“What?” Ben asked.
“Nothin’,” I answered.
“Cheryl’s wingman?” he pushed, and I pressed my lips together because I had a feeling Ben was a man of the Colt and Cal variety. “Frankie,” he prompted in a warning, not throaty, sexy, post-orgasm voice, but in a growly, sexy, getting-pissed, post-orgasm voice.
Yep, Benny was a man of the Colt and Cal variety.
So I gave it up. “Cheryl asked me to be her wingman.”
“And you said yes?” Ben asked, like I told him Cheryl asked me to help her bomb the Canadian embassy.
“She needs to get laid,” I explained.
“Seen her, figure she can accomplish that feat on her own,” Ben returned.
“Every girl needs a good wingman, Benny,” I shot back, my voice not throaty, post-orgasm anymore either, mostly because I was kind of getting pissed.
“Maybe. It’s just that hers isn’t gonna be you,” Benny declared, and I stopped kind of getting pissed and just got that way.
“Why?”
“You and your ass, hair, legs, tits, and smile do not need to be out on your heels with fuckin’ Cheryl, gettin’ attention and gettin’ into trouble.”
“Benny Bianchi, do you think in a million years I’d do anything to jeopardize the promise of you?” I snapped.
I got silence from Benny for a moment before he asked quietly, “The promise of me?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “The promise of you.”
“Babe, I’m yours. How am I a promise?” he asked, tone now cautious, and my belly did a dip at the “I’m yours” business.
But still.
“Every day is a new promise, Ben,” I told him sharply. “Every night I go to sleep knowin’ it’s a promise, every day I wake knowin’ in some way it’s gonna be fulfilled. And repeat. For…hopefully…ever.”
“Frankie,” he whispered but didn’t go on.
I ignored the depth of meaning behind that whisper and stated, “So don’t tell me I can’t go out with Cheryl. She’s funny. She’s edgy, but she’s nice. I know Vi wouldn’t let her close to her or her girls if she didn’t have a heart of gold, but just sayin’, Cal wouldn’t either. So I’ve got two months left in the ’burg. The whole time I’ve been here it felt like I was in limbo, not at home, away from everyone I love, primarily you, and that really hasn’t felt great. So I’m gonna go out and have fun with one of the few people I know and you aren’t gonna stop me.”
“Okay, baby.”
I blinked again at my pillow. “Okay?”
“Yeah, go out and have fun.”
“As easy as that?” I asked dubiously.
“Pretty much,” he answered.
I didn’t trust it.
“Does this mean you’re gonna play some guy’s wingman while I’m away?”
“Francesca, when do I have time to be some guy’s wingman? I work, and when I’m not workin’, my ass is with you.”
Oh yeah.
Right.
“But, are you sayin’ you can and I can’t?” Ben went on.
“You’re hot,” I pointed out. “Girls like hot.”
“You aren’t butt-ugly,” he returned.
I had to admit, this was true.
He kept going.
“And do you think in a million years I’d do anything to jeopardize the promise of you?”
God.
Benny.
Suddenly, I was not pissed at all.
“No,” I whispered.
“I’m not Enzo,” Ben declared.
“I know you’re not.”
“And you aren’t Ninette.”
“I know.”
“So are you done pissin’ me off after you got me off?” he asked.
“I think so,” I answered. “But just to say, you started it.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“Ninette’s fiancé dumped her, by the way,” I told him to change the subject.
This got no response.
“She’s heading up to Chicago to find someone to mooch off of,” I shared.
“That will not be you and me,” Ben stated firmly.
I knew it, and because I did, I smiled.
I also kept at it.
“And Chrissy had the baby.”
Another non-response.
“They named her Domino.”
That got a response.
It was, “Jesus.”
“We’ll call her Minnie.”
“Puttin’ my foot down right now, babe, our kids are not gonna be named stupid-ass names.”
Our kids.
God.
Benny.
“I was thinkin’ Solitaire,” I lied.
“You’d be thinkin’ wrong.”
“Spade?”
“No.”
“Club?”
“No.”
“Monopoly?”
He chuckled through his “Fuck no.”
“How about John?”
“John I’ll consider.”
I grinned at my pillow, and through my grin, I said softly, “Love you, Benny.”
“Love you back, Frankie,” he replied softly. “Now go to sleep with the promise of me, and tomorrow I’ll make certain I do somethin’ to fulfill it.”
God.
I fucking loved Benny Bianchi.
“Okay, honey.”
“’Night, Frankie.”
“’Night, Benny.”
I waited and he waited, then I let him off the hook and disconnected first.
After that, I brought my phone to my lips like it was him and I could touch my mouth to his as a goodnight.
In a couple of months.
Then I’d be full-on happy.
I set the phone aside, snuggled up, and fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Firing Line
The phone rang in Benny’s back pocket. He flipped the flaps closed on the box he was sorting through in the basement, pulled his phone out, and saw it was his ma calling.
“Hey, Ma,” he answered.
“Benny, we’re out,” she told him something that he really didn’t need to know.
“She’s out and she dragged my ass with her!” He heard his father shout, which meant wherever they were, everyone heard it.
“Quiet, Vinnie, yeesh,” his ma shushed his pop.
“Ma,” Ben called to get her attention back in hopes of getting this conversation over a lot faster.
“We’re at a furniture shop and we’ve just seen the sweetest bed,” she announced.
“She thinks it’s sweet,” he heard his father yell. “I think it’s girlie.”
“Vinnie, quiet,” his mother snapped.
But Ben knew what this was about. He’d told them Frankie was moving in and he was doing a clear out to prepare for that event.
He’d also, now he saw was stupidly, told them Frankie wanted a guestroom.
“Ma, let Frankie pick the furniture,” he ordered.
“I am,” she returned smartly. “But she needs to see this bed so I need her email address ’cause I’m takin’ a picture of it with my phone. I don’t wanna text it to her. She’s gotta see it bigger, in all its glory.”
Ben gave a moment’s thought to the kind of redecorating Frankie would undoubtedly instigate in his house. These thoughts included the muted colors, candles, minimal knickknacks, and photos she decorated her apartment in. Since he liked all that, he quit thinking about it.
What he did not think was that any bed his mother picked would be something Frankie would want. It was a surprise, but when it came to her home, Francesca Concetti wasn’t about flash but was about taste and minimization. Theresa Bianchi decorated in bulk, with a heavy dose of Catholicism.
Still, he gave his mother her email. A bonus of having Frankie, she could deal with his ma when she got like this. He felt no guilt about that. He was going have to put up with her whacked family, she was going to have to put up with his family’s brand of whacked.
This was so
mething, he’d noted repeatedly, that she not only had no problem doing, she actually liked doing it.
“Do you want your father to come over and help with the basement this weekend?” she asked, taking him out of his pleasant thoughts.
“Workin’ on it now, Ma. And goin’ to Brownsburg this weekend.”
“Oh, right, of course,” she muttered. “Do you want me to send your father over there now?”
Vinnie Senior popping the cap on a beer, finding a sturdy box to sit on, and bossing his ass around for two hours?
No. He didn’t want that.
“I’m good,” he answered.
“You sure?” she pushed, and he sighed.
“Yeah, Ma, I’m sure.”
“Boy, deliver me!” his father yelled over him talking, and Ben looked at his feet and shook his head.
“Okay, you need us, call,” his ma ignored his pop, and gratefully ended it.
“Later, Ma.”
“’Bye, Benny.”
He disconnected, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and moved to another box. He was finding the ex-owners of his house left him mostly junk. Some was good enough that he’d call the Salvation Army to pick it up. The rest he’d take to the dump.
That said, this was not going to be a day’s job. It would take at least a week and he was not looking forward to it.
What he was looking forward to was not having to drive down to Frankie’s every few weeks or waiting for her to come to him. He wanted this. She wanted this. He wanted her to make his house hers. So he was doing what he could so she could do that.
He got through two more boxes before his phone rang again. He pulled it out, expecting it’d be his mother having seen another piece of furniture, or God knew what, this time something she wanted him to see. This was something that could happen easily when his mother was out doing anything.
Not for the first time he was understanding Carm’s play of moving all the way across the country.
But his display said, Sal Calling.
He put his cell to his ear and greeted, “Yo, Sal.”
“Where are you?” Sal barked, and Ben’s back shot straight.
“In my basement,” he answered, not feeling good feelings about Sal’s greeting.
Sal was talking to someone else when he ordered, “Get him to put someone on her and you drive down now.”
Ben took the punch to the heart those words caused and he did it moving quickly to his dog, who was lying on his back, four paws in the air, sleeping on a pile of rags Ben had tossed in the corner. Gus was out because Gus had attacked every attackable item in the basement, and there were a fair few of them, and he’d engaged in this activity for a solid hour.
Benny bent, scooped up Gus, who jumped with surprise in his arm, then immediately started wriggling, ready for play, even right out of sleep. But Ben had to ignore it for once as he headed to the stairs.
He did all this demanding, “Talk to me.”
“Word’s shiftin’ through Indy. A man lookin’ for someone to do a hit for him. Easy job. Some computer kid who works for Wyler Pharmaceuticals. He’s in a hurry this time and doesn’t mind local. He’s also found local.”
Jesus, what the fuck was happening where Frankie worked?
“You are fuckin’ shittin’ me,” Ben growled, making it to his kitchen.
“I’m not. Got that, but yesterday, I got more.”
Fucking brilliant.
More.
“What?” Benny bit out.
“PI down there, sleazebag and middleman for a variety of shit, he’s got himself a job trailin’ some boy who’s boinking his secretary. Guess where that boy works?”
“What the fuck?” Ben clipped, now taking the stairs to his second floor two at a time.
“This shit is not good shit, whatever this shit is. But I do not know what this shit is and I do not like that. So I’m gonna find out. I also know two hits called on two folks who work where Frankie works, this PI—who is not a good guy, Benny, he’s a piece of shit—if he’s involved, I’m not likin’ this at all. I got friends down there. They’ll put a man on Frankie until my boy gets down there to take over.”
Ben stopped dead in his bedroom. “Why’re you doin’ that?”
“Why?” Sal clipped. “’Cause this is Frankie. She could be standin’ in a field in the middle of the day and a dead body would drop on her.”
He was not wrong.
Frankie got born into a family who bounced her around, didn’t give that first shit about her, and caused her headaches to that day. Her first and only real boyfriend before Benny got involved with the mob, then was murdered. Her play for redemption with his family got her shot. Now she had a job where people were getting whacked.
Fuck.
“Why is the computer guy a target?” Ben asked.
“No fuckin’ clue,” Sal answered.
“You know if Frankie knows him?”
“Nope, but I do know the boy who’s bangin’ his secretary has a job title just like Frankie’s, ’cept it says ‘west’ and not ‘east.’”
“A close colleague,” Ben muttered, making a decision. He put Gus on the floor and went to his closet. He pulled out the bag that had seen a lot of use the last months, telling Sal, “I’m gonna be on the road, headed down there in ten minutes.”
“Got a boy already on his way, Benny. He’ll trail her everywhere, keep an eye. You got the restaurant.”
“No disrespect, Sal, and I mean it this time, but I’m not a big fan of one of your boys trailin’ Frankie.”
“You think she’ll make him?” Sal asked, and Benny’s brows shot together.
“You weren’t gonna tell her this shit’s goin’ down?” Ben asked back.
“Fuck no, figlio. She knows this, she’ll stick her nose in. She’s in that field and that body that drops on her?” he asked, but he did it not wanting an answer. “It’d be a friend she was helping.”
He had a point.
Ben tossed his bag on the bed. “That’s not why I don’t want one of your men on her.”
“He’ll take care of her, Benny.”
“That’d be my job,” Ben returned.
Sal was silent.
Ben wasn’t.
“Explain to me your take on this.”
“Got no take,” Sal replied. “All I know is that it’s not good and Frankie’s in the firing line.”
That was Benny’s take.
“She’s got a guy who works with her, forgot his first name but last name’s Bierman,” Ben told him. “He’s a dick and Frankie says he’s targeting her boss for a takedown.”
“Another hit?”
Fucking hell, the world Sal lived in.
“Office politics, Sal.”
“Oh,” he muttered. “Right.”
“To get to her boss, he’s got his eyes on Frankie and her colleague,” Ben told him. “You got a name behind the ordered hit?”
“Don’t work that way, Benny. Only thing exchanged is money and the name of the guy goin’ down.”
“What’s the name of the guy goin’ down?”
“Peter Furlock.”
“You got a guy on him?”
“Don’t give a fuck about him.”
He’d grabbed shit from his drawer and was tossing it into his bag when he told Sal, “I gotta call the cops on this, Sal.”
“You cannot do that, Benito Bianchi.”
Ben went solid at his tone.
“I got my name all over Indy askin’ these questions,” Sal stated in a cold voice. “You put the cops on this, they stick their noses in, me askin’ around, one and one will make two, and that’ll fuck me. Don’t got a lot of business in Indy, but the business I got and the relationships I got I wanna keep. I ask around about somethin’ the cops get wind of and move on, my name takes the kind of hit I don’t like. I love you, figlio, but no one fucks me, even you.”
Goddammit!
He should never have asked Sal to get involved. He knew it. Problem was,
this was about Frankie, it was important, and he had no one else to ask.
“Then you put a man on that guy,” Ben returned.
Sal was silent.
“Sal, put a man on that guy or we got problems,” Ben said quietly. “I do not want to have problems with you for obvious reasons. And I do not want to have problems with you for Frankie.”
“I’m pretty sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that I’m not in the business of doin’ good deeds.”
“Get in it for Frankie,” Benny replied.
“How in the firing line is she?” Sal asked.
“I don’t know what’s goin’ down with these hits, Sal, but I figure from what she’s told me, the PI was likely hired by Bierman. This could mean he’s got the same on Frankie. The hits, I’ve got no clue. The PI, it fits.”
“Right,” Sal prompted when Benny took a breath.
“There’s weird shit happening with this guy that’s beyond office politics,” Ben kept going. “I’ve never worked in an office, but it seems way over the top to hire a PI to find dirt on some random member of the team in order to take out a bigger fish. Frankie’s keepin’ clear, outside of cataloging all the weird shit that’s happening. Her assistant is not. She’s stickin’ her nose in with a posse of other women who probably don’t like this guy and wanna see his ass canned, but are maybe puttin’ themselves in harm’s way.”
“Detail, Benny.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Get it,” Sal ordered. “Get down to Frankie. You take her ass, I’ll take Furlock’s ass. And you want me to solve this quiet-like, you keep your ass in that ’burg and you just became a Giglia foot soldier.”
Ben’s throat started burning and he growled, “That shit’s not happening.”
“In my brand-new good deeds department, Benny,” Sal said on a sigh.
Benny drew in a deep breath.
Then he made another decision.
“I gotta make some calls about the restaurant. I gotta pack more shit. Then I’m on the road. In the meantime, you find out if she’s got a PI on her.”
“Done. You get info, call me.”
“Done.”
“Take your gun, Benny,” Sal advised.
Fuck.
“You got a bad feeling,” Ben guessed quietly.
“About Frankie? Don’t know. About whatever this shit is? Yes. Definitely,” Sal confirmed.