TO THE WOLVES
CHAPTER SIX !

            "YOU SHOULD'VE SEEN HIM, RAVA!" The blonde haired woman raved as stood in Rava's kitchen, freeing herself of her coat. Her interaction with her father had truly riled her up, filling her up to the brim with pure, unadulterated rage. "He was so—ugh! I hate him!"

After her father had left her office, Frankie, who had felt like absolute shit just like she did after most conversations with the man, she had made her way to her best friends home. Luckily for her, both Sophie and Iverson were still at school meaning neither child had to endure her griping.

"What happened?" Rava inquired from where she sat at the breakfast bar.

Mere minutes before Frankie's arrival, Rava had been busy dealing with the intricacies of her most recent case when she'd received an alarming, all-caps text message from the blonde. The urgency came through the words, 'IM GONNA KILL HIM!' It was pretty clear to Rava that Frankie was spiralling.

Frankie scoffed. "Cocaine! That's what happened. My piece of shit father has been doing cocaine for god knows how long and then he had to nerve to go through my personal calendar and then question me on it!"

"What a dick." Rava uttered in disgust. She'd know how horrible of a father Benjamin Rhodes could be, having witnessed his demeaning nature firsthand far too many times since the beginning of hers and Frankie's friendship.

Frankie turned away from the brunette for a moment as she helped herself to a bottle of Evian water from the woman's refrigerator. "You can say that again." She grumbled while unscrewing the cap.

Rava watched as her best friend gulped down half the bottle. "What are you gonna do?"

"What can I do?" Frankie breathed out with a shrug, her tongue darting out to lick away the small droplets of water that had clung to her lips. Her hands fiddled with the blue cap of her Evian bottle. "It's not as if I can just talk to him. He'd never listen to me."

            Asking her father to suddenly treat her with kindness was out of the question. He was an asshole through and through. He wouldn't change his ways just because his daughter asked him to. No, he'd probably become worse simply because he could.

            Rava wracked her brain for any possible outcome in this situation that would benefit Frankie. She knew it would have to be something that alerted the power imbalance in Frankie's favour. "You could send him to rehab." She then suggested.

            Frankie's left brow raised inquisitively. "Don't people have to be willing?"

            Rava's head shook from side to side. The woman brushed her hair behind her ears. "No, not necessarily. You think Kendall was willing when he first went to rehab? Remember how agitated he was." She commented, fighting back a grimace.

            It hadn't been a pretty sight, watching Kendall be shipped off to rehab. Looking on, holding back tears as he fought against the people who had come to collect him.  

            "That's true." Frankie mumbled back, getting lost in thought. It wasn't the worst idea, that's for sure but sending her dad to rehab? Wouldn't that make her the most deplorable daughter ever?

            She suddenly shook her head, as if shaking the idea from her head. Her words came out in a stutter. "I-I can't. I mean, he's my— my father."

            Her shoulders raised and fell as she sighed deeply. "Besides I wouldn't know the first thing on sending someone to rehab."

            "It's up to you. But if you want my opinion,—" Rava stopped briefly, not speaking until she received an affirmative nod from the blonde. "He'd do the same thing to you. I really believe that if you were the one with a drug problem, he'd sell you down the river."

For a moment, Rava found herself faltering. She caught sight of Frankie staring off into the distance at nothing particular. Her hazel coloured eyes had become somewhat glazed as she got lost in thought once again. Frankie loved her father. After her mother's passing, it had just been them left. She'd only had him for so long. But she knew what Rava was saying.

Her father was conniving. He always had been. His best friend was Logan Roy, for fuck sake! Before today though, before the invasion of privacy, the insulting of her husband and urging of her to never had kids, Frankie had actually convinced herself that her father would spare her from being in the receiving end of his true nature. That he would never treat her how he treated those he classed as beneath him.

A frown formed upon Rava's lips as she reached across the breakfast table and grasped onto Frankie's hand that lay flat against the table. The touch managed to tear the blonde away from her mind and placed her attention on her best friend.

With the softest sounding voice possible, Rava chose to be honest for Frankie's sake. "Your dad's not a nice guy, Frankie. You know this but choose to lock it away in your mind."

"He's my dad, Rava." Frankie croaked out. It was like the fog had lifted, like she'd removed her rose coloured glasses and hated what she saw.

"I know, sweetie."

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            AFTER HER CONVERSATION WITH Rava, Frankie had spent the next hour (it was three and a half hours) watching a movie with Iverson and Sophie. The two kids had arrived home from school and had given the blonde a chance to push aside all of her worries and instead hone in all her focus on them.

            The kids had to head to bed after a while, leaving Frankie to hug Rava goodbye and head on home. The lights had been on when she got back, a gentle golden hue cascading along the apartment. The clicking of her heels had caught the attention of her husband who practically sprinted to the front door, just in time to see the blonde locking up and shedding herself of her coat.

            "Francesca Roy! You're in big trouble, missy! I'm—" His jaw slackened at the sight of a frown on his wife's, usually soft but now cracked lips. His theatrics fell silent on his tongue as he sombrely uttered, "—sensing that you're upset. You okay?"

The frown became deeper as Frankie stepped further into the home, brushing past Roman. "Just my dad." She lowly replied while making her way to the living room, Roman following so closely behind her that he could latch onto her shirts fabric.

"I'm shocked. What'd he do now?" Roman rolled his eyes at the mention of his father in law while he watched Frankie removing her pair of black high heels.

A heavy and deep breath escaped from her lips as she sat up on the large, cream coloured couch. "What didn't he do?"

Roman placed himself on the other end of the couch, welcoming his wife's feet in his lap as she stretched out and relaxed into the thick and comforting cushion behind her. For the next few minutes, the doe eyed man remained mute as he simply listened to Frankie recall the events of her day. Internally, Roman was seething at the disgraceful behaviour of her dad.

            A small, almost inaudible hum of thought emerged from Frankie, the woman contemplating telling Roman of what Rava had suggested to her. "Rava suggested sending him to rehab." She finally revealed.

            Roman scoffed. In his eyes, Benjamin Rhodes deserved nothing less than having his balls twisted until they fell off. "Fuck that. I say blackmail him."

            There was a pause. Frankie honestly couldn't believe her ears as evidently by her wide eyed stare across the couch. "You want me to blackmail my father?"

            "Yeah, that's what I just said." The Roy man condescendingly smirked as he playfully reached out and patted her knee. With his voice dripping with a saccharine-sweet tone, he uttered, "Honey, you need to listen."

            Her gaze fixed into a semi-amused glare. Bewildered laughter became interwoven with her words as she replied, "Don't patronise me, honey. Besides, would you ever consider blackmailing Logan?"

            "The vegetab—"

             "Rome." The blonde breathed out.

              Roman sighed. His hands flew up in the air as he dramatically shrugged. "Who the fuck knows? Could I do it? Of course I could. I'm like those two hussies who blackmailed John Stamos."

Ah yes. The 'hussies' that blackmailed John Stamos. Frankie found it absolutely comical that Roman, who always ranted and raved about the idiocy of the Full House actor (it certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he had refused to appear in a Waystar movie) was suddenly comparing himself to the two women who had attempted to blackmail John Stamos.

Clearly he held a grudge.

A chuckle fell from her lips at her husbands words. "The fact that you know about that means they weren't exactly the best at blackmailing."

As she laughed, the brown eyed man observed her from his end of the couch. For as long as he could remember, Frankie had been under her fathers thumb. Trapped with a father who despised her and used her for his own gain.

Hell, their fucking marriage had basically been a business deal between his dad and hers. If it hadn't been for the shared attraction that previously existed between them, both he and Frankie would have been trapped into a loveless marriage. Her dad only ever saw her as a means to an end. A resource to aid him in the company. Roman saw her as so much more.

To him, she was the only person who truly understood him. Never had she pushed him or made him feel like shit. Their entire lives, Frankie had been the light at the end of the decaying and on the verge collapse tunnel that was his life. Even when he had pushed her away, refused to let her see how badly he ached, how funny his breathing became after any moment spent with his father, Frankie had never held that against him and had always been there to tell him everything would be okay.

Francesca Rhodes-Roy was a much better person than he could ever hope to be.

Placing his hand upon her leg, fingertips lightly pressing into the flesh, Roman shot her a tentative smile before saying, "Frankie, your dad is an asshole. Always has been and always will be. Maybe it's time you start putting yourself first, stop allowing that shitsack to control you."

"You've ran that company with more success than he ever had. Why else would he have left you in charge?" Roman was now practically yelling at her. He so desperately wanted her to see that her dad was a piece of shit and that she deserved better. "He doesn't want to acknowledge how fucking good you are at your job but he'd be lost without you."

"No. I couldn't." Blackmail her father? Take the company from under him? Surely, she couldn't do that. "Could I?"

Roman chortled at how innocently she had asked that question. "Don't take this the wrong way but—you're a bitch. And I say that as your loving husband. If you wanted to, you could crush him."

Though she wasn't sure on which course of action she would take as of yet, the way in which Roman spoke to her warmed her heart. It would certainly sound odd to anyone who didn't know him, but to Frankie his words meant the world. It was Roman speak for that he believed in her.

She pulled her legs from his lap, ignoring the confused look that was sent her way. In seconds, she had shuffled across the couch and had placed herself in his lap, straddling his waist. Roman's hands fell to her thighs, his grip firm as his fingertips crept under the fabric of her dress that rose up. Her gaze was gentle as she stared down at her husband.

Roman's chest rose up and down as he took in the sight of the blonde above him. The softest of gasps fell from his lips as Frankie leaned forward and placed the lightest of kisses upon his mouth. Without moving a muscle, for fear of losing this moment, Roman chose to simply enjoy the soft caresses of her lips, the gentle tugs of his hair.

As she pulled back from the kiss, oblivious to the way Roman chased after her lips, Frankie released a sigh of content as she leaned forward and buried her face into his chest, nuzzling into the soft fabric of his shirt. "Thank you."

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jamielee's thoughts.
chapter six. not proofread.
i'm trying to introduce some background for characters like Kendall, like we knew he went to rehab but did he go willingly??who knows.
also she will be blackmailing her father! and i can't wait! anyway hope you enjoyed :)