Chapter 23 – Drake
DRAKE
Iwoke up as someone punched me in the face. My jaw crashed into the rock wall, the pain so intense it ripped a scream from my throat. Blood poured from my right nostril, dripping down my face.
“Get your ass up,” a man shouted in a French accent.
Across from me, another man wearing all black slapped Tate across the cheek, rousing him from his slumber. The small slit in the cave, right above my head, provided enough light to see my brother’s bloodied, battered face.
Tate was almost unrecognizable from the man I’d known for the past five years. His hair flopped onto his forehead, his eyes ringed with dark circles. He wore a suit stained with dirt and blood, the fabric ripped in various places.
The Frenchman whacked Tate once more. With his arms bound, my brother was defenseless.
“Stop it,” I screamed.
Pierre Moreau was the head of The Lucaya Group. The terrorist organization had cells around the world, including the United States, infecting every aspect of my life. He had given The Devil’s Knights nothing but trouble over the past year, but he’d never given me any sign that they wanted me.
Two more men entered the cave, dressed in black military gear and wearing respirators. They hauled another man wearing different colored fatigues, his messy hair falling onto his forehead, into the cave. When the man lifted his head, I gasped.
Marcello Salvatore sat across from me in the same bound position, his face full of cuts and fresh blood.
“What the fuck do you want from us?” I choked out, my voice raw and scratchy.
“Lovelace,” one man said, lifting his respirator to speak.
I waited too long to respond, thinking over my options, and that prompted two men to assault Marcello and Tate. Just seeing their heads turning to the side, blood spilling from their mouths, made my stomach ache.
“I’ll give you what you want,” I told them. “Leave them alone. They know nothing.”
As my head of security, Tate had access to Lovelace and knew where I kept all of her data.
Thankfully, we had already planned for this exact scenario.
I stored pieces of Lovelace’s code on multiple servers around the country.
Without the proper knowledge and authorization, they would never get shit from any of us.
Three men wailed on Tate, throwing their weight into each punch, knocking his head to the side. He spat blood at them when they took a few seconds to recoup, but it only lasted seconds before they returned to smashing his face.
“Wait,” I said, desperately trying to escape from my zip ties, rubbing the plastic against the rock wall. “Let them go. I’m the one you want.”
Every knight learned how to endure the pain of torture during initiation. They put us through a rigorous process for three solid months on Skull Island to prepare us for capture. I never thought it would happen. But Arlo Salvatore had designed the training with this situation in mind.
I knew better than to spill trade secrets. Once they got Lovelace, they would either leave us in the cave to die or kill us. We weren’t getting out of here without freeing ourselves, so I needed a diversion.
If Marcello were here, then that meant The Devil’s Knights were close by, which gave me hope.
“Start talking,” a masked man said to me.
“Get me a computer… or a tablet. A phone. Anything with access to the internet.”
I had created dummy servers just in case this ever happened. At the time, Tate laughed and called me paranoid, but I never underestimated my enemies.
The man in front of me snapped his fingers. “Go get the laptop.”
Another man crossed the cavernous space and plucked a cheap Dell laptop from a backpack.
“Untie me,” I said. “I need my hands to type.”
“No,” the man, who was now holding the laptop in his hands, shot back. “You talk. I type.”
“It’s not that simple. You can’t just open a web browser and enter a password. I have to do it.”
Unsatisfied with my answer, he moved over to Tate and slammed the laptop into the side of his head.
“Tate,” I cried out as his head lowered to the floor. “Tate, look at me.”
“Shut up,” the man with the laptop said, careful to only lift his respirator just enough for me to see his lips.
I couldn’t make out any distinctive features of him or any of the men. All clad in black, their faces covered, they could have been anyone. Their accents were all that stood out.
“Don’t do it, Drake,” Tate said, his voice hoarse, but he didn’t lift his head. “Fuck them.”
Already running low on air, sick from breathing in the hazardous gases, he was near death. So close to leaving me.
A tear slid down my cheek.
I failed him.
I failed Olivia.
And now, Marcello was here, risking his life to save me, and we were all going to die. The Devil’s Knights had to be somewhere close. Marcello wouldn’t have come alone. At least one of his brothers, possibly Cole or even Sonny, had to be in the general vicinity.
I rubbed the zip ties against the rock wall, hoping to create some friction. They weren’t sharp enough. I also had no feeling in my hands or arms. After what could have been days inside the cave, my body felt as if sand weighed it down.
“Hey, assholes,” I said to divert the attention back to me. “You want me. Not them. They can’t help you. Let my friends go, and we can work this out.”
The man with the laptop bent down in front of me and set the computer on the dirty ground. “Tell me what to type.”
I quickly rattled off the information he needed to locate the dummy server. To the untrained eye, it looked legitimate.
The man removed a satellite phone from his pocket and called someone on speakerphone. “We got it, boss.”
“Good job,” he replied.
My eyes widened at the voice on the other end. Maybe I was hallucinating. Or maybe I just wanted someone to blame for being in this situation.
No, it can’t be him.
He wouldn’t do this.
All this time, I had been thinking The Lucaya Group was responsible for every bad thing that had happened to The Devil’s Knights and me.
Before I could speak, a loud boom rocked the cave, shaking dust and sand loose.
To my left, boulders fell from the ceiling and walls, the only exit now blocked.
Even if I could feel my thumb to break it, getting out of the zip ties wouldn’t help.
My legs were still bound, like my hands, and had no feeling.
I also had no escape plan.
One wrong turn could lead to an even worse scenario. It was also becoming increasingly difficult to breathe.
The masked men huddled, muttering amongst themselves, and with the ringing in my ears, I couldn’t focus. Toxic particles spread across the dank space, clouding my vision.
My gaze flicked between Tate and Marcello, the two barely awake and on the verge of death. Marcello had a wife, a child, and a family who loved him. And Tate? He was my entire life. My head of security, my brother, my best friend. Olivia wouldn’t survive without him.
She would never forgive me.
Marcello’s eyes shot open.
Relief washed over me.
Tate groaned, using whatever strength he had to lift his head. “Drake, listen to me. Don’t let them win.”
“No, hang on. Try to stay awake.”
“I love you, brother,” he said in a hushed tone. “Tell Liv the same. Take care of her for me.”
“Love you, too,” I whispered, fighting the pain of my lungs filling with gas, hoping to stay awake long enough to go home.
As the men approached me, the cave shook once more, and this time, it collapsed on the right side, sending rocks crashing down on my brother.
“Tate,” I shouted, tears stinging my eyes.
My head spun from the lack of oxygen, my lungs contracting with each breath. That was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness.