Page 35 of Frankie and the Fed (Untamed Rascals #3)

P ain radiated through me, starting in my head and coursing through every part of my body.

I reached for Frankie, wanting to pull her close after my nightmare and assure myself that she was safe.

Except every move brought more pain, and instead of a soft bed, the cold, hard floor cut into me.

“It’s ok, I have you.” Frankie’s frantic voice cut into the fog. “Where are you hurt?”

“Just sore, I think.” Fuck, that was all real.

Everything came back in a rush—Taggart holding a gun straight at Frankie, the fight, the icy terror that washed through me knowing that one slight movement of his finger and I would lose her forever, and then the sudden darkness when he knocked me out.

“You have a—” She touched my forehead, and I winced, sharp pain overtaking the dull ache.

“What happened? Where is he?” I looked her over as I asked my questions. She didn’t look injured, just pale and panicked.

“I shot him,” she said shakily, hysteria riding the edge of her voice. She turned her head, and I followed her gaze to the man laying crumpled on the floor, a pool of crimson spilling from him. He didn’t move. Taggart. The fucker.

“We need to call the police.” I tried to stand and nearly collapsed.

“I will do that. You sit there and make sure he doesn’t get back up.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that no one bled that much and lived. I kneeled beside him and checked his pulse. Sure enough. Dead.

“It looks like you shot his dick off.” I pointed to the densest section of crimson.

“Did I?” she asked. “Huh.”

“Go. Maybe call Lily and have her be ready to come get you.” I cupped her face and kissed her softly before pushing her toward the door.

“I’m not leaving without you,” she said stubbornly.

“Of course you aren’t. My little chaos whore.” She winced at the word, and my blood ran cold. “What?”

“He called me a whore. Just… he threatened to…” she couldn’t seem to finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to.

Fuck.

I pulled her close and ran my hands along her back, both of us shaking in the aftermath of the night.

“God, baby.” I wanted to kick him for good measure, stomp on his mutilated balls, rip them from him, and shove them down his rotting gullet. “What do you need?”

“I just… it was the first time since he said that, and I tried to pretend like it was ok and I just… I don’t know what I need.” She sniffled.

“A quick death was too good for him,” I said viciously.

I let go of her to cup her face—her eyes were rimmed red, and tears traced her cheeks. God. I’ve hurt her so much. “I will stop calling you whore if you want, but get something straight, you are mine, and I will protect you.”

She nodded.

“Go call the police and your lawyer if you have one and put on some clothes. Do not come back in here.”

She did as I said, and I took a moment to breathe before I slipped back into agent mode and took stock of the surrounding room.

Taggart lay in a pool of his own blood, his eyes staring blankly ahead. The gun lay at his feet where Frankie dropped it. I wiped the fingerprints off it. No one needed concrete evidence of what she did here.

I made sure to reapply Taggart’s prints and my own in a passably believable way. Thankfully, he used his regular sidearm, practically handing the cops the case.

There was no chance in hell I would let Frankie go down for this.

When I joined Frankie in the living room, she was dressed and on the phone. There was a slight tremor in her voice as she spoke, and, based on the conversation, it wasn’t the police.

I watched her for a moment before I gathered her in my arms. She melted against me, and her voice evened out, becoming steadier with each shared breath .

I swallowed past a lump in my throat and held her tighter. She should never have to wake up with a gun in her face. Especially not because of me.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, pulling away from her after she hung up. “This is all my fault.”

A wary look came over her face. “If you try breaking up with me again, I will hunt you down, tie you to the bed, and ride your face until you remember how good I taste.”

I snorted. It crossed my mind, but I couldn’t live without her. “I have to keep you safe, Frankie.”

“Great. The best way to do that is right beside me.” She wrapped her arms around me and held on tight, resting her head on my chest. I was powerless against her.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Her lawyer showed up at the same time as the police, and the whole process was much smoother than I would have expected, especially since the FBI was quick to take over and shuffle us out.

“Who was he?” she asked as we stood in the yard, waiting for the all clear to leave.

“My boss.” I sighed, the weight of the night settling on my shoulders. “I…”

I pulled Frankie to the edge of her property, far from her door and potentially prying ears. “I blackmailed him for this assignment. He was cheating on his wife, and I told him I would tell her if he didn’t give me the posting. I arranged it so that she would get the information, anyway.”

“Badass,” she said, light in her eyes, and I laughed a little in response.

“It put you at risk.” I couldn’t shake my responsibility in this. Somehow, I would make it up to her .

“I was already at risk. I started horning in on this long before you showed up,” she reminded me a bit more forcefully than necessary. “You don’t get to guilt trip yourself over this. If you weren’t here, I would still have been in the middle of all this and probably dead.”

She stood before me, five feet and two inches of indignation and determination, and I could only laugh at the whole situation.

“Good point.” I pulled her to me.

“Well, looks like you’re the one causing trouble now,” a man interrupted us.

“Shut up. I still have my pepper spray,” Frankie said, baring her teeth to the skinny white guy in a stained tank top.

Drying blood stained her feet, and her eyes still held a wild, slightly wary look as she squared off against her neighbor.

“I kind of have a taste for castrating men now. Want to be my third?”

“Ok.” I pulled Frankie back. “Baby, we don’t need another death on our hands.”

The man went pale and backed away, wisely giving us a wide berth.

“Idiot. You’d think pepper spray to the face would have sorted him out.” She relaxed against me.

“Is there a story to that?” I nuzzled her cheek.

Red and blue lights blared in the early morning light, casting morbid shadows over the body in the white sheet as it was loaded into the coroner’s van, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here, alive, with her in my arms.

“He was acting squirrely because I asked him kindly to park somewhere besides the end of my driveway.” She leaned into my kisses, but her eyes stayed on Taggart’s body.

“That’s my girl. Little chaos demon.” I turned her away from the scene.

“I like that. Outside the bedroom.”

“Done.”

“Miss Woolbridge,” a tall man in a suit interrupted us. Frankie stepped away, and I reluctantly let her go. I understood. She needed to stand on her own.

“What’s the news, Kevin?” She straightened her shoulders and tilted her chin. Despite her small height, she commanded attention.

“You’re going to be out of your home for a bit, but it doesn’t look like there will be charges. Everyone is interested in keeping this as quiet as possible, given the circumstances.” He looked at home in the situation, and I wondered just how many deaths he had swept under the rug.

“Cool. Witnessed two deaths and now I’m homeless.”

“You really want to sleep here tonight?” I asked. I didn’t think she would, but I could never be sure with her.

“No, but I need clothing and my wallet,” she said, hands on her hips and chin in the air like she was commanding him to get to work.

To his credit, he took it in stride.

“I can get you your wallet, but that’s it. Sorry, Miss Woolbridge.” He didn’t wait for her response and turned to do just that.

“Want to stay with me? At my real place?” I bit my lip. I was pretty sure the answer would be yes, but not entirely sure.

“You live here in Savannah?” She looked at me like a new mystery just spread out before her, and she couldn’t wait to get to the bottom of it.

“Kind of. It’s actually about thirty minutes from here in a cute little town.” Butterflies took up residence in my stomach at the thought of Frankie in my home, my real home, and my real life.

“Perfect.”

Yeah, it would be.

Lily and her boyfriend, Duke, drove up just as the last cop was leaving.

“What the hell happened here?” Duke said, pulling Lily behind him as if he could protect her from whatever danger lurked in the deep shadows of early morning.

“I happened here. Lily’s safe, you can stop playing guard dog,” Frankie said to Duke before grabbing Lily and hugging her tight. “I’m ok.”

“What happened?” Lily asked.

“A stupid man played stupid games and lost his balls. And his life,”Frankie summed up as if it really was that simple.

Duke snorted at Frankie’s assessment and relaxed slightly. “Did he look at you wrong?”

“He woke me up,” Frankie snarled, but there was no true heat in her voice. “We can’t go in there. Sorry, Lily, looks like you and lover boy will have to shack up for a while longer.”

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” Lily asked, and all eyes turned to me for the first time since these two arrived.

“She’s staying with me,” I said, wrapping my arm around her and holding my hand out to shake Duke’s hand.

“You must be the tour guide Frankie’s been seeing.” Duke shook my hand while I cringed.

“Right. About that. I…” Until I briefed the director, I shouldn’t say anything, but… but I didn’t want to meet with him. I didn’t want any of this, not anymore.

“She’s an FBI agent that has been investigating the shit we came across, Lily. Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, Tom is also dead,” Frankie interjected, saving me from having to try to explain all this.

“Also dead?” Lily asked, alarmed. “Shit. And I just quit to get away from him.”

“You did?” Frankie asked while Duke asked, “Also?”

“Right. We all have a lot to discuss. Anyone up for breakfast?” I asked. We needed to get off the lawn. I didn’t care where we went, though preferably somewhere we could wear pajamas.

Frankie’s lawyer brought her back her wallet and phone while we stood there. I was surprised by the second and decided he must be an excellent lawyer. I didn’t even have mine. Good thing it was fake.

We ended up at Grace’s bakery just in time for her first batch of donuts and coffee.

Frankie’s friends were… interesting. I was drawn into their camaraderie so easily it felt as if they had been my friends from the start. We told and retold our story, Frankie exaggerating each retelling until you had to squint to see the truth through it .

“What I don’t understand,” Grace said as she brought another pot of coffee, “is how are you here right now, Jamie? Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, doing paperwork?”

“I’m not going back. I can’t put Frankie at risk.” I brushed my hand along her back and around her waist, pulling her close to me. I would give up anything to keep her safe.

“Need a job?” Anders, Grace’s boyfriend, asked. He looked a little too eager, and I wondered what I would be getting into if I said yes.

“Let her have a day.” Frankie threw a piece of the cronut she’d been picking apart right at his head.

“I’ll give you my card,” Anders said as he slipped a sleek black card with his name, phone number, and nothing else on it.

“I’ll keep it in mind.” I slipped it into my pocket. “It’s time for us to go.”

We said our goodbyes, Lily hugging Frankie tightly and making her promise to call as soon as she settled in with me.

“I know there’s more to it,” Frankie said as soon as we left the bakery and made our way back to my temporary apartment so I could get my clothing and regular phone before the bureau could clean the place out. We left her car parked here for now, opting to walk in the peaceful, cool early morning.

“To what?” I grabbed her hand as we walked, hers sliding so easily into mine.

“To you leaving.”

“Right.” I looked around the street before guiding us in the right direction. “I always thought I could change the bureau or at least make changes that would help. But I get it now.”

“Get what?” She asked, tracing soothing circles over the back of my hand with her thumb.

“What my dad felt right before he left the church. I followed him, but part of me resented him, too. I don’t regret leaving. I wouldn’t be here. I get it, though—why he had to. There is no fixing something so corrupt from the inside.

I started going by Jamie after he died—my middle name is James, after him. I wanted to remember who he was and what his legacy really is. It’s time I honor that.” I choked down the tears that threatened to spill with the memories. We didn’t need that now.

“What are you going to do now?” She shoved whatever she got her hands on into one of my bags—no sense or carefulness. She didn’t even bother to fold my clothes.

“I don’t know. You almost died because of me.”

“Stop right there. We went over this.” She dropped her armful of clothing into the bag and then walked up to me, cupping my face. “Those idiots thought I was expendable, whether you were there or not. You saved me.”

“I already know what they will say when I get there. IA investigation. Then sweep everything under the rug.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was true.

“I have great lawyers. We can let them deal with it.” She kissed me and then plucked my work uniform, held it up and then shoved it in the bag.

I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in days. “I’m not going back to the museum job, either.”

“Maybe I want to role play as a paleontologist using my higher position at the museum to make the new tour guide eat my pussy.” The look she leveled at me sent heat racing through me.

“I think that was just reality.”

“Exactly.”

I laughed again and kissed her.