7. CAL

Frankie woke me earlier with a breakfast smoothie in a bottle, and then told me about getting an early start on the day. It was Monday, and that meant we had to hit up a gym. I hated that part of the process, and I knew that if I made a fuss over it, he'd make me work twice as hard.

"C'mon," he said, standing at the side of the bed. "I've got your clothes ready. We're going for a run." Through the sleep in my eyes, I saw him in his tank top, unzipped jacket, and basketball shorts.

I forced a smile on my face. "A run?" My eyes snapped open.

"Yeah, you have a problem with that?" he asked, shaking the smoothie bottle at me. "Get up. Drink this. Get dressed, and then we can start warming up."

Frankie knew best, and his methods had helped me. I'd gone from being beaten by life to beating life. His smoothies were never that nice. They were packed full of—I didn't want to know. The smoothies I made for us tasted much nicer, but that was because I added in extra sweeteners, which he absolutely hated. I plugged my nose, opened my mouth and throat, like I was about to take a dick, and downed the smoothie.

"We're taking a different route today," he said, stretching himself out on the bedroom floor.

At first, when I saw him doing that, I wondered where he'd been hiding all that flexibility. As someone who wore suits all the time, it was weird to then see him out of them.

"Right, stop fucking watching me, and get ready," he said, pushing up on the tips of his toes to stretch out his back. "We're not stopping once we start. I mean it, Cal."

"I am, I am." I might not have gotten much sleep last night. I had been on my phone when he told me not to, but I had so many new leads to follow up on, and Sutton could only help so much, he had his own stuff going on.

He threw the pile of workout clothes in my direction. "If you're not in these within the next minute, I'll do it myself."

I giggled. "Don't threaten me with something I'd enjoy," I told him, slowly pulling down my underwear.

"That's not gonna work, babe," he said. "I'll just hit it twice as hard when we're back."

I'd tried. I put the clothes on and warmed up with a couple of stretches. "So, where are we going?"

"You'll see," he said.

After stretching and making sure my teeth were brushed and the taste of the smoothie was out of my mouth, we headed out onto the street to start our run.

I knew that changing your running pattern was important to stop people from tracking you, but it could've been any number of reasons why he was doing it this time. It might've been surveillance. I never knew what was going on through his head.

"You have music?" he asked, jumping on the spot.

"Yeah, I'm playing my Britney mix," I said, looking at the phone on the band on my arm. "You want me to send it over to you?"

"No, I'm good," he said, smiling. "Follow me. Keep up. Got it?"

"Got it." I screwed the earbuds deeper in my ears, letting the music drown out the sounds of the city in the morning.

Following Frankie's pace was sometimes impossible. But I quickly realized that this wasn't any ordinary pattern. This was surveillance. I could tell because I'd looked up the address we'd run past. He'd looked at the IP addresses from my laptop. That was kinda sweet of him to do for me.

We came to a stop by a small park. Frankie immediately started stretching out against a bench, while I took that as a sign to drop onto a patch of grass, panting for breath.

"I know what you did," I said.

"I know what you did," he said back to me. "I caught you with your phone after I told you not to."

"Oh." I thought I'd been good. I hadn't realized I'd fallen asleep with it again, but it was a habit now and I couldn't just stop looking at the data on it. "Well, you're the one who went through it as well."

He smiled, joining me on the patch of grass. "I needed to know what was keeping you up all night. It turns out, a couple of those IP addresses were local."

I rolled my eyes, glancing back at him. "I figured, that's why I said it."

"Did you notice anything from the houses we passed?"

"Nope. I searched up the people in them last night. They're families. They have good credit. I was impressed."

Frankie held my hand. "But are you glad we checked?" he asked. "You can't always be so certain on the information online. Bad intel is always being forced in through our ears and eyes."

"Yeah," I agreed, speaking softly and nodding. "I don't even think they're still in Philly, but whenever I see someone local join the stream, it feels like a lead. I get overexcited." I laid back and looked up at the clouds in the sky. "It's not fair."

"We will find them," he said. "I didn't even tell you about my night. Someone set me up."

"What?" my head shot up, pushing my body back to sitting. "What happened?"

"I think someone is trying to kill me," he said, almost unphased with a chuckle. "Pretty brave of them to try that. I don't want to think bad of my family, but it was my uncle who fed my dad that info. I can't even imagine why he'd want me out of the picture."

"Family is a big deal," I said, only while half-believing it. His family was a big deal to him. My family were all happy to do whatever they wanted. I never checked in with them. I couldn't pretend to care about any of their issues after what I'd been through. "I don't think he would've done that."

"It's funny, actually, because I overheard my brothers talking about New Jersey, and these guys at the warehouse mentioned it as well," he said. "Something to do with shipments. I really want to go pay the shipyard a visit, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes." He smirked at me. I knew stepping on toes was one of his specialties.

"I don't think that's what's stopping you from going there," I said, bluntly.

"I promised we'd go buy a new coffee table today." He took my hand and kissed the back of it. "And something sparkly too."

I laid back on the grass again. "Do you ever think about that night?" I asked. "The one where we thought we almost had them."

"Daily," he sighed, kissing my hand once more.

* * *

Sixteen Months Ago

The address was close to where Frankie had found me. It seemed unreal. The Chinese restaurant had been reopened as an Italian restaurant. We walked right by it.

Under the cloak of darkness, we were going to make our move.

Everything added up. Men had been watching my webcam from there. And our surveillance found people coming in and out of the apartment all night.

He was dressed in his suit, and I was in the only shirt that didn't itch my neck. It was an orange and yellow Hawaiian shirt. In the middle of winter, I stood out. But Frankie wasn't concerned about that, he just wanted me to be comfortable.

In the apartment building, we headed to the fifth floor. We were looking for Sam Whelan. He was this pasty white guy who wore puffer jackets and walked with a limp. He'd been busted for selling drugs before.

"Remember, go for the tendons," Frankie said as we stood outside apartment 5 C. The thrum of music was vibrating the door. As were voices in the background.

I tried hiding my nerves, switching hands with the knife that Frankie had given me. It was an incredibly sharp one with jagged edges that seemed to slice through flesh like hot butter. "Got it," I said.

We weren't wearing masks either. I knew Frankie's MO was to kill without a second thought.

He burst through the front door, kicking it from its hinges. And that's when we saw the set of a porn studio. Frankie was pointing his gun at the woman being railed on the sofa, and I was brandishing my knife at the cameraman.

Sam, the man in the puffer jacket stormed toward us. "Cut," he shouted. "And who the fuck are you?"

"We're investigating a noise complaint," Frankie said, quick on his feet. "I—I can see that you're running a business." He holstered his gun and looked to me, trying not to laugh. "Sorry about the inconvenience."

"Fuck. Who complained?" Sam asked. "Was it Jerry next door? And since when did cops not knock before breaking in."

I cleared my throat. "New protocol," I said.

"Yeah," Frankie added.

Sam locked eyes with me, tilting his head. "Wait. I know you. I've seen you somewhere."

We fled, laughing to ourselves.

It could've ended very differently.

But at least we figured out what was happening.

* * *

Every single time that memory came up, I found myself almost put into a laughing fit. I didn't know what it was about them, but they left the city after that. I think they thought we were the real police. Me, in my colorful shirt, I couldn't even take myself serious in that thing. We made sure I never wore it again after that.

We jogged back home, listening to more Britney Spears. And I was satisfied that the addresses he'd pulled from my laptop weren't anyone to be suspicious of, just two guys who happened to be from the area.

"Ok," Frankie said, snapping his fingers at me. "Go shower, get dressed, and then we're going shopping for a new coffee table, and maybe a plant. I don't think you watered the last one."

I pouted and gave him my adorable puppy dog expression, only to be turned down. "Please come shower with me."

"And turn a five-minute shower into a thirty-minute one?" he grumbled, looking me up and down. "Absolutely not. Now go. I'll make us a shopping list."

I stomped off to the bathroom. I wanted to turn this into a thirty-minute thing. I blasted Britney and let myself be taken away into a world of pop music. I was halfway through a deep hair condition when a knock came at the door.

"Come on," he stressed me. "I wasn't kidding. We've got a lot to do today."

We had a lot to do every single day. It kept me occupied, so I liked that, but sometimes a boy needed a deep condition and a face mask after his morning run.

Frankie always made sure I was dressed smart when we shopped together. He had this entire thing about self-worth and how a crisp shirt collar could bolster your confidence ten-fold. I couldn't even argue with him on that, because my confidence was higher when I was dressed in the shirt and khakis. Sometimes, I thought I was one of the guys who owned a boat but didn't know how to drive one.

He took us to the mall, with the top-down on the car. He revved the engine for all eyes to dart to us. It always made me want to shrink away. He chewed gum and flicked his sunglasses down.

"I saw your grocery list, you didn't even try and hide it on my phone," he said.

"Because you always delete them," I said. "If I put it on the fridge, you had to take it."

He reached into his trouser pocket and grabbed the post-it. "This note?" he asked, scrunching it up. "I'm not buying you all that sugary crap. I told you, if you want something sweet, you gotta look no further." He smirked, pointing down to his crotch.

"Ugh," I rolled my eyes, trying to grab the post-it from his fist. "You didn't want to fuck in the shower, but now that we're on the road, you're happy enough to try and get me to give you head."

"Baby," he said, his hand tighter around the post-it. "I'm just trying to make sure you stay healthy, and you know the dangers of shower sex."

Almost spraining an eye socket with the amount of eye rolling, I glared at him. "You wanted to fuck me in the bath the other night," I told him.

"Yeah," he said, throwing the balled up note out of the car. "Because bath sex is fun. Nobody has to stand up. You just use the motion of the ocean."

No matter what I said, I knew he was always going to have another point. It was infuriating, but in the type of way that made me more attracted to him.

"Anyway, the chocolate muesli isn't even bad, plus, it's muesli, that's good, right?"

"You wrote breakfast cereal and in brackets, Froot Loops. It might have froot in the name, but that's not really fruit."

It didn't matter that much; I'd just have to visit the bodega down the block and grab my own cereal and then eat it all before he could trash it.

We finally got to the mall, and he pulled the top up on the car. "So, I promised you something gold and shiny," he said, taking my hand. He kissed the back of it. "I think it's time we tried putting a bracelet on that wrist."

Bracelets or anything around my wrists had been a trigger. Frankie had been helping me out with them, he stopped me from freaking whenever something touched me there, and now, it had become part of our intimacy.

"Ok," I said, trying not to hold my breath.