Chapter 29 – Drake
DRAKE
The time passed by in a blur of tears, nightmares, and heartache. Olivia still looked at me like she wished I’d died instead of her brother. She still acted as if I didn’t exist.
But I had a plan.
She hated me for taking away her brother. And since she had a family only twenty minutes away, I arranged for Sonny and Aiden to bring Ella Doyle to lunch. No one knew the truth about Olivia’s biological father. My friends thought they were coming to the house just for a get-together.
As they entered the house, Lovelace’s voice drifted through the speakers.
“Welcome back, Mr. Wellington.” She paused and then said to Sonny, “Welcome back, Mr. Cormac.” Then she took a second to scan Ella’s face and run her image through facial recognition software before saying, “Hello, Miss Doyle. Welcome to the Battle Fortress.”
Ella looked at Sonny, her mouth hanging open in shock. “How does she know my name?”
“Lovelace knows everything,” I told her.
“Like Ada Lovelace?” She smiled. “The first computer programmer.”
“Exactly. It would surprise you how many people think I named her after the porn star.” I returned her smile and offered my hand. “Nice to meet you. At least this time it’s under better circumstances.”
We’d briefly met on the night I returned from New Mexico, but it was a quick hello. Back then, I was so mentally and physically damaged that I could not hold down a conversation.
As usual, Sonny wore a black suit and a tie.
Most of the founders’ sons did, except for Aiden, who looked out of place beside Sonny.
He was so much like his twin sister, Alex Salvatore, and dressed in ripped jeans and edgy T-shirts.
Alex didn’t dress like an heiress, and neither did her twin brother.
“You’re just in time,” I told them. “Lunch will be ready in a few minutes. We’re having pizza.” I glanced over my shoulder at Ella. “I heard pepperoni and sausage is your favorite.”
“Yeah, it is.” She smiled. “It’s pretty much all I’ve been eating since returning to the States. The pizza sucked in Ireland.”
I wanted to make a good impression on Ella. She was Olivia’s half-sister, and I needed any ally. One day, we could have been family. That was if Olivia ever forgave me.
Cameras followed us as we walked down a long marble hallway lined with armed men. I ramped up the security over the past few months, adding additional guards every week.
When we entered the kitchen, Olivia was there, coordinating our meal with the chefs. She tensed up as if I had touched her. I hated her not responding to me anymore. Like I was some kind of predator she had to guard herself against.
“Liv, you know Aiden and Sonny.” I inched toward her and tipped my head at her sister. “This is Ella Doyle. Their girlfriend.”
A moment of recognition lit up her face.
She eyed up her sister, and I wondered what was going through her head.
I did the same thing when I learned Tate was my brother.
I studied every detail of his face and noticed all his micro-expressions.
Even his laugh and the way he moved. I wanted to know if we had anything in common apart from sharing a father.
“Hi.” Olivia looked at Ella, then my friends. “All three of you date each other?”
She wasn’t normally so awkward and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Yes,” Sonny said, slinging his arm across Aiden and Ella’s necks. “We’re a throuple.”
“Hmmm.” She pressed her lips together, eyes on Aiden. “Must run in the family.”
Wow, that was rude.
Aiden shot me a look, as did Sonny. I rolled my shoulders and offered an apologetic look.
Most people thought Alex’s relationship with the Salvatore brothers was strange and somewhat unbelievable. How did one woman please four men? And why did they want to share her? That part made no sense to me.
“Join us for lunch,” I suggested. “You like pizza.”
Olivia frowned. “That’s okay. I’m still not feeling good.”
She’d been sick a lot lately and had lost her usual glow. Last week, she even vomited on the floor. I offered to have my concierge doctor stop by the house, but she not-so-politely declined. Instead of a simple thanks, she rolled her eyes, said she was fine and not to worry, and walked away.
I propped my hip against the kitchen island and touched her shoulder. “You barely eat, Liv. I’m worried about you. Tate wouldn’t want this for you.”
“I’m fine, Drake.” She nodded at the door to our right. “Go hang out in the dining room until your pizza is ready.”
I tried to talk to her, but she turned away from me. Taking that as a sign to leave, I led my guests into the dining room. The banquet table could fit thirty people comfortably and made the house feel even colder. I ate most meals here alone.
We gathered at the table, and as I glanced at each of their faces, I felt my grip on reality slowly slipping. Like it had with Marcello. Whenever I was with people I knew, I lowered my guard, accidentally showing them my vulnerability.
And I hated it.
Sitting at the head of the table, I sighed, feeling even more miserable than I looked. “If I could bring her brother back,” I said to Sonny, who was on my right, “I’d give up everything just to reverse that moment and take his place.”
The door to the kitchen swung open. Olivia emerged, holding open the door for two women carrying plates. They set them on the table and rushed out of the room.
Olivia stayed behind, a tear sliding down her face. “You’re brilliant, Drake, but even you can’t invent a time machine. If I could, I would go back in time and never have met you. I would tell Tate not to accept your fucking charity. And I would…” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I would…”
Before I could react, Ella rose from her chair and pulled me into her arms. “It’s okay, let it out. I know exactly what you’re going through. And I can promise you it gets better with time. It will always hurt, but it gets better.”
“You don’t know how this feels.” Olivia sobbed. “No one does.”
“Yes, I do.” Ella wiped the tears from Olivia’s face.
“Nine years ago, I had to watch my mother get brutally raped and murdered by five men. There was nothing I could do to stop them. Not unless I wanted to suffer the same fate. There’s nothing Drake could have done to save Tate.
Just like I couldn’t have overpowered five men. ”
I’d done my research on the Doyle family.
Nothing but heartache surrounded them. Death was a normal part of their lives.
When I first learned of Olivia’s parentage, I considered not telling her.
Cian Doyle was dangerous and not an ally of The Devil’s Knights.
At least not until Ella got involved with Sonny and Aiden.
Olivia sniffed back more tears. “How did you survive?”
“I went to therapy,” Ella told her. “Took meds to help me sleep so I would stop having the night terrors. Grieving is a long process that takes time and patience.”
Olivia’s gaze shifted to me, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’ll go with you,” I offered. “We need to deal with Tate’s death together. Not alone, like we’ve been doing.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
“Liv, I know you hate me right now, but I need you. We need each other. Just think about it, okay?”
She nodded and left the room.
I let out a relieved breath.
There was still hope.
“Thank you,” I said to Ella. “I’ve been trying to reach her for months.”
My cell phone dinged with a new alert from Lovelace. I had her trained not to announce private information on the loudspeaker when other people were nearby. As I read through several messages she sent in rapid succession, I shot out of the chair like it was on fire.
“I’ve got what we need to take down The Lucaya Group,” I told my friends. “Lovelace followed the paper trail Mark Ruben left for us.”
Sonny moved beside me. “What do you need from us?”
Aiden was on my other side, chest puffed out, head held high. He dressed like a drummer in a punk band, but he was a good knight. So was Sonny. His golden-boy exterior might have fooled other people into thinking he was soft, but he was anything but.
“I need you to watch my back.” My fingers glided across the keypad of my cell phone. “What I’m doing right now will blow back on The Devil’s Knights if we don’t act fast.”
Aiden bobbed his blonde head. “Whatever you need. We got you. Our families and The Devil’s Knights will never be free of The Lucaya Group if we don’t fight back.”
My father taught me the skill of patience. I’d waited months for Mark Ruben to crawl out of his hiding place. He tried to take me out, and his plan failed.
I had to avenge Tate.
Typing faster than I ever had, I emptied the bank accounts of the criminal enterprise that killed my brother. All this time, Mark and his corrupt family had been funding the terrorist organization. He was the reason for every horrible thing that had happened to me and my friends.
I wanted to see the look on Mark’s face when he realized he was now penniless.
Sure, he still had Titan Tech, at least until the feds charged him for his crimes.
I could already see him being dragged out of his office in handcuffs by the FBI, then later removed as CEO by the board of directors.
In time, his company would be mine, just as I had planned it.
Killing Mark was too kind. He deserved to suffer for the rest of his life. It was only fair, seeing as he’d taken Tate from Olivia and me.
After I finished sending the last bit of information to the FBI, I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt. He was broke and defenseless, open to attacks from his own people.
It was over.
Without money, The Lucaya Group was finished.
I dialed Luca Salvatore. He answered with an annoyed groan but perked up the moment I told him we finally had The Lucaya Group where we wanted them.
“Send Alpha Command and the Knights to deal with the cells.” I texted him a link to the locations Lovelace narrowed down across the world. “As for Mark, I want him to suffer. I already handled him. ”
Luca grunted into the receiver. “Good work, Battle.”
After I hung up the phone, my eyes drifted to Sonny, then Aiden. “I told you guys we could do this my way.”
Everyone wanted me to be the bad guy, but it wasn’t in my nature. Even Tate begged me to use Lovelace as a weapon. I wouldn’t have been the man Olivia loved if I had gone about things differently, and it was time to get my woman back.