Long Live the King (An Italian Mafia Romance Duet #2) (26 page)

Frankie hesitates for a moment, obviously upset over not being able to retaliate yet.

“Okay, Dominic,” he says softly. “You got it.”

Frankie turns on his heel and starts for the door, but I stop him.

“Frankie,” I say, “I trust you. You know that, right?”

Frankie glances at me, then Alannah, then back to me.

“Yeah, Dominic. I know you do,” he replies with his signature scowl, then he walks out the door, gently closing it behind him.

Dominic

“I
t’s open.”

Frankie pushes the door open slowly, looking around the room as he enters. He has a scowl on his face. Something in him is different than when he left, and I don’t have a good feeling about it.

I expected it, though.

“Where’s Alannah?” he asks, still looking around the room.

“She left. We needed some stuff from River City, so she had to go get it,” I reply, breathing a sigh of relief that my explanation keeps him from investigating the room any further.

Frankie nods his head as if he’s giving me some sort of approval, then he takes off his leather jacket, revealing a nine millimeter housed in a harness that wraps around his shoulder. He stands at the foot of the bed constantly nodding his head, convincing himself of something I can’t see. I feel my nerves starting to flare as he puts his hands on his hips and looks around the room, everywhere except at me.

“So,” I start, treading lightly. “What’d you find out?”

Frankie finally brings his eyes down to me, his mouth twisted into a sinister scowl as he lets out a loud exhale. This is definitely not the same Frankie that left the room a few hours ago.

“What’d I find out?” he repeats, nodding his head, working up the courage to say whatever he’s thinking. “Well, for starters, as far as Victor is concerned, you were right. Victor gave Giovanni the order to take a shot at you, and the Commission gave him the okay to do it.”

“Well, at least I know I was right about something,” I reply. I sit up in the bed as best I can, trying not to put too much pressure on my leg and shoulder. “But you said that was for starters. There’s more?”

Frankie’s muscles stiffen as he prepares to answer.

“Yeah, there’s more. As much as it fucking sickens me, there’s more.”

I swallow hard as the temperature in the room feels like it just went up twenty degrees.

“As I was finishing talking to Big Sal about Victor and the Commission, I got a call from one of my guys who works in the St. Louis Police Department. He says they got a call about a fire in an abandoned house in E. St. Louis, right off the bridge.”

My heart nearly explodes in my chest, but I can’t do anything now but listen to Frankie tell me what I already know. I was worried he’d run into this info, and it turns out I was right.

“He tells me when they finally put the fire out,” Frankie continues, nearly snarling with anger, “there was almost nothing left. Except inside, there was a body. Tommy’s body.”

Suddenly, Frankie reaches his hand up as fast as a lightning strike and rips the gun from the holster. He aims it at my face, his grip tight on the handle, and his finger trembling on the trigger.

“You knew Tommy was dead!” he snaps. “When I asked if we should tell him, I could see it in your face, you knew he was already dead. It wasn’t about trust for me, it was about Tommy already being gone! Now you better tell me what the fuck happened to Tommy.”

He’s shaking with anger and confusion, but the danger of him pulling the trigger is very real. I feel the usual heat building up inside me as I swallow hard and think carefully of how to explain this to him. Frankie is loyal, and he’s confused. A boss killing the underboss without permission or reason is not something that would sit well with an old head like him. I try to remember that as my anger from the fact that he’s pulled a gun on me boils in my stomach like lava in a volcano ready to erupt.

“Yeah, I had a feeling you’d find out about Tommy,” I begin, speaking quietly. “And I had a feeling you’d be a little pissed. I can understand that. I get it. But, I need
you
to understand that he left me no choice.”

“That’s not a good enough explanation,” he barks.

Frankie is so distressed from having pulled a gun on me that he’s shivering like it’s cold in the room. He’s so mad he has veins popping out of his neck and forehead. He’s so focused and blinded by his anger that he never hears Alannah open the door to the bathroom. He doesn’t hear it until she chambers a round of her own and the sound echoes off the walls of the small motel room.

“Put the fucking gun down, Frankie,” Alannah says in a soft tone. So soft and menacing it puts a smile on my face.

Frankie freezes. He leaves his gun aimed at me, but he tries to look over his shoulder with just his eyes. Alannah stands behind him holding a twenty-two, her eyes ablaze with the anger of a woman who has had enough. She’s tired, and she’s willing to do anything to bring this to an end, even if it means killing Frankie right here, right now.

“I should’ve known you didn’t leave,” Frankie comments. “But if he doesn’t start talking, I guess we’re all gonna die in here tonight.” He adjusts his eyes back onto me, waiting for me to explain, but when he looks at me, he sees I have a nine millimeter of my own trained on his face.

“Okay, Frankie,” I begin again. “I know you’re pissed right now, and like I said, I can understand that, but we both know that pulling a gun on me isn’t a good fucking idea. If I didn’t need you, you’d already be dead. If I didn’t believe that I could trust you, I would’ve already pulled the trigger while you were focused on Alannah. But I didn’t. We’re in a tight situation right now. I didn’t call you here to kill you, but you’ve taken it to that level by pulling that gun. You know me better than that. So, we can either all kill each other, or you can let me explain why this situation is so fucked up. I’m not gonna lie to you, but I can’t make you believe me. I killed Tommy in that house because that’s the house he took Alannah to when he kidnapped her and held her hostage. He took her there because Alannah figured out he was the one who took Victor’s truck. He was the one who took Victor’s money, and he was the one who shot Dan and killed Raphy. It was Tommy all along, and when Alannah put the pieces together, he was gonna kill her too. You know I couldn’t let that happen.”

My words hit Frankie right in the chest, knocking him off balance. He blinks quickly, like he’s trying to bring his world back into focus. He’s caught between two guns and a ton of fucked up information.

“Bullshit,” he snips. “Why would Tommy do that? He had no reason to fucking do that.”

“Because my mother told him to,” I interrupt, feeling embarrassed by the fact. “She dug herself into a hole she couldn’t get out of by asking Tommy to help her remove me from power. She didn’t want me to end up like my father, and that thought attached itself to her brain and wouldn’t let her go. Even when the two of them realized their plan was obviously flawed and wasn’t thought out at all, they were already in too deep. I think deep down, Tommy saw it as a way for him to become the boss of the Family, and once the ball was rolling, there was no stopping it. He didn’t kill Raphy because he wanted to, he did it because he had to. My mother gave him an idea, and he took it and ran away with it. She confessed it when I confronted her, then she killed herself.”

“That’s insane. That just can’t be true,” Frankie says, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It is,” Alannah chimes in, still aiming her weapon at the back of Frankie’s skull. “Tommy was totally fine with getting Dominic killed, and ended up getting himself killed instead. We had to do what we had to do, Frankie.”

“This is bullshit!” Frankie snaps. “Goddamn it, everything is falling apart. If that’s true, then you should’ve gone to the Commission with it, Dominic. Once they find out about Tommy, they’re gonna have every wise guy in the Midwest looking for you. They probably already have a contract on your head, not just for Victor to ice you, but everybody in Our Thing. You shouldn’t have killed him without telling the Commission what he did, now it’s too late. And if I don’t kill you now, they’re gonna kill me. They’ll think I was a part of this whole thing, and I can’t let that happen.”

Frankie tightens his grip on the gun, and I can feel myself waiting for the sudden blare of the gunshot and the impact of the bullet zipping into my body. My finger tightens as well, ready to fire off as many rounds as I can before my world goes dark. Alannah has tears in her eyes, but I know if Frankie pulls the trigger, she will too. Everything will end right here in this hotel room, unless I do something. I’ve got to get control of this craziness.

“Alannah’s pregnant,” I shout, hoping it’s enough to stop Frankie.

He scrunches his forehead and exhales.

“What?” he says, rattled by my words.

“Before you left, you asked what had changed about my circumstances. Well, that’s what it is. Alannah’s pregnant with our child, and everything is different now.” I repeat.

Frankie lets his eyes drop down to the floor, thinking about what I just said, and I know this is the time to continue.

“Listen to me, Frankie,” I go on. “I never let myself admit this until now, but there’s something you should know. Leo was wrong. When he chose me to be his successor, he was wrong. It should’ve been you. You should’ve been the boss of this family, not me. You deserved it more than anybody else, and I know for a fact that everybody in the room that night was prepared to back you as the next boss. I don’t know why he chose me, but it should’ve been you.”

Frankie stares at me, and I can see anger washing off of him, but he’s fighting to keep it. He has a lot to be worried about if he helps me, so I know I have to convince him. If I don’t, I’ll have to kill him.

“I don’t want this life for my kid,” I continue, looking Frankie in the eyes. “I don’t want to have to keep running for my life, and dodging bullets while holding my baby. I don’t want Alannah looking over her shoulder for some asshole who’s willing to hurt her just to hurt me. I don’t want to be the boss anymore. I want out. I want out so I can raise my child the way my parents should’ve raised me. I want my family to be safe. And I want you to be the boss after I’m gone.”

Frankie thinks on it for a second, then he lowers his gun to his side. Alannah and I, however, don’t lower ours.

“What you’re talking about is impossible,” Frankie finally says after a long pause. “This is La Cosa Nostra. You can’t just up and leave, Dominic.”

“I know that. Not without your help.”

Frankie’s eyes bounce around the room as he thinks about everything I just said. After a long moment of silence, he finally looks up at me as I lower my gun.

“Okay,” he says with a sigh. “You want out, I’ll help you get out. After all your father and I went through coming up in this game, it’s the least I can do. I think I owe him at least that much.”

“Wait a minute,” Alannah cuts in. “Five seconds ago, you were ready to put a bullet in his brain, now all of a sudden, you’re ready to help us. How do we know we can trust you?”

Frankie straightens up his body as he shoves his gun back into the holster, then he finally turns around and faces Alannah. He has a glare in his eyes I’ve never seen before, one that makes me feel uneasy about what’ll happen next.

“Answer me,” Alannah snips, still pointing the gun. “How do we know you’re not gonna shoot him in the back as soon as we walk out of here? Huh? How do we know we can trust you?”

Frankie faces Alannah and stares down the barrel of her gun without a hint of fear in his eyes as he speaks.

“You don’t, but I don’t see that you have a choice anymore.”

Alannah

Jimmy: What the fuck is going on Dominic? I just got word that there’s a million-dollar contract on your head. And Tommy’s dead? What the fuck!?!

“W
ho’s that?”

“It’s Jimmy. The word’s out about Tommy. The Commission pulled the trigger on me. Everybody’s gonna be after us now. We gotta go. Now.”

“But shouldn’t we wait for Frankie or something?” I ask, suddenly feeling a sense of worry I hadn’t felt before now. Now that it’s about to happen, I’m terrified. Everything is riding on this moment.