Page 51 of All Saints Day
“That’s a bet I’m willing to help you lose, Dollface,” he challenges, leaning in to catch Louise’s mouth with his, but she draws back—staying just out of his reach, the beast’s chest bound tightly with duct tape.
“You like to think of yourself as the smartest, toughest guy in the room—don’t you?” Louise walks her fingers from Frank’s right kneecap up his thigh. “I wonder where that comes from?” She sighs, her fingers continuing their stroll up to the collar of his sweat-stained and scuffed button-down. “What do you think, Q darling?” she chimes sweetly as her finger traces the square underline of Rook’s stubble-shadowed jaw.
“Must have gotten it from dear old dad, right?” Tin-tin offers sagely, Rook’s whole body goes still as Louise pinches his chin between her thumb and forefinger—forcing him to look at her, not Quentin as he pushes on, “The one man in organized crime all the mafia bosses feared; the undisputed king of hired muscle.” Rook does his best to keep on a brave face, but all the color drains from his cheeks as Louise keeps his chin clutched in her iron grip—her face looming over Rook’s.
“Patrick Castle—the man, the myth, the legend behind Castle Security,” Louise coos, her lips actually brushing against Rook’s now.
I had given Quentin and Caz the names Patrick Castle and Castle security, and set them on an information-gathering mission after Frank had fed me the name that night in the bathroom on the boat.
The pair had uncovered more than they bargained for and had only been able to bring Louise and I partially up to speed before this first interrogation; hoping they could use some of what they’d learned as leverage.
While I had an incomplete picture, I knew well enough to understand that they were really rattling the beast’s cage now.
“Oh god,”la betegroans, his face becoming suddenly closed tight with sorrow—brows knit, a deep frown, eyes brimming with tears even as all of his abdominal muscles fire into flexion—a breathy moan escaping him as Louise’s lips send an electric current through his entire body; her scent and Tin-tin’s mix in an oppressive cocktail within the small space.
“Who told you that name?” Rook pants, out of breath.
“Frank,” Louise entreats him. “Come back to me, Frank.”
Rook swallows hard, his eyes fluttering closed.
“Come back to us, Frank.”
His breathing becomes momentarily erratic, and his eyes dance wildly beneath half-closed lids.
Louise backs off, a tentative expression on her face as Rook shudders slightly in front of her.
When his eyes snap open—there is a clarity, a light, a lucidity that wasn’t there before.
“Louise,” he gasps—his eyes welling with tears before they dart to Quentin and the rest of us.
“Q, Seb, Caz—” Frank’s breath catches as his eyes fall on Dennis, a tiny sob escaping him before he gasps, “Dennis!” with an air of incredulity.
All of us are momentarily disarmed.
Could this really be him? Frank? Or is it another lie—another manipulation?
He doesn’t struggle against his bonds, to the contrary—he seems to go limp, all of the fight gone out of him.
Frank’s voice is so weak—a thin, raspy thing—that I almost don’t hear him when he entreats us.
“Just put me out of my misery.”
“You didn’t extend me such a kindness once the Windmill caught hold of me, why should I do you such a big favor?” Louise stares into his eyes with fiery intensity.
“Because you’re not broken,” he answers flatly, his eyes brimming with tears. “You’re unbreakable, Louise—it’s why I knew you would hold out until either the Saints or I could get you out,” Frank bites out before turning his eyes down in shame—his chin still held in Louise’s iron grip. “I couldn’t keep my shit together though, too fucked up.”
I hear my own knuckles pop before I realize how hard I’ve clenched my fingers into fists. His face is just asking for a punch with this self-pitying bullshit.
“You’re here now—and you can spill.” Louise’s voice is honeyed poison, her own malice wafting in tendrils of her scent—the biting note of pink pepper sharp as a knife in the enclosed space.
Frank closes his eyes, his nostrils flaring as her perfume washes over him in a powerful wave.
“The more I tell you, the more danger I put you in,” he grits out, his body straining toward her against his bonds involuntarily.
“You almost killed me at the Windmill, what do you care about putting me in danger?” Louise accuses him plainly, letting go of his chin in disgust.
“I know it sounds crazy, that it doesn’t make sense.” Frank shakes his head, but Quentin swoops in like a bird of prey—snatching up a handful of raven hair at the crown of Frank’s head—forcing his head back, forcing Frank to look up at both Quentin and Louise.
