Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“I’m a dove, right?”
“Don’t focus on the little details; they don’t have to mean anything to you. It’s just how we communicate.”
“No, it does mean something.”
Larkin found her in the rearview again. The soft expression on his face said he knew exactly what it meant. “Can I continue? Once you’re on the plane, we won’t speak until we land. That is necessary, too.”
Frankie sniffled as tears gathered. “Why does it sound so involved?”
“Because it has to be. Things were left to chance and what was expected, or usual, before, and it was devastating for your father. That’s going to be your last question, got it?”
She nodded.
“Good, try to stick to it.”
Rubbing at her belly, she settled back into the seat and let the kicks of her son lull her into a less scary place. Him, and the pregnancy, she wouldn’t worry for. Every appointment showed him healthy and thriving, and she intended to get them both to the finish line in the same condition.
“As I said before,” Larkin spoke again, dragging Frankie from her thoughts, “for the next few weeks, could be less, could be more, the doves will continue to be in perpetual movement, be it on land, air or sea. There will occasionally be breaks when resting during travel has not been available for prolonged periods. Those breaks will last as long as a night of sleep, so don’t get it in your head that we’re shopping, sight-seeing, or anything in between.”
Like that mattered now. She stayed quiet.
The vehicle finally broke into a clearing, and the headlights of the truck illuminated a chain-link fence that Larkin turned to drive alongside. Staring out the window, Frankie tried to peer through the darkness to see what lay beyond the fencing and snowy field.
Larkin noticed. “As I said, chartered plane, so we’re at a private airport.”
“Carina is the other dove, isn’t she?” Frankie asked.
Larkin cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“But everybody thinks she’s in Milan.”
“Doesn’t matter. Things happen, people talk, and then they’ll go looking. Or an attack on the property could leave her vulnerable—”
“Attack?”
Larkin dragged in a heavy breath and then exhaled harshly. “Okay, this is part of the reason we’re not supposed to talk and discuss in detail.”
“Don’t you have a dove, too?” she asked quietly in the backseat. “Shouldn’t she be kept safe?”
Larkin chuckled under his breath. “Don’t worry about her. Sissy’s a better shot than all of us combined. She knows what to do.”
The same Sissy who couldn’t kill a spider?
“Never would’ve guessed,” she admitted.
“Who do you think she learned how to shoot for?”
•••
Somewhere, USA — Location Unknown
Three weeks later...
Frankie edged closer to the sliding glass doors leading to a private closed-in balcony attached to the suite of rooms where their group currently resided. A week earlier, the group finally stopped moving from place to place, day to day, and no one bothered to explain why.
She knew better than to ask, too.
“So,” she heard Carina say just outside the doors, “he’s called them all in.”
“They sit down today,” Larkin confirmed.
“He’s got them that far, then.”
A throat cleared behind Frankie. She rolled her eyes, but glanced over her shoulder to see one of the two men that accompanied Larkin on this adventure of theirs.
“Yes?” she asked him.
Gabriel, that was his name. Larkin just called him Gabe.
“Stop spying.”
“Mmm, no thanks.”
As he hadn’t come from the estate’s security staff, she didn’t know where Larkin found him or how he got the job of protecting and escorting them all over hell’s creation.
Another thing not to ask.
The other man, currently showering, she did know from the estate. Dannik. He spoke very little English, but understood it well enough, the Frenchman, but he’d sure mastered how to tell Frankie no without a hint of accent.
Could she go outside for a walk? No.
Could she change the movie to the news? No.
Could she order her own food from a hotel she didn’t even know the name of? No.
She couldn’t remember a time, ever, in her life when she had been told that word as much as she heard it in the last three weeks.
“If they all come to an agreement at the table today,” Larkin said outside, “then we’ll be back home soon enough.”
“Good,” Carina murmured. “He’ll do it. Sal can do—”
“Stop eavesdropping,” Gabe said louder.
Spinning to glare at the man, she replied, “The door is open, they left it that way.”
“Go find something else to do,” Gabe told her.
“Like what, watch paint peel?”
“There’s no paint peeling going on here. This suite is six grand a night.”
Fascinating. Frankie wished she cared. “I’m bored as shit.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Are you arguing with him again, Frankie?” came Larkin’s voice behind her. Now, she spun back around to the glass doors. Larkin smirked where he leaned against the side tracks. “For the record, he’s not paid to listen to you complain, either.”
Apparently, they weren’t paid to do a lot of things. Just annoy her. “I wasn’t complaining, I’m bored.”