Up in Smoke (King #8)

“And you didn’t call anyone?” I ask, wondering why a girl her age wouldn’t reach out and call for help.

“There was no one to call. I don’t have any other family, and I would’ve called the police or coroner or whoever, but then I wouldn’t have been able to stay here on my own and do all this.” She waved her hand at the monitors. Her eyes glassy. She sniffled. “So, I made a pulley with some chains, hung it from the ceiling, and shoved him in the freezer so that no one would know of his death, and I could live here and pretend to be him. Online anyway. That’s when I started my work.”

“Which is what exactly?” I ask hesitantly.

She smiles, beaming with pride. “When I realized I could hack my way into the dark web and continue his work, but in a different kind of way…I did. I knew the drop off points. The method of transport. It was all at my fingertips. I saved them, Smoke. I stole money from the assholes trading people like stocks on the Nasdaq, and I hired mercenaries to rescue them. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of women are now back with their families because I stopped it all.”

“Holy shit,” I say, not expecting what has just come out of her mouth. I take a moment to process what she’s just told me. SHE’S been Frank. For YEARS, she’s been pretending to be Frank. She’s the one who stole from Griff.

“Say something else. Something besides holy shit,” Frankie says.

“I’m blown away here. I’m pissed you didn’t tell me. I’m surprised…and I’m fucking amazed. I’m kind of…proud,” I say, cupping her face in my hands.

“No one’s ever told me they were proud of me before.” Her eyes light up.

“Assholes. All of them,” I say. I mean it. Someone should have told this amazing girl every fucking day of her life how amazing she is.

“I thought when you took me that day that it was about the money I stole. I didn’t tell you where Frank was and that he was dead because…”

“You lied to me,” I accuse, sounding madder than I actually am. I understood her reasons for lying but the barbarian in me was still pissed.

“Yes, because if I told you the truth you would’ve known it was me who stole the money, and—”

“And you would be dead anyway,” I finish for her.

She nods. “Because you thought you were looking for Frank Helburn, but you never were. You didn’t know it, but this whole time, you were looking for me.”





Chapter Forty-Three





“You manipulated me,” Smoke says. His proud is turning to pissed off again.

“Yes, and I’d do it again,” I tell him, sticking up my chin.

“Fuck,” Smoke curses, standing from the chair with such force it falls forward onto the ground. “You pissed off the wrong people, Frankie.”

“But hopefully I saved the right ones,” I defend. “I couldn’t stand by and NOT do anything.” I stand and face him. “Anyone in my position would have done the same.”

Smoke scoffs. “No, they wouldn’t. The people you pissed off wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“Any DECENT person in my position would have done the same,” I say, staring him down.

“Decent?” Smoke asks with a laugh.

I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward as Smoke walks up to me and cages me against the wall. He looks me in the eyes. I meet his gaze. Challenging him.

Always challenging him.

“My little hellion,” he murmurs. “But tell me something, Frankie.” He brushes his lips over mine then pulls back, teasing me. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Do all decent people bend their dead father’s corpses like a pretzel before shoving it in the motherfucking freezer?”

“That’s unfair,” I say, talking through my teeth, barely moving my lips.

“That’s what you don’t understand,” Smoke explains. “In this dangerous game, the one you’ve decided to play alongside some of the most dangerous people in the world, there are no rules. There is no fair and unfair. There is only dead and alive. Black and white. That’s it.”

“Exactly, and a lot of women would be dead if I didn’t do what I did. Now, they’re alive.”

I push against his chest and make a move toward the stairs, but he pulls me back. A million emotions are running through my mind along with a million worst-case scenarios.

“What else you got?” Smoke asks against my neck. My pulse begins to race.

“What do you mean?” I ask, sounding breathless.

“Tell me what other secrets you’re keeping from me.” Smoke nips at my earlobe, and I can’t help the full-body shudder that erupts from within. I unwrap myself from his hold and turn to face him. “I can see there’s more.”

Smoke watches as I go back to the desk. I lean over and hit a few keys. I’ve already cued up the surveillance video. I press play, and Smoke watches as Morgan is surprised by someone before it all goes blank.

“My father was a lot of things,” I continue, reaching in my pocket I pull out the USB drive Nine gave me and plug it into the port. “But a cold-blooded murderer wasn’t one of them. At least, not in this case.” I point up to the screen at the still image that shows a very different picture than the one Smoke had showing my father walking away. I keep my cursor over the lower right-hand corner, blocking the full view of the photo. “Someone wiped the feed, then altered the photo. Do you know this man?”

“Fuck, that’s Griff,” Smoke’s face reddens as his knuckles whiten. “Are you sure it’s real? That this one isn’t the fake one?”

“I’m sure.” I say. “As I said, my father died five years ago. That I’m sure of. It couldn’t be him who killed Morgan. It wasn’t. It was Griff.”

“How sure?” Smoke yells.

I stand tall and refuse to recoil. “I’m positive.”

Smoke exhales.

“The white tux my father was wearing in your version of the picture? It was a rental that he wore once, to his own wedding to my mother years before I was born. It also happens to be the only photo that even the best hacker would ever be able to find of him.”

Smoke turns and punches his fist through the drywall. I jump at the sound, my heart breaking for him over and over again. I’m in tears as I watch him crumble before me. My chest swells with both love and despair. “All this time. All this motherfucking time! I’m gonna rip his goddamned head off!”

“Smoke!” I yell, frantically trying to get his attention.

He looks at me, but he’s not seeing me. He punches the concrete wall over and over again. His knuckles are bloodied. His arms drip with red. The skin torn but he keeps going and going.

“Stop!” I yell.

“Why?” he grinds.

“Because we need a plan,” I say, not backing down. “What happens now?”

Smoke closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, he’s refocused. He smirks and lights a cigarette. “Now?” he chuckles wickedly. “Now, Griff and everyone he’s ever known and loved dies.”

“Smoke look at me, look at me!” I yell, getting in his face. Needing him to see me. To hear me.

He looks over my head, but I pull his face down and press my nose to his. “Smoke, calm down.”

“There’s nothing anyone can do or say to get me to calm down now.”