15. CAL

Over Two Years Ago

I had to stop calling my brother up with excuses as to why I needed money. It seemed almost constant. I hated asking my parents for money, and financial aid for the graduate program was almost non-existent after rent was paid and I bought one of those commercial palettes of Ramen for the term.

The side jobs I'd been doing weren't paying nearly enough, and I didn't want to get a job, and I didn't even want to do my post-graduate degree. I'd only just graduated last year. Sure, I was smart, I'd always been praised for my intelligence, but going back to college to get into more debt to get a job where I'd just become a supervisor was not something I envisioned for myself.

I'd made a friend over the internet who had been teaching me how to do some not-so legal things. He'd even visited me briefly since we were similar ages. I'd learned so much from him, like how he'd used his skills to stalk people to hook up with.

My goal was always to work for myself. Part of me wished to be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, someone in tech who just did something and became a billionaire. There were always job posts and opportunities on the information board outside of the college. That's where I went most of the time to pick up odd jobs.

And one of them caught my eye.

Website Builder Wanted. Looking for someone discreet.

There was a snowflake emoji and a winking face. I knew that meant drugs. People were always trying to sell their drugs here. And I knew there was money in it. I also knew I could get more money than usual building a website for someone looking to sell drugs.

There was also a picture of a man, smiling. I'd never seen him before. He must've been the one looking, or he was a stock photo. It was probably stock, he looked clean cut, not someone I'd have thought would be peddling cocaine to students.

That evening, after debating on it for a while, I'd called the number and I was given a time and a location for that night. Their voice was muffled, but deep. "We'll pay you five grand."

I stuttered, trying to speak fast enough to accept. I didn't even know their needs, but five grand would've gone a long way into helping me out. "I'll be there!"

I stuffed my laptop into my bag and headed to the park they'd told me to go to. I was already mentally spending the money.

The park was empty. I sat on a bench with my cell out, ready to call them if they didn't show up.

And then my world went dark.

A hood over my head. My limbs tied together.

Voices muffled. "We got him," I heard it, repeatedly. "We got him."

Nothing was the same after that.

* * *

I stared at the picture. It was almost the last thing I'd seen before being kidnapped. Behind that blindfold for all those days and nights, all that time, his face had been the last one I saw. And I searched for it. I'd searched for him online, trying my best to describe it in search engines. He was a white guy with facial hair. Practically unremarkable.

Now, his face was on my laptop. It was staring at me. A smile on his mugshot, just like the one from the picture.

"He looks familiar," Frankie said after a moment of holding me.

My tongue froze in my mouth. My entire body wanting to push the pizza back up from my stomach and wished to ache in every single bone, just so that I could feel something. It was almost like I'd stuck my entire body inside a frozen pool. My head at the surface, sucking in air, but below that, I was dying.

"Grant Richmond," he repeated the name.

I'd never heard any names. I'd only heard them shout you to each other. It turned my stomach.

"One down, more to go," I finally said, a tear on the edge of my eyelash. "This time, I'm going to do it real slow." My body rocking in Frankie's arms. "I'm going to keep him in a basement and—and I'll kill him—I'll kill him really slow. Because—because—" I sucked back on sobs caught at the back of my throat. "Because that's what it felt like he did to me."

"I'll make sure we do," Frankie said, squeezing me a little tighter. I didn't know where he'd learned that, but it calmed me. It had always calmed me. I remembered all the way back to the first time he did it. It was the first time he hugged me too. I thought he was hitting on me. I made a fool out of myself, but it turns out it kinda was like he was hitting on me. "Do you need to message Sutton, or can you find his address?" he asked.

"I can do it." I had to be able to do it. I couldn't rely on Sutton to help me out with everything. I knew he liked helping, and he did things faster than I ever could. "Just—just give me a minute." I glanced across the room at the wallpaper pinned to the wall. It was covered in lines and words. It didn't make any sense to me.

"Don't bother with that," he chuckled. "We've got our lead."

After all this time, we knew who it was. We had a face, we had a name, and in couple of clicks, we'd have an address as well.

It made sense why he could never be found. He'd gone to prison. I didn't know if when I thought back, I was planting memories of them talking about the cops, but now that I knew who he was, my mind was telling me that they'd been talking about moving location because of the police.

"I'm thinking, we stay here the night, we rest, and then tomorrow, we can go and scout him out," he said. "I think today has been a lot, and I don't want you to break." He brushed his fingers through my hair and kissed the back of my neck.

I didn't want to break either. It seemed like I was always breaking, and always trying to be glued back together. But each time he glued me back up, I was made stronger. "That's a good idea," I said. "I'll see if Sutton can get road cameras near the address. Then we can see without having to go out."

He gave me another kiss. "That's a good idea. Once we find him though, we need to keep him alive long enough for him to tell me who else was part of it. And, as proof for my father," he said. "The last thing I want right now is for him to try and come for you."

It was the last thing I wanted too. I didn't choose between my family and Frankie, maybe because nobody had put that choice in front of me. I chose Frankie because he'd seen the real broken me, and he accepted me. I couldn't go back to my family knowing they were all whole and I had been chipped at piece by piece.

I didn't want to move from his body, but I knew we couldn't stay like this. Time was ticking forward, and as much as I thought to myself that it wouldn't move until I'd processed this, I knew that was just a wishful thinking.

"There's running water," he whispered into my ear. "How about I make a bath with some of the stuff I found upstairs, and it should help you relax. I think I found some candles up there as well."

"Ok," I said. "I'll—" I stared straight ahead at the laptop screen. "I'll pull up all the information that we have about him. I need to know everything. I have so many questions." They'd been swimming around in my brain all this time. I needed answers. Why me? What did I do?

As Frankie removed himself from me, I almost found myself begging for his weight to be wrapped around me again. He went off upstairs to fill the tub with warm water and bubbles, while I told Sutton what we needed now. We needed an address, all of them. I wasn't going to be caught off-guard by him again. My gut was wrecked, cramping up as nausea waved through me.

Sutton understood what it meant to me. I'd started to lose all hope and faith in ever finding the man responsible for what had happened to me. But it wasn't just him, it was the people he'd been commanding as well. I'd already got one of them. I should've felt relieved, but instead, the knot in my chest grew tighter.

I stood and looked at the scribbles on the back of the wallpaper. It was a hierarchy of everything Frankie knew about his family's operation. It had things written on it that I didn't even know. They did more than just peddle drugs, they were loan sharks, and held a black book of all the gambling debt people owed.

"Your bath is ready," he said, startling me. "I'm gonna take this down and burn it." He wrapped his arms around me from behind. "It's not something I need anyone to see."

"This is a lot," I grumbled. "I'm not sure I even knew half this stuff. You—you shake people down for money?"

"Not me, but it was part of the family business," he said. "People paid for protection. I don't think they've done that in a while. The only time people get shaken down," he said, chuckling at the phrase, "is when they owe it." He gestured to the wall. "Money borrowed, or gambling debts."

I took his hand, running it across the knuckles. "And you're the one who shakes them down?"

"No," he said. "I'm the last resort. I'm the threat they use."

"What if we just left this all behind?" I asked, wondering what exactly would happen if we left and never looked back. They didn't need Frankie like I needed him.

"I can't," he said, nestling his chin into my shoulder. "It's not that easy. My family is more than you might think. And I hate saying no to you. Ok, sometimes I love saying no, but this is one of those times when I can't. It's a business, and it's my blood, I can't just say bye to one side of it. It's all or nothing."

I knew he didn't want to leave, but I overheard him saying that if his father forced him into making a choice, he would choose me. I just wanted to hear that again.

Frankie gave my ass a squeeze. "Go upstairs and take a bath. I'll be up soon."

The tub upstairs was filled with bubbles and candles. I could see the mess he'd made looking through the cupboards. There were bottles of body wash, shampoos, and conditioners everywhere. He'd laid them all out for me to pick from. And there was a stack of towels. It was a good decision to come to the rich area for a place to stay, these people left so much behind.

I undressed and climbed into the warm water. It was mostly bubbles, but I didn't mind. It was the first time my body didn't feel like my entire life was going to implode in on itself. I played around in the bubbles, making a little beard on the tip of my chin.

Frankie came up as the water started to get cold. "I've torn the paper down. I couldn't burn it. It might've set the alarm off, or the neighbors."

"Good decision. Did Sutton get back to me?"

He shook his head. "You mind if I join you?" He was already undoing the buttons on his shirt.

"It's a little cold, and the bubbles are going," I said.

"So, no?" he revealed his hairy torso and the trail of hair leading down to my happy place below the belt. "I could always heat it up." He placed his thumb into the waistband of his slacks. "What do you say?"

"Obviously, yes," I said, cupping the remaining bubbles and blowing them out at him.

He finished undressing. I couldn't pull my eyes away from staring at him. "I also found some alcohol downstairs," he said. "I think after today, we need a little drink. And I'm pretty sure you need it more than me."

I scooted forward for him to sit behind me in the tub. This was how we always did it. "In theory, I've always thought I could do it, and now that its happened, I'm scared of my hands," I admitted, lifting them to him.

He took them and rubbed at my palms. "There's nothing to be scared of here," he said. "These things work magic. You can control life with them. It'll take some getting used to, knowing what you did, but afterwards, you'll be fine."

The moment my brain recalled shooting the gun, the flash, the man stepping back, his stumble at his size, it felt like I'd put on muscle and became a linebacker. I never saw him bleed; I suppose that's why he wore all black to hide it.

Frankie splashed water at me. "You need to get clean," he said. "I've got you some clean clothes out downstairs."

"Thank you," I said, closing my eyes. I let him clean me with the nub of soap and whichever bottle he grabbed from the pile at the side of the tub.

Almost falling asleep, the vivid ideas and pictures of what might've happened if I told people what I did. Imagining the disgust on their faces. They'd never look at me the same ever again. It hurt so much that it jolted me awake as Frankie washed shampoo out of my hair.

"Hey, hey," he whispered. "It's all good. I'm here."

It felt like I was going back to the version of me who curled up in Frankie's bed for months. I never wanted to go back there.