Page 31 of Frankie and the Fed (Untamed Rascals #3)
J amie was still keeping things from me, and I needed to figure out what. First things first, I needed a more thought-out disguise.
“Duke, I need help.” I swallowed back the bile that statement brought up and held the phone in one shaky hand, waiting for the moment he would laugh at me.
“What do you need?”
“Is that Frankie?” Lily asked from the background. “Hi, Frankie!”
“Hi, Lily. What’s the most innocuous car, and also how do I follow someone without them knowing it?” I got straight to the point. I didn’t have time to waste.
“What’s going on?” His voice changed from relaxed to serious so fast my head spun, and I remembered he was actually a pretty dangerous guy if he wanted to be.
“Nothing serious. I just need to blend in with the crowd for a bit and figure out what Jamie’s doing.” I tried to give as little away as possible, but I knew he would pester me until I gave him something.
“The tour guide you’re dating?” I should have expected that Lily would tell him, but that he remembered jarred me. I was literally just his girlfriend’s roommate. Why would he care?
“Um, yeah.”
“Did she hurt you? Is she cheating on you? I can sic Duke on her to teach her a lesson. Oh, or we can do a spell with the coven. We’ve got your back, Frankie. Just say the word.” Lily said, closer than before and uncharacteristically vicious.
I wholeheartedly approved of this change in her, but it was odd to think that people were in my corner.
“No, nothing like that. She just… I need to see something. Ease my anxiety, you know.”
It sounded lame even to my ears, but I couldn’t very well say I think she’s lying to me about her identity and I’m pretty sure something big is going down and she’s pushing me away probably to protect me but she’s also the best person I’ve ever met and makes me come harder than anyone ever and if I let her get away from me I fear I’ll never be happy again.
So, anxiety it was.
“I get it,” Duke said before Lily giggled, and I didn’t want to know what brought that out. “I have a car that will work for you. It’s a tan Toyota sedan and registered to a subsidiary of a subsidiary.”
“You shouldn’t wear a wig,” Lily chimed in with her own advice. “And I can call the girls to do a spell to hide you. I don’t know if it will work, though. ”
“I can pick up the car, but I don’t have time for all that.” I brushed away her offer. It still made me uncomfortable to think I had people.
“At least wear something that blends in and covers your tattoos.”
I pulled up to Duke’s apartment while I was still on the phone with them to get the car.
Lily fussed over my clothing in a bizarre twist on our usual relationship, dressing me in all black. I stuffed my handy pocketknife in the pocket of my borrowed pants, just in case.
I checked myself in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize the person who stared back.
“Thank you,” I said as I raced out the door and down to the car Duke had waiting for me. I didn’t wait to hear their response. Any wasted time just put Jamie further away from me.
I pulled up to the street her apartment was on, hoping she had come back here after our time in the park. Sure enough, the car she had been driving was parked near her building.
Now, just to find my spot and wait.
Darkness fell before I saw Jamie again.
She was decked out in all black attire that somehow flattened her appearance while simultaneously bulking it up.
I could just make out the glint of an empty leather shoulder holster, and I wondered what kind of trouble we were headed for tonight.
Her hair was pulled back tight in a bouncy blonde ponytail, like the one that first drew me in.
She looked… fucking sexy. Goddamn, this woman was going to be the death of me .
She didn’t seem to spot me sitting in this car. Duke had promised that the windows were tinted just dark enough that anyone looking in wouldn’t be able to make out details, but not so dark that it drew attention.
I didn’t want to know why he had a car like this sitting around waiting to be used.
Per Duke’s suggestion, I didn’t follow close behind, instead, I positioned myself two cars back. The small roads of downtown didn’t allow for being in a different lane, but I couldn’t control that. This should be good enough.
We didn’t go far and were pulling into a familiar, empty parking lot so quickly that I wondered why she didn’t just walk.
She parked in a dark spot at the back of the lot, far away from that single, flickering streetlight that lit the museum’s back parking lot.
I watched long enough to see her get out before pulling into a nearby alley and parking in the shadow between two distant lights.
By the time I circled back to the museum, she was nowhere in sight. I didn’t have to guess where she was though, and let myself into the back door.
When I reached the warehouse, voices were echoing down the empty halls. The door was propped open, and I slipped inside with no one the wiser.
I crouched low behind the metal shelves. Jamie stood just beyond, her hands up in surrender.
My heart raced, terrified for her and the danger she was in. I couldn’t see his face, but the man in front of me was unmistakable, and he held a gun pointed straight at Jamie.
Fucking Tom.
No. Fuck no .
I scanned the area, looking for something heavy. If I was quiet, maybe I could bash him over the head and knock him out. Of course, I’ve never done that, but how hard could it actually be?
“Just lower your weapon,” Jamie said in the same soothing voice she used to calm me after our intense round of sex. My chest tightened. She had to survive this.
“Lower my weapon? Why on earth would I do that?” Tom said. Rat bastard. I was going to castrate him.
I found a pry bar resting nearby and crawled over to it. I grabbed it, gripping it tight in both hands, and turned around. As quickly as possible, I ran at him, swinging the tool as hard as I could straight at his head.
I wasn’t fast enough.
Just as I connected with his head, a gunshot rang out, echoing around the large warehouse, deafening me. Someone screamed, and I dropped the heavy bar, running to Jamie, where she lay motionless on the floor.
“Jamie. Fuck. Jamie, baby. Please be ok.” My hands shook as I reached for her.
Her eyes were open and trained on me. Panic filled them, but a smile played on her lips.
“I’m ok my little chaos whore. He hit my vest. Just give me a minute. I’ll be ok.” She brushed a strand of hair from my face, tender despite the pain I could see etched into her. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. Or at all.”
I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “I already knew. Well, I knew it was something.”
“That really hurt.” Tom’s slurred voice interrupted us. Jamie’s eyes widened the second before a firm hand grabbed my hair—the one fucking day I didn’t wear a wig—and yanked me up. Sharp pain lanced my scalp, and I knew I lost chunks of hair to his harsh grip.
I screamed in pain and struggled to get away, but it was no use—I couldn’t get free.
“I should have known you’d be trouble,” Tom spat in my ear.
“Let her go,” Jamie commanded. Her voice—that beautiful voice—turned to venom, poison seeping through every word.
She didn’t take her eyes off us, her hand hovering over the gun at her waist. She looked dangerous, predatory, beautiful, and deadly.
“I don’t think I will. I need insurance to get out of here, and judging by the way you looked at her, she is just the thing to get me free.” He stepped back slowly, keeping me in front of him like a human shield.
The mother fucker.
“I love you.” It was definitely the wrong time for me to say that, but I needed to. If I never saw her again—if this was it—she needed to know.
“Don’t say that,” she snarled.
“I love you so much. I didn’t think I would ever find love, but then you came into my life and turned it completely upside down. It doesn’t matter that it hasn’t been very long. You’re my everything now.” Tears streamed down my face, obscuring the broken look on hers.
She pulled her gun and trained it on us.
“Don’t you fucking say that.” Her voice hitched with suppressed emotion, but I heard it. The fear and anguish just under the surface.
“Don’t worry, little bird.” I moved fast, as fast as I could manage, with Tom’s hand still tangled in my hair .
The pocketknife I kept on me was long, sharp, and could be opened with the flick of my finger. I’d never been so glad for that habit as I was right now.
I jammed the knife into Tom’s groin as high as I could. Warm blood spurted from his wound when I pulled the knife free, making sure to twist it on the way out.
Hopefully, I caught his balls. My only regret as he screamed and let go was that I couldn’t fully remove his dick from his body and shove it down his throat.
Jamie did exactly what I hoped and fired on him the moment I was out of the way. Tom fell behind me, but I didn’t spare him more than a glance as I ran to Jamie, her gun still trained on an unmoving Tom.
“Stay behind me,” she said as she moved, kicking his gun away and bending down to check his pulse. “Dead.”
She pulled out her phone and messaged someone before she holstered her gun and turned to me, gathering me in her arms and holding me tight.
“Fuck. Never do that again. I deal with the bad guys, and you stay safe.” She ran her hands all over me, checking for wounds.
I shook my head and buried my nose in her neck, breathing her in. “Yeah. I don’t plan to. I’m not quite ready to meet death.”
She cupped my face, wiping my tears with her thumbs before she leaned in and kissed me, tender and achingly perfect.
“I love you, too.” We kissed again, nothing more than a brush of our lips against each other. “They should be here soon.”
We looked at Tom and the blood pooling around him before moving further away .
“Who’s they?”
“The FBI,” she said, amused.
“Why did I think it was more… nefarious than that?”
She laughed and kissed me again.
“Because you like wild ideas and conspiracies.” She kissed me again,
I never thought I’d be happy standing over a dead body, blood pooling at our feet, the sharp metallic tang of it hanging in the air, but a glow settled over us and there was nowhere I’d rather be than in her arms.
“Right. I don’t usually let people see that.” I blushed and smiled.
“I’m not just anyone. I’m a spy. You never stood a chance.” She taunted me with that word, but light danced in her eyes, and her smile was infectious.
“I’m just glad you weren’t in league with him.”
She scrunched up her nose. “You really thought so little of me?”
“I didn’t know what to think!” I smacked her arm, but she just held me tighter.
She kissed me again. A fervent kiss that called to a deep part of me and entwined itself with the very core of my being, tying us together in a way that could never be severed.
The scrape of a door opening echoed through the large room, hardly dampened by the collection inside, reminding me of where we were and what we had just done.
“Don’t say anything if they try to get a statement. I’ll make sure everything is ok.” She kissed my forehead and then let me go. The night came rushing back without her arms around me, leaving me chilled .
A man was dead. Because of me.
My hands shook, and the surrounding voices sounded so far away. I watched Jamie as she spoke to her colleagues, her back ramrod straight, but her hand shook, too, and I no longer felt so alone.
The man she met at the café earlier walked in, and the room seemed to move around him, giving way for his inspection.
He looked enraged as he marched up to Jamie, like a barely leashed beast sat just under the surface waiting to come out. I couldn’t hear what he said, but Jamie’s shoulders tensed as she handed over her badge and gun.
Oh, shit. Even I knew that was serious.
“Ready to go home?” she asked, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the exit.
“Is everything ok?”
She looked around, like she were worried the walls were listening.
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound so sure of that, but I didn’t push the issue. I was ready to go home, and she had better be coming with me.