I slap his arm away. “Leave me alone.”
Soft hands cup my cheeks. I’m so busy fighting back the desire to throw up that I don’t realize it’s my mom. “Andrew, stop. You almost died.”
What?
“Mr. Drevlow, you were under for four days. We had to pump your stomach to save you.”
The doctor’s words pierce through, followed by one term: alcohol poisoning.
That’s why my last memory is looking down at the sidewalk, isn’t it? I must have passed out shortly after.
“Andrew, listen to me. You don’t have to do this anymore.” Mom tilts my head back, eyes shimmering with tears. “I’ve spoken to him. He’s hellbent on you making it to Princeton, and he understands the only way we’re getting you back is by helping you find her.”
I’m about to call bullshit when my father walks into the room next.
The need to end him—this unholy, unnatural rage in my soul—pumps pure strength into my limbs. Whereas a minute ago I couldn’t even stand, now I’m on my feet, already stepping in his direction.
My mother throws her weight against my chest in a desperate bid to stop me.
“Your mother isn’t lying, boy.” In the three months since I’ve seen him, his sneer has morphed. Evolved. Once, he stared at me with disappointment and disgust. Now, it’s something more akin to revulsion.
Not that I give a fuck. What I feel towards him is so ugly that words could never truly quantify it. “I’ll never believe your fucking lies. All you do is—”
“Let me make something clear to you, brat. If your mother here hadn’t failed me in producing another child, if you weren’t my only heir—”
I’ve heard enough. Urging my mom out of the way, I step closer.
His reaction—how he twitches and steps back before he can stop himself—brings a smile to my face. “I can prove I’m willing to help you. As soon as you sign a contract swearing you’ll go to fucking school and do right by this family.”
Money is low. Something that I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never experienced in my life. I’ve spent the last few months running program after program, desperately trying to find some sign of her or her mother in the databases. That, and drinking my life away just to deal with the hole in my brain.
I feel sick as fuck, but I could use a drink right now, in fact.
That’s the only reason I stop short at his claim. I’ll never trust him, will never be able to, but I’m also running out of options.
At the very least, I can use going back home as a way to get more money into my account.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but your son had severe alcohol poisoning when he was brought in. We need to get him back in bed.”
My mother rubs my chest soothingly. “Please listen to us, Drew.”
I ignore everyone but the creature blocking my way out the door. “You’d help me find a Berkman?”
“You’re throwing the most massive fit in the history of humanity. What fucking choice do I have? I’ve invested too much in you to let you throw it all down the drain.”
I’ll never believe him. Ever. Not even with this so-called “proof” he’s offering.
Yet, I need money. A lot more than twenty-k this time. Enough to get me set up for a long, long time.
And I know just how to hack into this bastard’s account to get it. I just need to be in the vicinity of his computers.
However, there’s a part of me that’s also curious what he means by “proof”. “Fine, I’ll come back home. But after you prove to me you’re willing to help me find her. Not a second before.”
chapter 12
h e lied to me.
Of course, he did.
But this lie was new. Different. More thought out than any others before. They released me from the hospital two days later. My father sent his driver to pick me up and I was taken straight to the heart of Jersey City where Drevlow Systems Inc. is located.
Once there, I was showed an entire four-men team working on the same thing.
The very thing I’d set my desktops to do.
Program after program, line after line of code, all searching for Lexi or her mom.
And it was legitimate. That’s the most heinous part. So legitimate that like a desperate fool I bought it.
I fucking believed him.
Started school and everything. Not that it stopped me from drinking.
It didn’t.
I can get through most of my classes blindfolded, so the asshole didn’t say anything about it at first. Mom’s threatening me with rehab at this point, but I don’t give a fuck.
I turned nineteen two months ago. She can’t force me in.
This is bullshit. Nineteen. It’s been six months since that day at the hospital.
A year without Lexi.
Without a trace of her.
Today’s her nineteenth birthday.
My soul oxidizes further at the thought. I’m about to let this darkness consume me, consequences be damned.
I’ve already begun planning how I’m going to kill him.
My father won’t live past the next few months if I can’t find her. Don’t give a fuck what type of monster that makes me. He’s lied to me for the last time.
I open the grinder I was twisting and place the cap on the passenger seat next to me.
The same seat Lexi sat in a fucking year ago.
I’m pulled over in a small, empty parking lot off the Palisades Interstate parkway, surrounded mostly by trees. There’s a half empty bottle of bourbon on the seat next to me, as well. I grabbed it blindly on the way out hoping it’d bring me the oblivion I crave.
It didn’t.
No alcohol does anymore.
So, this morning I began smoking weed.
Nothing can eclipse the emptiness of not knowing where she is. How she is. Has she moved on from me yet? Has she allowed another motherfucker near what’s mine?
I haven’t been with anyone since her. That part of me feels dead. Gone.
Maybe it’s all the alcohol and now the weed. Maybe my cock is numb although my heart doesn’t seem able to get with the program.
Either way, I can’t kill the motherfucker. Not yet. He did in fact assign a team to search for Lexi. At first. But he never meant to tell me where she was, I know that now.
And as of last week, there is no longer a team. That fucking asshole never meant for me to have her. I was a fool to even entertain the idea that he’d give in.
“It’s okay,” I repeat to myself, engaging in my new habit once again. Talking to myself has become a thing. Don’t know what that says about me but fuck it. Mom thinks I’m going crazy.
I don’t have the heart to tell her I’ve already been pushed over that edge.
I lick the edge of the rolling paper, curling it over the joint, and reach for my lighter.
My body recognizes the THC in the first hit. I feel the numbness trying to sink in.
It does nothing for this evil sensation in the middle of my chest.
Hence why I take hit after hit, finishing the joint off in record time.
I know. Crazy for someone who just started smoking this morning. What can I say? My twisted physiology is just adept at merging with the most fucked-up shit.
I’m busy prepping the next one, alternating working the grinder and sucking on the bottle of bourbon, when my phone starts ringing.
Finn.
He’s forever reaching out to me lately. Just like my mom. They’re both worried, and I get that, but I wish they’d understand that this shit has gotten old.
I’m nineteen. Legally a man. I can choose what I want to do. If that means getting fucked up every fucking day of my miserable life until I find her, so be it.
Just don’t fucking get how either of them expect me to deal with this any other way. My father still lives because of my quest to numb myself. If I allow myself to feel the full brunt of this pain for even a second, he’s going to be dead and bleeding at my feet. Period.
I’m dying to shut off my phone. Shut them all out. I won’t dare though. I never do.
Lexi has my number and for the last eight months all I’ve done is check my phone daily.
Hoping.
Praying.
Wondering.
I light up the second blunt, leaning my head back on the headrest as I inhale. My phone finally goes silent and I exhale in relief.
That is, until my text notification goes off.
Out of curiosity more than anything, I reach to see who it is.
Finn: Where are you? I’m coming for you.
Fucking shit. Annoyed, I send a text back.
Drew: No. What for, anyway?
Finn: Knowing you, you’re currently too fucked up to drive. So I’m coming for you.
Drew: I have no plans of going anywhere tonight. I’m good. Thanks.
Finn: God damn it, Drew. Don’t make me have to track you. Where the fuck are you?
Drew: Why the fuck does it matter?
And then I get that text. The one that changes everything.
I thought it was for the better. That this would be the turning point to getting her back. To fixing everything that was wrong in my life.
Instead, it would turn out to be the beginning of my true downfall, I just had no way of knowing it yet.
Finn: I might’ve located a clue where Lexi is, asshole. Now, where the fuck are you?
chapter 13
“a ll set?” I ask Mateo as we stand by the entrance to the pharmaceutical division. I only turned on a smattering of the lights when we headed down here, but I study him regardless.
Steady, dark brown eyes meet mine and he nods. “I hoisted the body onto the gurney for you, sir.”
As I said before, only known him eight months, and it’s just now that his loyalty is being tested, but I can’t deny I’m grateful regardless. “Thank you. By the way, you’re ex-SOCOM according to your file.”
It wasn’t a question, but he gives me another nod.
“And you’re okay with all this?” I ask, because it doesn’t hurt to make damned sure my employees are on the same page as me.
Especially the ones I trust with my darkest secrets.
Mateo’s gaze lands behind me, no doubt on Lexi, before meeting my stare once more. “He was hurting Ms. Berkman. I know men like him. Back in my country, when I was a kid, men like that got a hold of my sister.”
The file on him only went back to his childhood once his parents migrated to America. I wasn’t able to find much on him prior to that. Not that he needs to explain further. That expressions says it all.
His sister didn’t survive whatever was done to her.
I hold out my hand for him to shake. “It’s going to get even uglier than this. I need you to understand that.”
No reaction other than to shake my hand. Everything about him remains steady. Controlled. “The next ones . . . did they hurt her too?”
“You have no idea.”
He doesn’t really know Lexi, only met her earlier, but with one last nod he turns to leave. “See you in the morning, Mr. Drevlow.”
“Have a goodnight, Mateo.” Making a mental note to give the man a raise, I face Lexi.
She’s standing in the middle of the main area of the division, facing the steel acid tank. The dark-gray floor beneath our feet is a vinyl ester resin blend, a glossy, chemical-proof surface that reflects the lights off all the machines. Those same lights reflect off the diamonds around her throat.
She doesn’t even know the cost of it. She didn’t ask. Lexi was never into flashy things like that, although I’ve always loved the idea of providing them to her.
Two-point-five-million-dollars’ worth and it’s just the beginning.
The body on the gurney suspended above the tank is also just the beginning.
I head to her, chest feeling bruised from the sheer sight of her. There’s fresh makeup trails she tried her best to wipe away. We spent the last hour in my condo and I began recalling what happened from the beginning. I got up to the one-year anniversary of her disappearance before Mateo called to meet up here with the body.
Lexi insisted to come. I couldn’t deny her. Something tells me she needs this. After having a good portion of her world turned inside-out tonight, watching Asad’s body fall into that tank will give her a sense of control.
“You okay, baby?” I ask, coming up behind her.
She startles but doesn’t face me. “I . . . honestly don’t know how to answer that.”
Running my hand down her back, I fight to push back the delicious memories of earlier. What it felt like to finally, finally, be inside her. How she took every pounding thrust as if made for my darkness.
My madness.
Pressing my hand to her lower back, I bring her closer. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”
With a scoff, she blinks back tears. “None of it was your fault. I spent nearly a decade blaming you, and you were innocent. It’s my fault. I’m the one that needs to be apologizing to you.”
I pinch her chin and tilt her head back. “You should have come back to me and asked me, Lexi. You’re right. But some of it was my fault. Most of it, though? It was theirs. Especially Stephen. And this is just the beginning. Anyone that hurts you from now on is going to pay.”
After years of obsessing over her, planning how to get her back, how Lexi curls into me, so trusting, hits me like a meteor to the chest. “All of them, Drew?”
God, I love her. I fucking love her and, soon, she’s going to be very aware of that sick fact. Plucking her bottom lip with my thumb, I lean closer, leaving mere inches between our lips. “Every single one, Lexi.” Without looking at her, I press the button that’ll flip the gurney. The acid level only rises to three-fourths of the tank, eliminating the worry that some of the chemical will spill out on impact.
Lexi watches as that monster’s lifeless form is tipped into the tank. Instantly, a hissing sound rises as the acid begins to eat through the matter he consisted of. The inside of the tank isn’t visible, yet I can see how that noise seems to soothe her.
Unsteady on her feet, exhausted, Lexi closes her eyes.
Such a simple action, yet the fact that someone like her can trust someone like me to this extent goes a long way to righting all the wrongs in my world.
Easing her backwards, I press her to the outside of the tank and take her lips in a soft kiss.
Wrapping her arms around me, she mewls into my mouth. We kiss for an eternity, that body melting in the tank behind her, lost to each other’s taste.
Until Lexi rears back, pupils expanded, expression brimming with something akin to bloodlust. “What else happened to you? What else is Stephen fucking responsible for?”
She needs rest. Sleep. A shower and food. Things I should’ve already given her by now. I’ve done a shit job of caring for her after Asad raped her. “He’s going to pay, baby. I told you. As for the rest, we have time.” My heart pulses with that realization. “This time, we truly do have the time. I’ll tell you everything, but first . . .”
Lexi grazes my lips with hers. “First?”
“You’re coming back home with me, Lexi. And you’re staying in my bed tonight.” As well as every other night from now on, if I have anything to say about it.
chapter 14
9 :22am.
I left Lexi curled in my blankets. It was almost 2:00am by the time I got her showered and tucked in. She tried to hide it, but the exhaustion of the night was dragging her down.
I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. Spent all night awake, hugging her and staring at her, in sheer disbelief that I have her again.
That, four days after barreling back into my life, I was able to earn a good chunk of her forgiveness.
The entire night was a mindfuck of lust. Of love. Of memories. Coming in her pussy twice altered something in me, further damaging my mutated psyche, and I was fuck
ing dying to have it again.
But the way she slept, so fucking trusting, curled up against my chest . . .
Yeah, I couldn’t fuck with that. It was the least I could give her after the night she had. Letting her sleep in is part of that. I left her a note on the nightstand before heading in. Wanted nothing more than to stay in bed with her, but today’s meeting is too important.
So important, that even my uncle picked up on it.
I swallow back a curse as he saunters past the glass wall and into my office. It closes behind him. His eyes, a slight shade darker than my own, fall to the massive board table I had installed in the middle of the open space earlier.
“I see this meeting with Whittacker is one among many planned.”
He’s suspicious. Most of all, he’s indignant at being left out of any part of my plan. Understandable. Not only is he the CFO, he’s also the man responsible for my being CEO in the first place.
Really wish there was a way to keep him out of it all, but I already anticipated he’d become involved eventually.
How involved he ultimately becomes will be up to him. How much dirt he can handle. How many crimes he can stomach.
“Good morning, Uncle Richard. Please have a seat.” I motion to the printouts I left in front of the seat to the left of the head of the table.
“Prepared for me although you didn’t bother to invite me?” He walks to the chair I mentioned.
“A mistake on my part.” Not the lack of invitation, but the believing he’d sit on the side lines for a longer period of time now that Lexi’s reappearance in my life has clued him into the fact I’m planning something.
That printout was meant for Lexi, but she isn’t here.
My uncle flips through the pages. He’s capable of reading nearly a thousand words per minute, a speed that puts him in the one-percentile when it comes to the ability, therefore I’m not surprised when he drops the papers in seconds. “This isn’t the actual plans for the Providence goggles.”
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