, low and lilting, but I had no idea what it meant. My confused look made his smile widen.
“You are…tourist, yes?”
I swallowed. “Yes. I’m fine, though. I’m just—just going.”
I tried to step past him, but he shifted to block my path.
“You are lost?” He switched to accented English that would have sounded almost charming if my heart weren’t pounding in my throat. “I can help you. Pretty girl like you should not walk alone.”
“I’m okay,” I repeated, firmer. “My friends are waiting for me.”
“Friends?” He chuckled and leaned in closer. “Then why are you crying?”
His hand lifted—too fast, too familiar—and brushed my cheek with the back of his knuckles.
I jerked back immediately. “Don’t touch me.”
He didn’t listen.
He stepped closer, crowding into me, murmuring something about how beautiful I was, how he could show me a good time, how American girls liked—
“No,” I snapped, voice breaking. “Please. Leave me alone.”
He grabbed my wrist.
The sound that came out of me was somewhere between a gasp and a cry. I tried to pull back, tried to twist away, but he just gripped tighter, pulling me closer, his other hand sliding toward my waist and—
“Get your hands off her.”
The voice hit like thunder.
I didn’t even have time to turn fully before the man was ripped away from me—ripped—like Alex had materialized out of thin air.
My back hit the wall behind me as the two men crashed into each other, Alex slamming the stranger into the pavement with a force that made my stomach drop.
“Alex,” I choked out, disoriented, shaking so hard I could barely speak.
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at anything except the man he’d already pinned, his expression pure fury.
The stranger tried to scramble up, but Alex grabbed him by the collar and punched him. Hard. Once, twice, three times.
Everything blurred.
I couldn’t follow what was happening—the sound of fists hitting flesh, the man groaning, Alex snarling something in English and maybe Russian, I wasn’t sure.
My vision wavered with tears.
My knees trembled.
I slid down the wall until I was crouching, palms pressed to the cold stone as if it might steady the world.
The man eventually went limp.
Alex shoved him away and rose to his feet, chest heaving, jaw clenched so tightly a pulse jumped along the edge of it.
Then he spun toward me.
The second he saw my face—whatever rage had been burning him alive flickered, dimmed, softened.
“Frankie.”
My name sounded raw in his throat.
He was beside me in two strides, crouching in front of me, hands hovering like he wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure if he had the right.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded. “Did he touch you—did he—”
“I’m fine,” I whispered, even though fine was absolutely the last thing I was. “I’m okay. I just… I didn’t know where I was. And he—”
My voice crumbled.
Alex’s expression twisted. Not anger—something closer to anguish.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “I shouldn’t have let you walk away. I should’ve followed you. I—fucking hell—”
His hand finally closed around mine, warm and firm and grounding. I let him pull me up, my legs unsteady.
“Come here,” he murmured, and before I could protest he pulled me into his chest.
Despite everything, maybe because of the exhausting adrenaline I was becoming too used to these days, I sank into him, fingers clutching the back of his jacket like he was the last solid thing in the world.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Just breathing. Just existing in the same space, heartbeat to heartbeat.
Then he pulled back slightly, his thumb brushing the corner of my eye where tears still clung.
“Why did you run off?” he asked quietly.
I stiffened.
There it was—the anger. The scolding. The promise of consequences in his tone. Heat prickled up my neck.
“I needed space,” I muttered. “You—you hurt me. And I didn’t want to cry in front of you.”
His jaw tightened. But not with irritation.
With guilt.
“Frankie…” He exhaled slowly, looking away for a moment like gathering the courage to say the next part. “What I said back there—it was cruel. I knew it the second it left my mouth.”
“You keep pushing,” I said helplessly, wanting to cry again but fighting it. “Pushing me. Away, that is.”
He was quiet, then nodded. He didn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t know why I do that. Why I push you away. Why I hurt you when I—”
He stopped himself.
When he what?
His eyes lifted to mine, stark and vulnerable in a way that made my breath catch.
“I’m not good with…affection,” he said quietly.
“Kindness. I grew up in a house where weakness got punished, not cared for. People in the Antonov family, the one I was born into…they’re not even like the Buteras.
They don’t love each other—they keep score.
So when you look at me like you trust me, like I’m someone worth…
anything…I don’t know what to do with it. ”
My heart twisted.
“You didn’t have to be mean,” I whispered.
“I know.” His voice was steady as the solid ice of his eyes, but it was no less sincere for it. “And I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
That was a new, unsurprising thing I learned about Alex—when he apologized, it wasn’t flowery or dramatic. It was raw. Teeth-bared. Real. And somehow, that sincerity was so much more disarming.
He lifted my hand and pressed it to his chest, over his racing heart.
“Please don’t run from me again,” he said, softer. “Punish me, scream at me, anything—just don’t disappear.”
I swallowed hard. “You don’t get to tell me what to feel.”
His mouth tilted in a pained half-smile. “No. But I can ask.”
Something in me eased.
“Okay,” I whispered.
His shoulders dropped with relief. The tiniest relaxation. No one else would have noticed it. No one else would get close enough to try.
We started walking—slowly, side by side. The sky was turning lavender, the first stars peeking through the dusk. Alex kept close, not touching me but radiating protective heat like a shield.
After a few blocks, he cleared his throat.
“There’s a place,” he said. “Not far from here. If you want…I’d like to take you.”
“Take me where?”
“A club,” he said. “Not loud. Not crowded. Just—somewhere I can make tonight up to you. Somewhere I can show you that I meant what I said. That I’m trying.”
He didn’t look at me when he said it.
I stared at him for a long second. The street lamps threw gold across his cheekbones, making him look almost unreal. Dangerous. Beautiful.
And heartbreakingly earnest.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Take me.”
We found our way to a dingy door that led us inside a dark jazz bar. The club was tucked down a side street, a jewel-box of stained glass and velvet curtains, music drifting through the doorway like warm honey, mixing with a soft clanking of chords, low voices, and clinking glasses.
It felt intimate. Safe. Hidden. Somehow, the clandestine nature of it also reminded me a little too much of that door I’d walked through on the night of the auction.
The threshold I’d passed that changed the course of my entire life.
Alex held the door for me, his fingers brushing the small of my back as I stepped inside. The touch sent a shiver through me.
Inside, lanterns glowed amber, casting shadows like melted gold. A trio played on a small stage—a cello, a piano, a voice like smoke.
“This is beautiful,” I whispered.
Alex watched me instead of the décor. “Yeah,” he murmured. “It is.”
We found a booth in the corner, plush velvet that pulled us close together without even trying. My thigh brushed his. He didn’t move away.
Neither did I.
For a moment, I just listened to the music, letting it wrap around me, letting the fear and hurt drain out slowly.
Then Alex leaned in, close enough that his breath warmed my cheek.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured. “I want to do better with you. For you. I want to understand what it means to—”
He faltered.
“To care about someone,” he finished quietly.
My heart squeezed.
“Alex,” I whispered, “you already do.”
His eyes flicked down to my lips.
“Frankie,” he breathed, “tell me no. If you want me to stop, tell me no.”
But I didn’t tell him no. I leaned in.
When he kissed me, slow and reverent and hungry all at once, it felt like stepping into the warm glow of the entire city. Paris itself softened around us. Maybe fairy tales weren’t such impossible things after all.