by Kira Blakely
“What about the cops?”
“They’re mad that I even called them to start. How they know about that I don’t know.”
“Maybe watching the building,” I supplied, thinking like the commander I used to be. “So, you have to wait for their orders, play on their schedule.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let me at least call my security team on this. They’re more discrete and can do more than the boys in blue. I’ll meet you over at your place in a couple hours. I have to round the team up first.”
“Drake, thank you,” he said. “I… I don’t know what happened between you and Belle on that retreat, but she misses you. I see it every day. I just want her back, and I know you do, too.”
“You have no idea how much, Maurice,” I said. “I promise you, I’ll get her back safely. You have my word.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
I hung up the phone and hurried to my walk in. I kept a few of my old service arms there in immaculate condition, just in case. I wrote it off as keeping home protection for if I was ever robbed, but the truth was there was something oddly soothing about cleaning and caring for the weapons, something rote about it my muscles were used to after years in the service. I was glad I had them.
The cops might not be able to go in and get Belle; not without making the kidnappers taking risks with her life if they felt backed into a corner. But I wasn’t a cop, and these fucking animals were about to pay.
They were about to scream.
Chapter Nineteen
Belle
The warehouse reeked of mildew. Rot and other smells assaulted my nostrils. Coughing as I came to, I almost shrieked as a rat scurried past me in the dim light. Then the overhead fluorescents flickered on, and I went from being ready to scream to launching into a tirade against the man who’d done this to me. George stood there next to a table with a small tray of food on it with a gun trained on me.
“It didn’t have to come to this.”
“You didn’t have to turn out to be a fucked-up wannabe rapist either, but I guess we all have made some shitty life choices lately,” I bit back, struggling against the bonds tied around me. “I’m serious. You just let me out of here. I’d like five minutes with you, you piece of crap!”
“I’m deadly serious, Belle.”
I stopped thrashing as I eyed his Glock. “I’m pretty sure you are. But why are you doing this? George, there are tons of other women in L.A. Fuck, any other woman. I’m not interested. I’m going to make sure you go away forever.”
“This isn’t about you, not in that way,” he said.
“Then can you please enlighten me? Because I’m getting whiplash from your Jekyll and Hyde act.”
He nodded. “I wasn’t going to come after you. Don’t get me wrong, I was going to head to Switzerland long before my trial, but I wasn’t dumb enough to keep pursuing you. You’re drop dead gorgeous, Belle, but you’re not worth federal prison.”
“Thanks,” I deadpanned. “So, why I am in a deep, dank dungeon and tied to a chair?”
“Gee, sis, don’t be so harsh,” Carol said, as she slipped through the shadows to hold her own gun trained on me. “It’s a warehouse. Sure, our company hasn’t used it in years, but it’s hardly a dungeon.”
“Carol?” My heart pounded so hard against my breastbone that I thought it would shatter. “What’s going on?”
“You’re piecing it together, aren’t you? You were the one who couldn’t just take a hint and go home instead of poking her nose into everything.”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe anything I was seeing. My brain was fitting the parts together, like the world’s shittiest jigsaw puzzle, but I had to be wrong. I just had to be. “What?”
“Say it,” Carol screamed, brandishing her weapon. “Tell us all what’s going on, Belle.”
“I… you’re the one embezzling from the merger? I don’t… why would you do that? After we all worked so hard to secure it?”
“No, George and I worked hard to sink the company. We wanted to be free of Dad and his outdated ideas. I thought we’d clenched it, and then you go off and sleep your way into Drake’s billions, didn’t you, sis?”
George clenched his jaw. “Like I’d touch you now. I don’t want McManus’s sloppy seconds.”
“Fuck you, George!” I shouted.
“Not ever, Belle. You’re tainted by that trash,” he said, slipping his hand into my sister’s. “I have the good one.”
“The one who should have been Daddy’s favorite. I worked my ass off at the company for years before you ever came on. I was the one trying to explain over and over about social media, but he’d never get it, never modernize. He’d always lean on me, but he’d never see me, not with precious Belle there.”
“So, what? You worked to help speed up crashing the company?”
“Yes. He deserved it,” she said, stating it as calmly as any other fact like the time or the weather outside. That was what chilled me so deeply. Carol didn’t care. How long had my sister been like this? How had I never seen the cruelty seeping into her heart? “Then we figured once you pulled off the impossible that we’d just set up a slush fund and disappear, but you couldn’t even let us have that.”
“Is that why George attacked me?”
“That wasn’t part of the plan, exactly,” Carol snapped.
“It wasn’t? Huh, sis, sounds like you’re second runner-up again,” I snapped, my anger burning through me, leading me to say things that would probably get me shot. “I bet getting a call from George in prison shocked the hell out of you. How many strings did you pull to get him bail?”
“It doesn’t matter now. I don’t want McManus’s leftovers,” George said again. “But I do want my money, and if you report what we’ve done, we don’t get our Swiss nest egg.”
“Actually,” Carol said. “I think I like the way this worked out better. Sometimes, kidnappings go wrong, you know. Sometimes, they don’t collect the money and the victims… well...”
I swallowed hard. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Daddy will always love you better. If I take you out, then he won’t,” she said, cocking the gun.
I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact of a bullet. “Drake, I love you.”
There was a shot, so loud it deafened me. But there was no impact.
Dear God, had she missed?
Opening my eyes, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Drake stalking into the room, his own gun trained at George. My sister was on her knees, cradling her arm as best she could. Her shoulder was gushing blood, but I knew Drake. He’d had some of the best training in the Marines. He’d have missed an artery, have known how, but Carol wouldn’t be shooting anyone else tonight.
“Drop it, George,” Drake said. “Drop it now or I blow your fucking head off.”
George shook his head. “You think you’re something, don’t you? Riding in here like her knight in shining armor, but you’re not. You’re a joke.”
“Maybe, but you need to drop that or I will drop you.”
George cocked his gun and aimed it for my head. “She only wants you, and I can’t understand why.”
“We can talk about that,” Drake said, inching toward him.
I placed my feet flat on the floor and bent my knees as best as I could. Everything happened so fast after that. Drake edged forward again, and George shot. I kicked with everything I had and my chair flew backward, causing the bullet to miss me by inches, leaving the bullet flying by my ears so close I could feel the breeze it blew up. When I crashed hard to the floor, the ancient spindles shattered and I wriggled out of my bonds. Hopping up, I rushed to Drake, to help him.
But he didn’t need help finishing this fight.
Just like that night in the alley with the men who’d tried to hurt me, Drake was out of control. He had George pinned under him and was whaling on the other man. His fist pounded again and again into George
’s nose and eyes and his hands were slicked in blood.
Rushing forward, I fell on Drake’s arm. “Please, stop!”
Drake stilled but his voice was still rough, still unfocused when he spoke. “He hurt you.”
“I know, but he can go to jail. Please, Drake, don’t kill him.”
“He hurt you,” Drake repeated as if it was the most obvious, simplest fact in the world. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
I knelt beside him and put my hand on his cheek. “No, you don’t, but I won’t let you hurt yourself, Drake. I promised myself that. Now, Master, let him go, for me.”
That seemed to cut through his confusion, through the blood lust and memories of battle that sometimes played with his mind. Drake stood up and backed away from George. I didn’t worry about securing him. He was breathing, blood bubbling up from his nose, but he wasn’t going to be walking out of here anytime soon.
“Do you have a phone,” I asked, my voice still wavering as the nausea consumed me. “I want to call my parents and the cops, too.”
“I… Christ!” he shouted, almost retching. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” I said, finally noticing clarity back in those sincere brown eyes of his. “You saved me, Drake. That’s all that matters; now let’s call the police and go home.”’
Chapter Twenty
Belle
I should have said more to him at the scene, but there were parents to hug and then console as the cops led my sister and George out on stretchers and off under guard to the nearest hospital. There were statements to give and a hell of an explanation to fabricate to explain why George had been nearly beaten to death. As it was, he’d definitely be eating through a straw for the rest of his life and, more than likely, blind in one eye. Then there was the press and a million other things to work out.
Dad had me carted off home before I got five minutes alone with Drake.
And I hadn’t known what to say.
I knew there was a dangerous side to him. I’d unleashed it that night in his library, and then I’d seen it again with the men in the alley. I’d tried to help him beat it back when he slipped into his nightmares, but it was always there, that beast beneath the surface. He loved me. I knew that now, had seen it in the way he’d protected me from my own family. Jesus Christ, I’d be dead right now if he hadn’t found me. But there was something fundamentally broken in Drake, and I wasn’t sure if I could always help him weather the darkness or if I could even take on that kind of responsibility.
I just didn’t know.
The next morning, Dad came in late that morning from visiting Carol and setting her up with her attorney. I understood that. She was his daughter, too, and I swear she hadn’t always been so angry and bitter. Maybe she’d snapped along the way. I felt like I almost had between the pressures of the company and Mom’s sickness. Clearly, Carol needed a lot of help. Yes, help while locked up safely from everyone else, but help.
Dad’s shoulders were hunched over deeply when he came into the kitchen, his brow furrowed. I was ready for that. I put a serving of chocolate chip pancakes I’d been working on all morning onto a plate for him.
“Here, food might help. I’ve heard sugar and chocolate cure everything.”
He sighed and slid onto the stool. “I don’t think it can this time. I... how could I have gotten everything so wrong?”
“Everything hit us at once. I didn’t know Carol was so upset either. I mean, God, not like this. She hid it well.”
“She’s so angry and upset. It’s like she turned into a completely different person. There are so many charges against her, but I’m going to see if I can get her into a psychological facility for a while. I… she’s my little girl, too, and I never meant for either of you to feel like I have a favorite because I don’t.”
I nodded and took a bite off my own plate, enjoying the sugar rush that came with it. I’d been running on nervous energy and adrenaline since last night so the added sugar high helped. “I know you don’t have favorites, Dad. I just don’t know how she didn’t.”
“Me either, sweetie. I’m going to leave control of my half of the company to some of the executive board we brought in at the merger. I want to be involved with Drake’s charity where I can, but for the next few months, I want to be there for Angelique’s treatment and for your sister’s trial. I got it all wrong. I had everything tied up with the success of the company, and I neglected my family,” he added, squeezing my hand. “If this has taught me anything, it’s that you never know how much time you have left. I almost lost you last night, honey. Your mom’s doing better but every day with her is a gift.”
I swallowed hard and didn’t care if tears were falling down my cheeks. “I know.”
“Then you need to make the most of what you can when you can. I know you don’t like PR. I know you want to go back to studying what you want, and you should. You don’t have to take care of me and your mom. We’re the ones who should be taking care of you, and we lost that along the way.”
“Daddy, you didn’t—”
“No,” he said, stroking my hand. “We did, but I’m trying to make amends. Trying to set things right. You go and do what makes you happy. And if part of that is loving Drake, then I understand that, too.”
I frowned. “Daddy, about the Bahamas…”
He shook his head and patted my arm again. “I don’t need to know. I saw him save you. I saw a good man take care of my daughter, and I know that with him you’ll always be safe. So, if he’s who you want to be with, then your mom and I support that, too. Like I said, life’s too short for everything else.”
I nodded and swiped at my eyes. Then, hurrying, I hopped off my stool and ran to my room. I had one thing to grab before I went to Drake’s mansion in L.A. Something I think we both needed.
***
Drake
The scotch burned its way down my throat. How stupid was I? I’d won Belle back just to lose her all over again, just to show her the darkness deep inside of me and scare her off forever. And she had a right to feel that way. If she hadn’t stopped me, I would have beaten that bastard to death. I would have enjoyed it, too. It brought me back to that beach and our last night together; Belle had been wrong then, after all. I wasn’t a distraction. I was something far worse—a trap for her, a pitfall she didn’t deserve. I was broken beyond repair and the last thing she needed was to have me hang around her neck and sink her.
“I can’t have her.”
“I think you can,” she said.
I turned around in my chair as Belle turned on the lights in my living room. It was still dark in there with the curtains drawn but I could see her clearly now. She was wearing that yellow dress from the night we made love in the sand, from the night everything went so fucking wrong. And her collar.
I swallowed, and the blood roared straight down to my cock.
Of all the things I expected to see again, that wasn’t one of them.
“You came back?” I asked with my voice full of shock. And why wouldn’t it be? I honestly never expected to see her again. “You came back for me.”
She laughed and locked the doors behind her. “I think that’s my line. After everything I said to you, after the way I pushed you from me, you still came to save my life.”
I stood up then and rushed over to her. She had a magnetic pull that I couldn’t resist. “I’d always save you. Belle, princess, I wouldn’t want to live in a world without you in it.”
“I feel the same way,” she said, and kissed me.
I took her in: The softness of her hair as it spilled against my cheek, the sweet smell of lilacs and freesia that clung to her, the silken feel of her lips against mine. It was something to relish. Never in a million years did I think she’d be back in my arms. Never did I think I’d ever feel her back in my embrace.
“I love you,” she said, as we pulled away. “I think I’ve loved you since the moment we first made love.”
“I’d understand if yo
u didn’t,” I said, still holding her tightly to my chest. “I’m a monster, Belle, a beast. I have this dark side to me, this damaged part of me that pulls me into darkness. I’ll always have those moments that I need to lash out. If someone threatens you, I’ll be there to defend you.”
“I know,” she said. “And that side kept me alive.”
“And a part of me,” I continued, afraid that if I didn’t keep going I’d never get it all out, “will always be back in Iraq. I can bury my shame in that fucking footlocker, but I can’t outrun the nightmares. When you’re here, they’re better. I’m better, but I know you deserve more.”
She kissed me again and then ran her hands over my abs, letting both come to rest against my hip, against the scar hidden by my jeans. “How can I have better than the man who saved me? How can I do better than the man I love? If you can tell me that, then I’d like to hear it.”
“You know how,” I said. “Someone normal.”
She chuckled and hugged me tightly. “I don’t want normal.” Belle pulled back and unzipped her dress. “Drake, I’d be lying if that side of you didn’t make me nervous, but I’ve been thinking a lot over the last couple weeks and especially this morning, and I can’t live in a world without you either. I want all of you, both the man and the beast. I can accept that. Hell, I don’t just accept that, I crave it.”
“Really?” I asked, the disbelief coloring my words.
She nodded and arched her neck, presenting her glimmering collar to me. “Master, please. I want you, and only you.”
“Then I think I can help you with that,” I said. “Give me one minute.”
As fast as I could, I hurried to the playroom in my L.A. mansion and grabbed something specific for this session. Then I returned to my office and turned on the fire. California was unseasonably cold, and I thought it would help warm Belle up. After all, she had goosebumps running up and down her arms.
When I slapped the flat of the crop against my palm, Belle jumped to attention and looked back at me, her blue eyes wide with curiosity and trust. “Now, bend over my desk, princess, and spread them.”