21. Max
Max
T he buzz of Draven’s phone was like a doorway back to reality.
It was as if I’d stepped into another timeline as Draven told me his story, a darker, uglier version of reality where things happened that I couldn’t comprehend.
It was real.
It made me want to take Lily away from everything, off to some protected island where she could never get involved in anything like this again. But I also knew she’d made all of the decisions herself, and that she probably didn’t regret a single one of them.
Lily was okay.
I just wanted Draven to be okay, too.
When his phone buzzed I snapped out of the trance I’d been in, listening to his story. He checked it, his expression looking increasingly concerned as he tapped his phone then called someone.
“Is the situation under control?” he said into the phone. “Then I’m going. Now.”
“Situation?” I asked the moment he hung up. “Fuck, are the police here? Is Brody coming?”
“Nothing like that,” Draven said, his gaze landing on me. “It’s your guy.”
“Excuse me?”
His eyes were wild, his fists bunching up like he was awaiting a fight. “Reggie Sandlefield approached the perimeter gate of my property about ten minutes ago, and my team picked it up.”
“Reggie…”
“ Rex67 came here . How the fuck did he know… Max, did you post your location here?”
My blood went cold.
“I made only one post,” I said, realizing how stupid it had been already. “Late last night. When I couldn’t sleep, after you’d gone to bed. It was just a picture of one of the mountain snow caps, the view from your bedroom.”
“Fuck,” Draven said.
“I forgot to turn off the locations like you told me to,” I said. “It’s my fault. Shit .”
“ You are going to be okay. Christ, Max, it all makes sense. Sandlefield had priors in Tennessee. He didn’t want to find you in Tennessee, like the other guy last night. He wanted you to be in any other state… the motherfucker must have hopped on a plane . How crazy is he?”
I shook my head. “No one cares about stalking me that much. There’s no shot.”
“Trust me,” Draven said. “People will surprise you. In good ways or terrible ways. I’m going. Now.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Didn’t your security team stop him, or something?”
“They aren’t here yet,” he said. “They survey every acre of land, and they’re on their way, but it could be two, four, maybe even five minutes. They just caught it on the live camera feed.”
“You can’t go,” I said, reaching out to try to grab his arm, but he was already walking off.
“Even two minutes is time we don’t have,” Draven roared. “I need to go get him at the gate. Now. You stay here.”
“No fucking chance I’m staying here.”
“Yes, you are.”
The bottom dropped out from my stomach as I watched Draven take off to go hop in one of the trucks that was parked alongside his property.
Nothing felt right, but then again, nothing had felt right for a while, now.
I thought of every creepy comment that Rex67 had left on my page, and even worse ones in my private messages.
He’d posted the address of the Hard Spot so many times. Eventually, he started posting my home address, too. He sent all sorts of lewd photos that I never opened.
There were some messages I never showed Draven, because I didn’t want him to worry.
Ones where the guy was trying to scare me:
I will find you.
Pretty boys like you always have pretty screams, too.
I need YOU with ME. Why don’t you reply to me, Max? I know you see me…
My blood went cold as I watched Draven take off in a silver truck toward the front of the property.
I had nothing else left to do but run .
I took off in a sprint toward the front gate. It had been a long walk, but I wasn’t going to stand here and wait as Draven went to confront a person who could be dangerous.
And most likely actually was dangerous, after Draven had told me about his past minor assault crimes.
As I ran, the wind picked up, blowing hard against my skin from the direction of the clouds. The sky had been beautiful and blue even just half an hour ago, but the low, dark clouds were rolling in over the valley on the wind.
My muscles started to burn as I ran, but I liked running.
I would run after Draven, no matter the reason. And if he was going to get an ego about protecting me, I was allowed to care about protecting him , too.
As I ran in the direction of the front gate, I went over a crest in the path that dipped down low into a long slope that led to the gate. I finally spotted the truck again, parked by the front.
The driver’s side door was open.
And in front of the truck, I saw two figures.
Draven, charging toward him .
My heart was going to explode. I sucked in air as I pushed my legs to run faster.
When I saw Draven drop to his knees, it was like the ground gave way underneath me.
I was so close.
So fucking close .
But I knew Draven going down wasn’t right.
I ran, watching as the other guy started to walk off slowly. He didn’t seem to walk normally, instead teetering as if he had an injured leg. He was darting his head around quickly, maniacally and panicked, heading off toward his car.
My ears started to ring as I sprinted faster.
And when I got close enough to see the blood, my heart lurched up toward my throat.
“No,” I tried to say, but no sound came out.
I ran up to Draven, finding him collapsed on his knees, blood spilling from the side of his body.
“The motherfucker ,” Draven was growling, but it was clear he wasn’t himself.
He was losing blood.
More blood than I’d ever seen outside of a TV show.
I pulled the shirt off my body and pressed it to the side of his body where the blood was pooling, holding it tight against him.
The attacker’s figure was far off, now. I could hear him repeating things, saying something as he walked away, but none of it sounded like it made sense. His vehicle was a little further down the road, past the gate.
A light blue sedan.
“Don’t go anywhere near him,” Draven murmured at me, looking up at me like he was struggling to even keep his eyes open. “Had a knife. Fucking piece of shit had a knife that wasn’t even sharp ?—”
“No, no, no,” I repeated over and over again.
The shirt in my hands started to feel fuller, warmer, heavy with blood. Draven coughed, then groaned as if the cough had hurt him even more.
“The guy told me you’re not Max , right before he pulled out that… that stupid fucking knife and stabbed me,” Draven said, attempting to laugh. “I told him I’d rip his throat out with my bare hands before I ever let him get to you.”
His body faltered a little on the ground and he collapsed backward, lying down sideways on the dirt instead of being able to sit on his knees anymore.
“Draven,” I pleaded, pressing my shirt back up against his wound.
“I’ll be able to stand up in a minute. Just give me a minute. I’m not letting him get away,” Draven said. His eyes moved from side to side, and he peered up at me for a moment. “You look hot without your shirt on, baby. Do you know I love you?”
He sounded like he was only half-awake, and when he laughed a moment later, it sounded more like a wheezing cough.
I moved to the side and held his head in my free hand, panic giving way to all-out terror.
The blue sedan was taking off at full speed down the road, and Draven was here in my hands, losing blood.
Seeming to lose consciousness , too.
I fumbled for my phone in my pocket, my hands so shaky and slippery with blood that it fell into the dirt. I picked it up, the screen smudged with a streak of russet blood across the center, trying to swipe it open to call 911.
And then, as I was pushing the dusty phone up to my ear, they came.
Three black SUVs arrived at the gate, and multiple members of Draven’s security team rushed out.
“Get him in the back. Now ,” one of the guys barked.
Another approached me. “Max, come along with us. We need to get Mr. Lyons to the hospital immediately.”
I was confused. Confused as to how his security knew my name, firstly, before I realized Draven must have had everyone well informed about me before we arrived.
Two men pulled Draven from the ground and as they carried his blood-soaked body into the back seat of one of the SUVs, I kept my shirt pressed firmly against his wound, following with each step.
I struggled to catch my breath. “He—he got away,” I finally told the security guy nearest to me. “Draven said his name was Sandlefield. Reggie Sandlefield.”
“We have a vehicle in pursuit of the attacker,” one of the men told me. “We will find the guy.”
I sat beside Draven, his head in my lap, in the long back seat of the SUV.
A security guard in the driver’s seat turned to look at us, frowning at the wadded-up shirt.
“Shirt’s soaked through,” he said in a moment. “Put your fingers in the wound.”
“What?”
“Your fingers. The shirt isn’t doing anything to stop the bleeding. It’s a wound in his side. Put your fingers into it, now .”
I looked down at my hand as I took my shirt away. I pulled the fabric of Draven’s shirt up, exposing his abdomen and nearly passing out as I saw the open wound, with so much blood that none of Draven’s tattoos were even visible anymore.
“Hand, into the wound,” the security guard repeated, and I took a deep breath.
I placed three of my fingers directly into his wound. It was warm, but I wasn’t afraid. I would have done anything to stop the bleeding.
“Here,” the crew member said, reaching to pull gauze from a first aid kit with one hand while he drove. “If you’ve found the wound, put this into it now and apply pressure.”
I took the wad of gauze, my hand finally not shaking as I put it into the spot where blood was coming out.
Draven was trying to stay conscious, but hadn’t said anything for a minute. He groaned as the gauze plugged the wound.
“Good fuckin’ idea,” Draven said. “Very good idea. That hurts like a goddamn bitch, by the way. But keep the pressure on.”
Finally, the blood loss seemed to slow.
As the SUV took off quickly toward the hospital, the security guard in the front kept watch, turning his head back anytime the car came to a stop, talking me through my panic.
“I was trained as a combat medic,” he said. “Sometimes when the wound is on the trunk of the body, only a hand can locate the center of the blood loss so that you can get gauze inside. You’re doing the right thing, Max.”
I could barely breathe. I nodded at him, unable to tear my eyes away from Draven’s face.
“He’s still conscious,” the security guard said.
“Damn right I am,” Draven mumbled, trying to laugh again. “Nice bein’ here… here in Max’s arms. Ain’t he cute?”
The security guard didn’t react.
Within minutes, we had raced to the hospital. Medical staff took over, and I watched as Draven was pulled away on a stretcher.
Only then did the tears start to fall down my cheeks.
Watching him whisked away, lying back, so not himself.
Completely not in control.
My heart was yanked toward him like it was magnetized to his body, but I couldn’t follow.
Fuck.
I looked down at my own body—still shirtless, with so much of my chest and arm covered in Draven’s blood.
“Come inside,” a nurse said to me. She took my arm and led me, and I blinked through my tears as I moved through the fluorescent hallways inside.
I ended up in a room with a standing shower where the nurse helped me rinse off.
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t process anything that just happened.
They gave me a clean cotton shirt and the nurse led me down more hallways until I rejoined Draven’s security crew, standing outside the emergency suite where Draven had been taken.
“Max,” a member of the crew told me, coming to my side.
“The police just apprehended a man in a blue sedan, at an intersection not too far from Mr. Lyons’ property.
Reggie Sandlefield. The man was shaky, incoherent, and he had the knife in the passenger seat of his car. He has been taken into custody.”
I knew the news was good, but it didn’t land on me in any way I could process.
The man was caught.
I should have been glad.
But all I could do was think about Draven’s blood. About his body there in that operating suite, hopefully holding onto consciousness.
And how Draven had done it all because of me.