Mortal Siege

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  Shane Harris. Low-level thug, life-long convict of petty crimes. Last known address in Edison.

  Shell braces his elbows on the boardroom table and leans towards me. “How about this: I’ll do for you what I rarely do for anyone else, and these two would tell you”—he waves at the two men on either side of him that have yet to say a word—“we stay in contact about all your moves and I’ll let you know if things are getting out of hand.”

  This man has made himself intimately acquainted with me, my psyche, my health, all of it. He’s fully aware I’m not the type of man to willingly take orders from anyone.

  My expression must notify him of that, too.

  “Listen, Andrew. As I told you, the President himself doesn’t know about our existence. Precautions have to always be taken to ensure secrecy is maintain, especially when involving civilians,” Shell states in a matter-of-fact voice that does shit to help me feel better.

  And is he implying they’ve involved civilians to this extent before?

  “Drew, please. We’re going to need all the help we can get anyway,” Lexi urges softly.

  She’s the only one with the power to convince me to do anything. Something I suspect that man before me is also aware of. “Fine. But the plan doesn’t change unless there’s absolutely no choice.” Shell opens his mouth to reply, but I shake my head before he can. “And, I’m not giving you full access to all my tech, either.”

  When his lips crack into a full-blown smile, I’m nearly knocked off my seat by the violent transformation, how his face goes from severe and stoic, to young-looking and earnest. “That’s a given. We don’t need all of it, anyway. Just enough to advance some of our long-running plans. So, I’m assuming we have a deal?”

  chapter 38

  s he ran from me.

  She ran from me.

  She ran from me.

  She ran from me.

  It’s all I hear nowadays. The only thing I’ve been hearing for months now.

  Or has it been years?

  Time is a joke of a concept. A hooded, beastly torturer that exists only to taunt me. To remind me that I’m still here, no matter how hard I try to leave, that she’s still gone.

  That, at the first hint of me closing in on her, she bolted.

  How long ago was the trip to Illinois? Again, no clue. I stopped tracking time after my return, stopped tracking life itself. I remember getting off that plane with Finn, knowing my father was probably on my heels or some shit. Remember the jubilation, the sheer high of believing I was about to have my girl back.

  Also recall the Earth-shattering realization that she was no longer at the school. That “Lily Bennet” had enrolled and disappeared, leaving behind only her grades and a few screenshots off the school’s camera feeds to confirm she had ever existed.

  No confirmation of why she ran again, but who the fuck needs one? There can only be one reason.

  Me.

  She loathes me. Is done with me.

  While here I remain, a specter trapped in his own destruction, unable to do what’s necessary and end myself the quick way.

  It’s the hope. That insidious, cruel hope. It whispers that she’s out there, that as long as she’s living, I need to go on, too.

  I can’t. It’s too painful. Not without the drugs to numb myself.

  The sound of a glass bottle rolling along the concrete echoes down the alley. I ignore it, huddled behind this dumpster, I shut off my phone light to avoid detection. The plan was to make it back to the motel room; walking became too difficult, the agony in my soul spreading through my limbs.

  Weed was never enough. Alcohol? Pathetic. Cocaine did nothing but fuel the rage, the need for destruction. That first hit of heroin was the only thing that came close to easing this hole, but even that is nothing more than a pitiful band-aid.

  Didn’t stop me from using more and more, though. Not with the way my body seems equipped to develop tolerance. Don’t know how many months it’s been since I started, due to my break-up with time itself. Yet it was within days that I realized, although this is the closest I’ve come to not being consumed by the blackness, nothing will ever suffice.

  Yet, it’s all I’ve got for now, so fuck it.

  There’s a shuffle of feet at the mouth of the alley. Paying them no mind, I wrap the tourniquet around my arm, right above my left elbow. The skin beneath it is riddled with red, raised marks, the veins bulging and irritated.

  I’m smart enough to understand what that means, what I’m mostly doing wrong, and also damaged enough not to give two shits.

  Finding a decent vein, I slide the syringe in and press down on the plunger. Instantly, parts of the world melt away, my mind floating in a cloud of pleasure. Even so, that sensation in my chest never abates.

  That black hole slowly consuming what’s left of my wretched soul.

  “Bend over, bitch. I’m taking it right here,” a gruff voice demands. There’s another shuffle following it.

  Weightless, the drowsiness and warmth pulsing through my veins, I shift just enough to tilt my head and peek around the dumpster.

  All I make out is the outline, a man bending a woman over the wall, his hips working at her.

  Is he forcing her?

  Can’t tell, there’s no sounds coming from her.

  The old me would investigate. The urge to help her would’ve been too strong.

  This me is lost, intelligent and aware enough to realize that, and fucked up enough not to care.

  I lean back against the brick wall, staring into the darkness, praying this time will be it.

  This time the high will magnify itself, break past the barrier of my heartache and tolerance.

  This will be the time I’ll float away indefinitely, either truly lost in the high, or gone for good.

  She’s out there. Even if she hates you, you can’t leave her.

  On a physical level, the waves of warmth are a pulsating, delicious, sweet elevation. Had I been normal, had the loss of her not affect me on some weird, cosmic level, I’d be consumed by the infamous sense of well-being everyone that uses this shit reports.

  It’s nothing but a band-aid for me, as I said. A temporary means to deal with everything.

  “Wait,” the woman finally gasps, tone strained. “Not there. I didn’t agree—”

  “Shut up, bitch.” There’s a grunt, followed by a pained squeal.

  Maybe he wasn’t forcing her at first, but he definitely is now.

  There’s a spark of pity for her in my deadened heart, but it’s gone as fast as it rises, my head falling back against the wall as the litany returns.

  It always returns.

  She ran from me.

  She ran from me.

  She ran from me.

  She ran from me.

  And why? Because of my idiocy. Because she abhors me for my mistake, a mistake she believes to be fact.

  Most of all, I know what it’s really about. I’m a Drevlow, the son of the very man that ruined her life in so many ways. How could she ever fully trust me with the vileness that courses through my blood and warps my DNA?

  No wonder she believed my father when he told her about my confession.

  A part of me hopes he finds me here, right now, in this instant, with what’s happening less than fifty-feet from me. That he finds his precious heir, the one he hates but yet can’t do without, huddled like common trash behind the dumpster, high as fuck on heroin, the needle on the concrete between my legs.

  Ah, what a sight for him.

  Too bad it’d kill my mother, too.

  As if I’m not killing her already with my choice.

  The never-ending regret pierces through the high, mixing with my constant companion, heartache, and all I can do is close my eyes, breathing through the physical rush, waiting for the drowsiness to fully set in and take me under.

  Maybe some low life will find me here and end me while I’m unconscious.

  One can only hope.

  chapter 39
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  “y ou didn’t tell me the first field test would be on our own building, Andrew.”

  I ignore my uncle and open the case containing the nanobots this company spent the last half-decade developing. Technology the public still believes to be decades away from completion.

  They won’t believe that for long. Unveiling the goggles is Step One in destroying Menahan’s networth before taking down the man himself. Step Two? Unveil the nanotech.

  But not before using it to infiltrate every aspect of his and Kaylee’s life.

  And not before I use it to protect the lives of everyone I care about.

  “Holy shit, how many of them are in there?” Finn bends to peer deeper into the suitcase-sized case.

  “About a million or so,” I answer distractedly, working on the tablet with the software to contain them.

  “And about a billion dollars’ worth of our money,” my uncle adds drily.

  “You want this building to be the next to come down?” I throw at him.

  “Maybe if you weren’t personally targeting him and it had just remained business-related competition—”

  The glare I throw at him shuts him the fuck up. He doesn’t know what Menahan did to Lexi, I remind myself. “You hired his most valued asset, stealing her from under his nose, before even telling me. I’ll remind you he brought down a building using nanonukes, across from hers, just to send her a message. It’s a matter-of-time before he tries it.” I engage the protocol that activates the bots. As one, they light up within the case, rushing to live in a throbbing wave reminiscent of the honeybee shimmer effect.

  “Alright, I know I helped develop these, but that’s seriously fucking cool.”

  Ignoring Finn once more, I activate the nanobots, programming in the set of instructions that’ll send them through the building, infiltrating the infrastructure, an insect-like infestation meant to protect it if Menahan tries sending in his own bots.

  I straighten as we all watch them rushing out of the case in that shimmering wave that parts in multiple directions. Some head into the vents, working their way both below and up the building. Others rush to blanket parts of the parking lot. Many of the ones racing through the vents will exit on other floors, finding their own spots.

  On the tablet screen, I see the new software merging seamlessly with the security feeds already installed through the building. Suddenly, we have access to a near-microscopic view of the areas the nanobots are patrolling.

  Finn whistles, eyes wide as he stares at the screen. “Shit, it looks like a success.”

  The contained pleasure on my uncle’s face can’t be denied, either. “Yes, indeed.”

  “We won’t know for sure unless”—when, but I don’t have the heart to tell them that—“he attempts to send in his own bots.”

  The sound of a car approaching makes us all turn. It’s 9:00pm, way past the time anyone would normally be driving down here in parking lot.

  Seeing Lexi’s Escalade approaching, I drop the tablet and begin walking towards it, heart racing. I left her at my place with Mateo after unleashing the first wave of bots there—something I haven’t informed my uncle of since I know he’ll die over the budget.

  The black Escalade screeches to a halt and I see Lexi at the wheel, Mateo next to her, and what looks like three other men in the back. She opens the driver door and exits in all-black clothing; a long-sleeve shirt, tight pants, and combat boots. Her riot of large curls is restrained by a ponytail.

  Mateo exits after her and it’s the first time I see him looking that chagrined. “Mr. Drevlow, I could not maintain her in the penthouse—”

  “You’re an asshole for even telling him to try.” My girl pokes me in the chest angrily before standing on her tiptoes to give me a soft kiss. “We just dropped off your mom’s new bodyguard at her place—I totally had Mateo lead him in by the way—and he’ll be coordinating with her other team of guards for her protection. Finn, Mr. Drevlow, meet yours.” She nods at two of the men as they approach my two companions, her curls bouncing, her demeanor pure business.

  I’ve lost count how many times we’ve fucked since that first time two weeks ago, but just like that, I’m raring, blood boiling, every instinct screaming to be inside her again.

  “My bodyguard?” Uncle Richard sounds a tad indignant.

  “It’s for your protection,” I throw over my shoulder. “Go with it.”

  “Mateo, can you please escort Ali to my mother’s room in the medical division?” Lexi asks.

  Mateo turns to me, clearly at a lost how to deal with my headstrong girl.

  Biting back a laugh, because it’s my fault for believing she’d simply stay put and do as she was told, I nod at him. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

  Once they’re gone, Lexi motions for me to follow her a bit away from my uncle and Finn. “Shell sent you the autopsy report on Ms. Rhines.” Her light gray irises shimmer with her regret over the girl’s death. “It seems Menahan developed a toxin that’s a mix of VX nerve toxin as well as his own super-version of Staphylococcus aureus, which I don’t know much about, but—”

  “It’s known to cause skin boils,” I say, my mind flashing back to the rapid way those boils grew through Ms. Rhine’s skin in what seemed like seconds. “By the way, you hacked into the servers?” It’s the only way she intercepted Shell’s report.

  Her eyebrow arches, stare meeting mine head-on. “Got a problem with that?”

  “Is it wrong if I admit I want my dick in your mouth right this second?”

  Her lips part in a beautiful giggle, but she clamps it down. “Baby, I know you’re going with Finn to find the man that poisoned her. I’m going. Period. You can’t keep me out of this. You promised.”

  Fuck, I did, didn’t I?

  How does a man deliver on a promise like that while the urge to protect his woman is choking him to death?

  I’m going to have to figure it out.

  “Fine. But you need to promise that you’ll always stick by me, Lexi. I’m having a panic attack just thinking about you driving around without me.”

  “I wouldn’t have to do that if you weren’t trying to sequester me like some little helpless damsel,” she shoots back.

  Alright. Fuck my life. She has a point.

  “Come, we need to get rid of my uncle before heading out. No way he’ll be kosher with what’s about to go down.”

  chapter 40

  s eeing Lexi standing in the middle of this concrete room is fucking with my already damaged mind in ways I can’t comprehend.

  No one bothered to wash it down after removing the mauled body. She’s frozen in the middle of the room, where I sat weeks ago in the dark, waiting for the right moment to reveal myself, and her expression is unreadable as she analyzes the dark, dried blood stains on the floor.

  “Lexi?”

  “This is where you killed him?” she asks in a monotone.

  Sometimes I don’t know if to be worried for her or not. The cracks in her psyche became obvious to me within minutes of her return to my life. I don’t know what I would do with myself if she were to fully shatter on me. “It’s where I unleashed the dogs on him. I wanted to do it with my own bare hands, but Shell needed it to be done a specific way for when he handed the body over to his associates in the mafia.”

  No response.

  The door opens and the sound of a man whimpering leaks in. “Just wait a second, dog. Hear me out. It was just a job, I didn’t even know what it was going to do to her unti—argh!”

  Mateo and Finn’s guard Gavin drag Shane Harris, Ms. Rhine’s murderer, into the room, his legs scraping along the concrete. His face is completely busted up, blood dripping from multiple swollen points.

  Finn is right behind them and I’m surprised to see the blood splatter along his swollen knuckles, the ugly grimace on his face.

  Shane Harris takes one look around the room, eyes falling on the steel gurney we brought in, and he does exactly what Barnard did in here two weeks ago.
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  He pisses himself.

  “Come on!” he whines in a nasally, pathetic voice. “I didn’t know! I didn’t—”

  Finn stomps his way around them to land another hit across his face. “Shut the fuck up. You had to have known it would cause her some level of harm.”

  “Get him on the gurney,” Lexi commands Mateo and Gavin, finally snapping out of her apathy.

  Shane puts up a worthy struggle for someone as thin and scrawny as he is, but he’s no match for the two hulking men dragging him. Within seconds, he’s on the gurney, being strapped in, screaming as if he’s already being tortured.

  Grabbing a random, dirty rag I see nearby, I walk up to him and shove it into his mouth. Yeah, it’s probably infested with something, but what does that matter? After what he did to Ms. Rhines, he has much worse coming to him. Forgetting that Lexi’s mere feet from me, I grab his chin and force him to meet my stare. “Since we already know you won’t have much to tell us about the man that paid you for this, we’ll get down to the part where we kill you for it. Yeah?”

  He pisses himself yet again, tears leaking from his green eyes.

  Shit. Don’t know if I’m ready for my girl to see this new side of me.

  New side. Hah. Bullshit. It was brewing my entire life, waiting for an outlet.

  But when I glance at Lexi, she’s not staring at me with disgust or fear. As a matter of fact, she’s moved closer and she’s glaring down at Shane with sheer revulsion.

  He bucks against the restraints, unintelligible sounds leaking past the rag as he tries to speak. Nodding to Lexi to get the case with the next round of nanobots we plan to use, I yank on his hair and force his head to remain stationary on the gurney. “I would say you’re lucky I didn’t want to risk anyone here by bringing in one of my own neurotoxins, but unfortunately for you, this might be much worse. Mateo, roll up his sleeves.”

  Lexi rolls the table with the case on it, jaw clenched, and opens it to remove the two IV tubes we plan to use on this piece of shit.