Chapter 27 – Drake
DRAKE
For weeks after Tate’s funeral, I moved through life like a zombie, unable to sleep or eat. I drank all the time, taking cat naps between meetings and forgetting to eat for hours, sometimes days, on end. Life without Tate seemed pointless, not worth living anymore.
But I still had Olivia.
Despite her nightmares and random fits of sadness, she put on a brave face. She kept me on schedule, using her job as my assistant to give her purpose. And yet, I still hadn’t had the courage to tell her the full truth. No one knew about the man on the phone.
Mark Ruben was my competitor and the owner of Titan Tech, the same man who approached me at Tech Wars offering to buy Lovelace in an exclusive deal. My mind could have been playing tricks on me in that cave. It was possible I had made the whole thing up, considering I was on the verge of death.
Eight weeks after my kidnapping, I still hadn’t found a connection to Mark Ruben and The Lucaya Group. But then, one night, the alarm sounded over the speakers in the Battle Cave.
“Master Battle,” Lovelace said in a tone that sounded very similar to Olivia, all by design. “I have found documents on the dark web containing unsettling information about Mark Ruben. Would you like me to send them to your phone?”
“No.” I rose from the couch and crossed the room in a hurry. “Send them to my computer.”
“Yes, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Scan the documents and search for any links to Battle Industries, The Devil’s Knights, and The Lucaya Group.”
“As you wish,” she said, and then went silent.
I’d set up the alert on the off chance I was right about Mark.
He was a snake and desperate for my code.
And after I turned him down at Tech Wars, he made it crystal clear he would get his hands on Lovelace one way or another.
But his plan backfired. The cave had collapsed because of The Devil’s Knights working in tandem with Alpha Command to get us out.
With Olivia upstairs, I had privacy in the Battle Cave and sat in front of one of the many computer monitors. My heart thumped in my chest, nervous anticipation clawing at my insides.
Leaning forward in my chair, my fingers flew across the keyboard as I accessed the information.
Lovelace laid out every conversation between members of known criminal organizations and Mark Ruben.
He was smart enough to cover his tracks, but the hackers and corrupt assholes who worked for Mark left a small footprint that I could trace back to them.
“I located several transactions on the dark web,” Lovelace announced, then flashed the information on the screen.
“Mark Ruben has made several crypto payments to The Lucaya Group totaling twenty million dollars. There are also mentions of Battle Industries, including copies of your schedule the day of Tech Wars.”
As I combed through dozens of documents, my eyes widened in shock at the disgusting corruption of my competitor. The information didn’t spell out Mark Ruben kidnapped you and killed Tate Maxwell, but it wasn’t hard for me to connect the dots.
“That dirty motherfucker,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
My first instinct was the call Tate. He was my right-hand man, the person I trusted most apart from Olivia. But when I swiveled my chair to where he should have been sitting, my heart sank to the floor.
Tate was gone.
Never coming back.
He wasn’t here for me to strategize, nor would I ever get the chance to ask for his opinion. Tears clouded my vision, making it harder for me to see the screen when Lovelace added another screenshot beside the open windows.
“Master Battle, I also found this.”
After I blinked the tears away, I focused on the image Lovelace found, shocked to see Olivia and me together, my arm hooked around her from the night I arrived home.
We were on the blacktop at the Salvatore Estate, surrounded by The Devil’s Knights.
Whoever had taken this picture shot it from above.
A drone, if I had to guess. Only close friends and family were there that night.
“Lovelace, where is Mark Ruben right now?”
She was silent for a moment, then returned with bad news. “He’s out of the country. According to the flight manifest, he flew to Paris last week without a return flight booked.”
“Hack into Titan Tech’s servers. Find out where he’s staying in Paris and who he’s meeting with.”
I could have done it myself, but I had optimized Lovelace to think like me. Her typing skills didn’t limit her, which made her better than any hacker, including me.
“His schedule is blank,” Lovelace said a few minutes later. “I checked his assistant’s calendar, and it doesn’t show any upcoming appointments.”
“Where is he staying in Paris?”
“I don’t see his name on any reservation records in France. His flight landed at seven forty-five local time on the twelfth. Since then, he’s gone dark. No credit card transaction history. No flight records.”
If Mark is in bed with Pierre Moreau, the head of The Lucaya Group, then he wouldn’t resurface until he wanted to be found. Until then, I had to wait. Be patient.
Consumed by the information on my screen, I spent another hour poring over the deception of my competitor. It wasn’t until a beep sounded over the speakers that I snapped out of my trance. I expected it to be Lovelace. Instead, Olivia’s flowery voice filled the silent room.
“Drake, you’ve been down there for too long. You didn’t even come upstairs for dinner. Come to bed. Please.”
I hit the button on the desk beside me. “I’m working on a project. I’ll be up later. You should get some sleep.”
“Drake.” She sighed into the receiver. “I can’t keep doing this with you. I know you’re hurting. I know you hate yourself. But I don’t blame you. Tate wouldn’t want you to live like this. Please come to bed.”
The despair in her voice made my chest ache. I was doing what I knew best—locking myself away from the world, cutting off everyone I loved to protect myself from the pain. It was the only way for me to get through the worst time of my life.
But I loved her.
I made a promise.
She was right about Tate. He would have told me to take my head out of my ass and toughen up. If he were there, he would have said I was being selfish. And he would have been right.
“I’m coming up now,” I said, rising from the chair, my bones and joints aching, drained of energy.
Most nights, I dreamed of blood splattered across the limestone floor. I imagined rivers of it pouring out of the stone and flooding the cave through the crack in the ceiling. But then, Olivia would shake my arm. She’d kneel beside me and say my name until I opened my eyes.
“Drake,” she whispered in the darkness, putting a hand on my sweat-slick chest. “Wake up.”
I blinked a few times to clear my vision. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the ceiling. The shadows on the walls reminded me of the cave at night. Whenever I came to, those shadows haunted me. They served as a reminder that those men would return for me. I knew the fight was not over.
Blood demanded blood.
“Drake, you’re safe,” Olivia said as my body started shaking, still living in that horrible, dark place in my mind. “You’re home.”
I was only mildly aware of her presence. Her touch felt familiar but different. The nightmares started my first night back home, and when I finally snapped to the present, I wasn’t myself.
“Drake,” she whispered. “Please say something. Let me know you’re okay.”
After we confessed our love for each other, Olivia slowly started pulling away from me. Even if she meant those words, she said them in the heat of the moment. Confessed under duress.
“I’m okay,” I lied. “Just another nightmare.”
“You’re not fine. We’ve barely spoken more than a few words a day. Sometimes you zone out, like you’re mentally someplace else.” Olivia sucked in a deep breath. “Drake, I need you.”
“I need you, too.”
My ribs finally healed, so curling her curvy body into mine didn’t hurt like hell. I turned my girl onto her side and moved behind her. Wearing only boxer briefs and nothing else, I was all too aware of my cock rubbing her ass and the slight movements she made to get comfortable.
Inching her panties to the side, I peeled back the fabric and teased her clit. She moaned, bucking her hips against my growing erection. It didn’t take long before she was soaking wet for me. Olivia spread her legs wider, making room for me to push two fingers into her.
“Drake,” she mumbled into the pillow. “That feels good. Please don’t stop.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Pressing my nose to her neck, I breathed in her sweet perfume and fucked her with my fingers. “Come for me, baby. Make a mess.”
She dripped onto my hand, so fucking wet I couldn’t wait to be inside her. Like a needy little brat, she rocked her hips, driving my fingers deeper.
“You want more, baby?”
“Uh-huh.”
I shoved down my boxer briefs and quickly discarded her panties. Fisting my cock, I lined myself up at her entrance from behind. She had a big ass and thick thighs, a vast difference from the skinny girl I saved five years ago. I was obsessed with her body, driven by my need to have her.
Olivia whimpered at the initial pinch.
I brushed my lips on her cheek and inched into her. She was tight, so I took my time, careful not to hurt her. Over the years, she never had a boyfriend. Never dated anyone in college.
She’d saved herself for me.
I knew that without asking.
This girl was mine.
After she came once, I pulled out and flipped her onto her stomach. Gripping her hips, I slammed into her, this time not waiting for her to accommodate my size. Head down, she moaned my name, moving in rhythm with me.
My mind went blank as I thrust harder. But then, those brutal images flashed across my field of vision. Tate being forced to the ground. Me with my hands behind my back, ankles tied, my face pressed into the dirt.
My heart kicked into overdrive, and every inch of my body vibrated with anger. Intense rage coursed through my veins. I gripped the first thing I felt and squeezed. Nearly on the verge of blacking out, I kept moving my body and tightening my grip.
Someone screamed.
“Drake, stop it! You’re hurting me.”
At the sound of my name, I snapped out of the trance and back to the present. I was holding Olivia down by her neck and fucking her way too hard.
“Fuck,” I whispered, heart pounding too fast to see straight, and pulled out of her. “Liv, I’m… Fuck. I’m sorry.”
I dropped onto the mattress and put a hand over my heart. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it to slow down. The flashbacks produced pure terror. Lost in the moment, I often had trouble distinguishing between what was real and make-believe.
Olivia turned around, tears staining her cheeks, and sobbed. “What the fuck was that, Drake? I thought you were going to kill me? I couldn’t breathe. Never fucking do that shit again, asshole.”
“I said I’m sorry. Fuck.” Yanking at the ends of my sweaty hair, I groaned. “I didn’t mean it. It keeps happening. I think I’m back in the cave… And it’s like I black out or something.”
Olivia gathered her clothes and slid off the bed. “I don’t care anymore. I can’t keep doing this with you. The nightmares are not improving. In fact, you’re getting worse. Go see a doctor. Get some medicine. Talk to someone about what happened to you. Or better yet, how about you talk to me?”
I closed the distance, and she backed away from me. “I talk to you all the time.”
“What did they do to you? Unless you tell me, I won’t know how to help you.”
She turned her back on me and headed toward the door. I hopped off the bed and darted after her, stopping her before she could leave.
“Baby, come on. I would never hurt you.”
“You just did like two seconds ago.” She opened the door. “Fuck you, Drake Battle. Go fucking fuck yourself.”
I didn’t follow her this time. It was best to let her decompress on her own. But maybe I should have gone after her. If I had, I could have stopped the ripple effect.