“God, Xander. I’m so sorry. I knew it was supposed to be goodbye and all I could do was imagine what you must have been doing. Xander, my father still has the prints. What do we do about that?”
He pressed his lips together and stared at me.
“Nothing. There’s nothing I can do. Jia he wouldn’t be foolish enough to put the prints back in the same place, it’s a given. Do you remember at the poker game that night? You asked me about a man that was there?”
“Yeah, Russian looking guy.”
“He’s a black market trader. We also call him The Chameleon because of how he vanishes in plain sight. My advantage that night was that he’d never seen me before. He however caught me along with your father and it was always the worry in my team that if he got the prints then that would be it. We wouldn’t know what happened to them. I’m guessing he has them now.”
Great…
“So, there’s nothing we can do?”
“There’s only one thing I’m going to do and that’s take care of you.” He looked at me with firm determination.
I would have loved to feel happy about the declaration but fear got the better of me.
It really did.
It also switched my focus from the prints to the more pressing problem, my father.
He always said I was the most important thing to him. I believed him.
I believed him and I expected the whole Marchesi clan to be after us by morning.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Xander
I sent a message to Wes.
Nothing in the content. It was blank.
It was a signal to let him know I was alive.
I was alive and would contact him as soon as I could.
That was the gist of the message.
Blank for safety reasons.
The same sort of message was sent to Ethan. For him it was a code though. Code 9. Meant the mission had been compromised and he should move to the next plan of action. Whatever that was.
Whatever it was wouldn’t involve me and I supposed I’d be in the shitstorm I’d been in previously, back to square one.
I sent the code to confirm the next steps even though I’d left Wes with the instructions. I guessed Ethan would have probably taken action anyway, given shit hit the fan days ago, nevertheless, having confirmation the mission had been compromised sealed the deal.
I’d managed to get myself up and emailed him the code, blotting out the IP address so it couldn’t be traced here to Frankie’s family.
I didn’t say where I was because this place wasn’t for me to broadcast.
Frankie hadn’t said anything to me to caution me, but I guessed straightaway that he’d kept his family away from his life and activities with Giovanni.
The way they carried themselves was a dead giveaway. They were different. Not so tense or on edge. We’d been here for a day and a half and it felt like living back in Idaho with Jack.
I grew up rough in Chicago. That was where he found me and took me in. A year later he moved to the farm house in Idaho.
I’d thought he was going to bid his goodbyes when he told me he was selling up and moving. Then he said he wanted his kids to have some of the country life like he had. Kids, as in plural. Claire and me.
It was then that he really became family to me.
Knowing that he would not only take me with him, no questions asked, but also he made sure he got a big enough place so that I had my own room and space in abundance.
He wanted me to have somewhere I could call home and always return to.
Neither of us knew at the time that I would end up falling for his daughter.
These people here lived like him, so it wasn’t for me to give my location away.
Like Frankie, Wes and I had separate phones. My phone had been taken from me but I’d memorized Wes’ number for the secret phone.
He’d messaged back with the same blank message. That meant received.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed trying to heal my core. I did some deep breathing techniques I’d learned from some Buddhist monks in Nepal.
The technique helped to build inner strength. As soon as I got mine we needed to make a move.
On my plan I wanted us gone by morning. The early hours of the morning, so we’d still have the cover of darkness.
Frankie came into the room and looked me over with concern.
Another thing I’d done when I got some ounce of my strength back was talk to both him and Jia properly. I gave them the full run down on me.
I’d felt they deserved it. They more than deserved to at least know me given that they’d risked their necks for me multiple times and we were in the height of it. There were no secrets now. I’d filled in all the blanks and even told them about Claire and Jack. They knew that to everybody else I was supposed to be dead and that just got wiped from my records so I could blend in when I became a knight.
Frankie had that same expression he held then. One that offered compassion and understanding.
“Hey.” He grinned.
“Hey there.”
“You look stronger.”
“Must be the food.” I managed a smile. Frankie chuckled.
Jia was with his mother, cooking. Earlier they’d gotten talking about food. Jia being such a great cook and lover of fine cooked meals got sucked in straight away, right into the conversation and then ended up heading off to make some classic Italian dishes. She’d come up with lunch earlier and it was divine.
“I’m not gonna disagree. It’s heaven being in a house with two of my favorite cooks.” Frankie made his way over to me and sat on the edge of the bed. “How you actually doing buddy?”
“I’m trying to get stronger. Mind and body. I was thinking we should get gone by morning. Maybe four or earlier. Grab some sleep, then head out.”
“I’m cool with that.”
My shoulders tensed. “Frankie, I meant me and Jia.”
He gave me a cunning smile. “I know you’re healing yourself up so you can get back in bed with her as quick as possible, and you probably want your privacy, but I’m coming.”
I laughed. It hurt to laugh but it was worth it. It was moments like these that lightened the tension.
“That’s not why. You’ve done enough for me, you’ve done enough for Jia too.” He had done more than enough, his help was… well I couldn’t have done it without him. Not one damn bit.
“How can it be enough when your journey’s just beginning? Who knows what the hell Giovanni must be going through. He probably thinks I’m the rat in the circle and I kidnapped his daughter and handed her over to The Ra.” He chuckled.
It wasn’t funny. It was a possibility that Giovanni could think that but I’d be the wild card in the mix.
“He won’t. Because he’ll know you helped me, he’ll know this is a separate problem. But he’ll go crazy nonetheless. I’ve never met a man like that before, love and crazy mixed together. I get that parents do what they can for their kids but he’s just…” I didn’t quite know what to call him.
“Bad,” Frankie filled in.
“I don’t know if that’s the right description. I’m bad.”
“You’re a fucking badass. There’s different levels of bad. Some of it isn’t all bad. That’s why I knew you couldn’t have been a cop. Play too dirty. That day you nearly killed Armand spoke all. You messed that mothafucka up real bad. Gotta hand it to you. I could see you would have done it though, because of what he was going to do.”