Page 115 of Vicious Games

And suddenly, it hits me. If Frankie had a family to call her own—her real family—maybe she wouldn’t feel like she had to give her life away and wear a fucking habit. Not that the fuckers who abandoned her deserve her mercy or forgiveness, but perhaps they could be the key.

I know Frankie. Deep down, all she’s ever wanted is tofeelwanted, protected, and loved unconditionally. I fear that my love… might not be enough. If it were, she’d have changed her mind by now.

Quietly, I slide out from the bed and grab my phone. I snap a few photos of the bracelet, then pull on some sweatpants. I pull up the bedsheet to cover her, brushing my knuckles along her cheek one last time before slipping out the door.

It’s a long shot, but I’m going to do everything in my power to find them… find whoever left her on her own to fend for herself. And when I do? I’ll decide if they’re worthy of her. If they are, I’ll give her the choice to be reunited with them. But if they’re not? They’ll wish they’d never taken a breath on this earth. She might not think I can protect her from the world, but I can at least do this for her.

With new resolve in my step, I head straight to Enzo’s. I don’t even bother knocking—just throw the door open and stroll inside. In hindsight, knocking might’ve been smart… because whatever I was expecting to find,thisdefinitely wasn’t it.

“Please tell me you didn’t fuck Rolo,” I say in way of greeting when I find Rolo face-down and half-naked on Enzo’s bed.

Enzo’s sitting in a chair beside him, laptop in his lap, looking absolutely unbothered by the question.

“Good morning to you, too,” Enzo says, smirking.

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“And I’m not giving you one.” His grin widens without looking away from the screen.

I walk over to Rolo, who’s currently slobbering over my brother’s pillow, drooling like a busted faucet. I take a step back when the stench of hard liquor, practically seeping from his pores, invades my nostrils.

“Well, if you did fuck him, it couldn’t have been that great. He’s out cold,” I say, nudging his shoulder. “But hey, kudos. He’s been on your ‘to-do’ list since you first saw him.”

“That he has,” Enzo says with a grin. “But we didn’t do anything. We spent the night talking. And maybe getting a bit drunk.”

I eye Rolo’s limp arm and lift it, flopping back down like dead weight when I release it.

“More like you talked, and he drank,” I smirk. “Lemme guess, you spent the whole night rambling about your priest obsession, and the poor fucker drank himself into a coma?”

“I’m busy, Lucky,” he retorts, glancing back at his laptop, his smug grin replaced by a frown.

“Too busy to help me?” That gets his attention.

“Depends. What do you need?”

I walk over to him and pull out my phone to show him the pictures of Frankie’s bracelet. He raises a brow, but the second he sees the image, he smirks.

“Looks like I wasn’t the only one who had a sleepover,” Enzo teases.

“Just look at the bracelet, not the girl it’s attached to,” I snap.

“Touchy.” He holds his hands up in mock surrender but zooms in on the image, analyzing the medallion. “That’s some expensive-looking jewelry for an orphan to be rocking.”

“It’s all she has left from her parents. When the pricks abandoned her, they left her this. I want to know if there’s any way to trace where it came from. Who it belonged to. Anything that might lead us to her birth parents.”

Enzo lets out a low whistle and leans closer to the screen. “That’s a big ask, brother.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” I reply confidently before AirDropping him the pics.

“You don’t have to stroke my ego, Lucky. I’ll look into it for you,” he says, eyes scanning the details of the bracelet, his tone softening. “I know how much she means to you.”

“Is it that obvious?” I ask, suddenly feeling out of sorts.

He looks up with his brown eyes—so similar to mine—glinting with amusement. “You’d have to be blind not to notice. You two were practically joined at the hip last night.”

“Yeah, it might have been obvious to you, but I don’t think Frankie has gotten the memo yet.” I sulk.

“Have you told her?”

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