17. CAL

I woke to the pulsating throb of gunshots happening overhead. Something took over me. I looked for the source, and I prepared to attack.

People were shouting in the kitchen. Their words were jumbled as they reached my ears.

Frankie wasn't in bed. One of those voices had to have been his.

Rolling off the mattress, I grabbed the almost empty vodka bottle at the side. I sucked back a breath to keep the heartbeat in my neck from getting out of hand. I crouched by the wall. Realizing I was in my crop top and booty shorts, this probably wasn't the best thing to wear when I had to look strong, but it was what I had to work with.

"You have to go through me first!" Frankie shouted.

A man laughed at him. "We can't," he said. "We've come for him. So, let us through and we'll leave you alone. How about that?"

"Over my—" he started.

A heavy thud crunched.

His body fell backwards into the living room. There was blood on his nose. He was knocked out.

"No." I dropped to my knees at his side. "No. No." I immediately started to wake him.

In the kitchen, behind the tears in my eyes, there was a blur of people. Some of them on the floor, but other standing, approaching me.

"You missed me?" a voice asked.

This was it for me. I was going to be punished. I couldn't help feeling like crying would help. But I didn't. "Fuck off."

He tutted at me. "You do remember me, right?" His face up close to mine.

A shiver ran down my back. "No."

"You don't."

"No, no, no, no." I tried to push myself back, I tried to get away. It was him.

"Gag him," he said. He smelled like a garden center. It was familiar. And then his face was coming into focus. He wore a red hoodie under a dark blue trench coat. I knew.

Grant Richmond. He'd found me. He'd found us.

I grabbed the bottle of vodka and threw it at him. It missed and hit the wall.

"See," he chuckled. "You do remember me. Tie his hands together as well." He snapped his fingers and two men dressed all in black marched inside.

I'd lost.

We'd lost.

Frankie was unconscious.

And I was emotional. After everything, I thought I might've been able to claw back my emotions when I came face-to-face with him.

As much as I tried to protest, they easily pinned me into submission. They bound my mouth with tape and tied rope around my wrists. I almost passed out at the pain waking inside me. I was being pushed back to that time when I couldn't move my body and my wrists were numb from the way that rope ate into my skin.

Hauled out of the house over the shoulder of one of the men, I noticed two more of them standing over Frankie's body. I wanted him to get up and kill them. I needed him to get up now. Grant appeared in front of me, blocking my view of Frankie.

"It's ok," he said. "He's going somewhere else."

My attempt at screaming was muffled.

"And you'll never see him again," he continued. "Oh. Look at that. You've already got a ring on your finger for us."

Tears came down faster and harder, I was pissed that I couldn't show him how I'd trained for this. And when it came down to it, I fucking faltered.

"That's not going to do you any good."

He was the only person whose face I could see. Everyone else had masks on. Their faces covered up in black. I pleaded and begged within myself for Frankie to wake up, but they'd put him down once, what was stopping them from attacking again. They'd ambushed us.

I tried thrashing around in the man's arms, but it didn't work. He didn't budge a muscle.

I was thrown into the back of a van. Grant stepped inside, closing the door behind us. He gave the inside two taps, and someone started to drive.

"Your boyfriend—wait, fiancé, he's going back to his family," he said. "You know, it worked out well. I just got out of prison; they were going to recruit me back into the fold. And then you killed my cousin. They told me that if I found you and brought you back, I could leave the city with their support."

I glared at his face, wishing to burn a hole right through it.

He placed a hand on my inner thigh. "He never even touched you," he said. "None of my guys did. You were mine. And in a way, you still are. I mean, once we've disinfected you, and made you all clean, you'll be mine again." He squeezed.

I tried not to make any movements, I didn't want him touching me, but I knew from my time in that basement it only made him be rougher.

"Anyway, it's funny. I told them that if I found you, I could take you off their hands, and deliver their son back to them." He snickered. "I made it sound like you'd got him under some type of spell. And they bought it. They were very adamant about how Francesco had become sloppy with his wet work. And everyone blamed you. I'm getting out of this entire thing as a winner."

Once more, I tried to scream through the tape on my mouth. The van took a sharp turn, and his hand went further up my thigh. I wanted to vomit.

"I'm a good chemist," he continued. "I made sure you were always pain-free. I bet those last couple of days before he came and got you were awful. I wished I could've been there to take care of you myself. But I was arrested. It turns out I'd parked illegally, boo, and they saw the contents of my trunk, and it was a petty possession charge. Two years. Two whole years, and the one thing that I was looking forward to the most, was you." He finally pulled his hand away. "I should've been thanking Francesco for saving you for me. But he just got in the way of us."

When I spoke to Frankie about what happened, there were entire parts of my memory that seemed hazy. I always put it down to trauma. Grant was now telling me it was drugs. I didn't know what type, and I couldn't ask. In my throat, I could feel the contents of my stomach. I tried my best to keep it from coming up and sitting in my mouth because it had nowhere else to go.

"Look at me," he laughed. "I'm doing all the talking." He tugged at the edge of tape, allowing my mouth some freedom.

"Fuck you."

"Enough talking then." He tapped the tape back into place. "No. You're not going to talk to me like that. I've saved your life. You should be thanking me. You should be throwing yourself at me with thanks."

My swears were muffled.

"Look," he said, pressing a finger under my chin. "You brought all of this on yourself. Or don't you remember."

I tried not to give in to the power of his finger under my chin. I gave it my best, holding still.

"Cal, you turned me down on several different dating apps," he said. "I was going to reveal this to you, but only once you'd fallen in love with me. And don't think I haven't been keeping up with your webcam exploits. I knew you were trying to get in touch with me. That's how I had my IT guy track you and that laptop."

Blowing air, I pushed at the tape to finally have room to speak again. "I didn't do it because I wanted to see you," I said. "I did it so that I could find you and kill you."

"Your mouth is a lot dirtier now," he snickered. "Go on, you're turning me on. Say something else."

"You're a fucking loser who rapes people."

Grant tutted, fixing the tape back across my mouth. "Rape is a strong word. You consented. You were so intoxicated by everything, you wanted more. And I—I had to blindfold you back then because I was doing some shady things. Do you understand?"

His words had me holding back more sobs. For him to try and gaslight me, to try and change the narrative, I would've sooner died than have that be the truth.

"I was getting the goods and undercutting Francesco's family, those were things I wanted to keep you away from," he said. "Anyway, all of that is in the past. Just like you, turning me down several times because you didn't want to take a bump before sex. Speaking of, I got some premium grade stuff here." He reached a hand into the inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small plastic baggy with cocaine in.

I shook my head. If I'd told him back then I didn't do that, then he knew that I didn't do it now.

"Lighten up, you loved this stuff," he chuckled. "Well, a little, we never gave you a big bump, just enough for you to ask for more."

I'd completely blocked that out. I screwed my eyes shut, trying to summon the strength to get through this. I'd gotten through it once before, and I could get through it again.

"You sure?" he asked. He snorted it from the tip of a key. He pressed a finger against one nostril and snorted it through the other. "It'll make this entire thing more bearable."

I shook my head.

"Fine," he said. "My cousin, who you killed, thankfully I have two more cousins inside the family. They shifted a lot of cocaine. In fact, we're currently sitting on five million dollars of it."

I looked around. He can't have meant literally. The van was bare, except for the little lip in the metal that he was sitting on to give the appearance that he was bigger than me.

"It's split between here, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York," he said. "We timed it perfectly. And all so that we could have a life together once I was out. I'm thinking of getting a private jet. You know, this time I don't want you to be blindfolded. I want you to just love me and look pretty with me everywhere I go."

I would've spat at him if my mouth wasn't covered.

The connections were starting to join. He was behind everything. He had to have been the one who was trying to have Frankie killed, and the reason why that cop was shot, the very same one Frankie had suspected of having the family's drugs.

It was all him. And now, he'd played them into taking me away.

I was stronger now.

Lifting a leg, I aimed right for the balls with the heel of my foot.

He keeled over. "That's not nice. You're gonna pay for that."

As I tried to wriggle myself across the floor, he was trying to claw at me. The sharp turns from the van were only pushing me back in his direction.

He grabbed hold of me. His fingers digging into my thigh. He clung to me, wrapping himself around me. His mouth against my ear. "You're gonna change," he said. "I'll make sure you forget all about that man who took you from me."

There was little I could do. I tried to think what Frankie would do. But Frankie had the muscle mass to overpower him. I had my hands tied behind my back and a man's body wrapped around me. There was little I could do at this point except surrender.

"I'm going to get you all pretty," he said, giving the bottom of my earlobe a nibble. "And then we're going to do things that couples do. Have dinner together, take showers, and most importantly." He shoved his hand down the back of my shorts and squeezed at my ass. "We're going to see if you can still do that thing where you squeeze me inside you."

Violently thrusting my body back and forth, hurting my arms against the metal floor of the van. I was not going to let him do that. None of it. I knew Frankie would tell me to bide my time until I could act, but I wasn't going to let him touch like me he had done before. That was never going to happen again.

As I thrust, I dislocated my elbow and wrist, slipping a hand out of the rope tied behind my back. The pain was searing, but I knew it was temporary. I forced myself up to my feet as Grant was on the ground, covering a hand at his balls. I tore the tape from my mouth and screamed as loud as I could. My lungs almost giving out under me.

Another sharp turn came. I fell, banging my head against metal.

Stars behind my eyes.

I was out.