15. Drake
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“She’s driving me mad. Honestly, this entire ordeal is testing my patience.”
Julian flicked his cigarette, a smirk on his lips as he crossed his ankles. How he still managed to look dashing and roguish in a dingy basement was beyond me. “Does she know you’re the one cooking those lunches you bring her every day?” he asked.
I stiffened, briefly glaring at him over my shoulder. “No. She doesn’t.” With a dismissive sniff, I returned to the task at hand. The man tied to the chair started screaming again when my blade carved into his skin.
“You know she wouldn’t eat lunch at all if I wasn’t feeding her.
” My mouth ran away from me, spouting my frustrations in between my quarry’s cries for mercy.
“She has a hazelnut coffee and a green smoothie in the morning, works all day long, and I have no fucking clue what she does at the end of the day. But she works long hours, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she barely eats dinner either.
The work is so important to her, and she’s still not very open with me about everything.
” Another beleaguered huff passed my lips.
I gestured at the man, mottled black and blue with red splattered over his remaining flesh and clothes.
“It’s a wonder she agreed to let me hunt this fucker down for her.
She intended to send her guard dogs after him. ”
“Did she send you after him because she’s finally letting you in? Or because it’s gotten you out of her hair for the past week?” The quirk of his lips made my eye twitch.
Fuck. Julian had a point. Though I’d never admit that to him.
Monty’s personal guard, who stayed behind to manage the aftermath of the ambush at her home, noticed another masked individual in a car around the corner.
When his cohorts failed to return, and he spotted the bodyguard, the getaway driver hightailed it out of there.
A vehicle description and half a license plate landed on her desk the next day.
Before she sent the details on to one of her subordinates, I jumped in and demanded the job for myself.
Her adorable little face scrunched in the short amount of time it took her to decide and agree.
Her brilliant brain likely leapt at the opportunity to send me into the field and away from her office.
Things had been strained since our tryst in her office.
And I, the selfish fool, had caved to her whims.
Whatever Helen Montgomery wanted, I’d give her.
Anything she wanted me to do, I would do.
If she asked me to carve my heart out of my chest and serve it to her on a silver platter, I’d fucking find a way.
She’d mesmerized me a decade ago, but it paled compared to how bewitched I’d become over the past few weeks.
“Tell us who you work for,” I gritted through my teeth.
The man coughed up blood when my blade nicked his skin. Sweat trickled down my spine, making my oxford shirt stick to my skin. Hours of torturing information from the bastard were starting to bore me out of my mind. He either had a constitution made of stone or he truly knew nothing.
“F—fuck you,” he wheezed. Stringy blood-soaked hair plastered to his ashen skin, one eye swollen shut, patchy blond beard coated in red streaked spittle. A pathetic creature in every sense.
“Jack Duffer,” Julian drawled, reading off the driver’s license from the bastard’s wallet. “Thirty-two years old, really? Fucker looks like he’s in his fifties.”
“That might be all the blood and bruising,” I remarked.
“Ugly fucker. Even on his license. Look.” He flashed me the image, and I pretended to glance at it. “Regardless, this is enough for us to go to his home. Find any family he might have. Maybe a wife or girlfriend who would be more amenable to sharing what Jacky here has been up to lately.”
Jack visibly cringed in his chair, chest rising and falling faster. “No—no, wait!”
“I’ve been beating and cutting this guy up for hours!
Had I known he’d blab if we threatened his loved ones, I would have started there!
” Not really. He dared to get involved with an attack on Monty.
Even if he’d started spilling all his secrets from the moment we caught him, our encounter would end with his blood on my hands.
“Hm.” Julian flicked the wallet shut and strolled away from the table he’d been leaning on for the past hour. “You should have started with fire. Isn’t that your specialty, Dragon?”
“Dragon?” Jack swallowed hard. “You mean like The Dragon? From the Graham family?”
Annoyance flashed through me. “You didn’t know who I was this whole time? Were the questions I asked not enough of a clue?”
“I thought—thought you two were just Montgomery enforcers looking into the job. You’re looking for my boss. But he doesn’t want the Dragon to find him. Not yet.”
“What interest does he have in me?” My hand shot around the front of his jacket, yanking him as far as the ropes allowed. From the beginning, there had been a target on my back. The attack on my home, which hardly anyone knew the location of, mirrored the attack on Helen’s home.
Why target the children of crime family heads? Who knew the location of my home and Monty’s? Why were the Graham and Montgomery families facing a higher portion of attacks than the others?
“Oh, everyone is interested in you,” Julian teased with a rude grin slashing across his expression. “Well, except the one person you want.”
“Naturally.” I rolled my eyes at him. “If you don’t watch your smart mouth, you’re going to get stabbed like old Jack here.”
“Tish tosh,” Julian waved a hand, “like I haven’t been stabbed before.”
“Eager for a repeat performance?” All eyes cut to the new figure leaning at the bottom of the rickety stairs. Douglas brushed a long auburn curl from his forehead before waltzing under the light.
“Dougie!” Julian jokingly shrilled at him. “How lovely of you to finally join us!”
The man tied to the chair choked on his air.
I peered at him from the corner of my eye, noting the way he tensed and slowed his breathing.
An emotionless mask slipped over his beaten face despite the pain afflicting him.
His swollen eyes flicked to Douglas, likely appraising the newest threat to his life entering the room.
“I had things to do.” Douglas shrugged, hands carelessly in his pockets.
“Things to do?” Julian clicked his tongue. “What the fuck do you do, Dougie?”
His jaw clenched as he gauged the man tied to the chair, who was dripping blood and reeking of sweat and piss. Ignoring Julian, he asked, “So, who is this?”
“You make being difficult look effortless, truly,” Julian muttered under his breath.
Jack hadn’t taken his eyes off Douglas since he descended the stairs. His breathing slowed further. Only when I cleared my throat did the tied-up scum jerk his head in my direction again.
“One of the men who attacked Helen last week.” I crossed my arms over my chest, evaluating every breath and muscle movement, sure that my top-notch sleuthing skills would tell me everything I needed to know.
I briefly basked in my own brilliance, wishing Helen was there to witness my great torturing skills.
If anything would make her fall in love with me again, it had to be that.
“The getaway driver, specifically,” Julian offered. “Drake’s been tickling him for hours, but the bird will hardly sing.”
“What has he said so far?”
“He’s been working for someone new for the past six months after he was caught trying to steal a car.
He gave us the names of the men who he chauffeured to attack Helen.
But since they’re dead, we would have identified them, regardless.
Though I suppose it helps speed up the process.
All the black-mask fuckers have been such low-level thugs.
We’re not seeing a connection.” Julian swiped a hand over the back of his neck, brows pinched together.
“Whoever is coming after us is just scraping the bottom of the barrel to put together their gang. The mask gimmick is growing tiresome as well.” I addressed Jack directly, encroaching on his space enough to intimidate (but not enough to smell him).
“Give us something worthwhile, or I’m going to find every member of your family.
And if you have no family, I’ll go after anyone and everyone else you’ve ever loved.
And when I find them, and trust that I will find them, I’ll tie them all together in one last embrace and burn them to ash. ”
“I can’t! He’ll kill me!” Jack began thrashing in the chair with more energy than when we first caught him. He jerked around like a fox in a bear trap, preparing to chew his foot off.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” I bellowed.
The man’s frightened eyes leaked fresh tears with a garishly revolting amount of snot running from his nose.
He sniveled and flailed against the binds, causing the metal chair legs to scrape and groan on the concrete flooring.
“Please, spare my family, please. I didn’t tell.
I didn’t tell them anything. They don’t know?—”
“What the fuck?” Julian stood straighter.
“Fuck you! I’m not telling you shit!” The crack of a handgun and a bullet hole in the side of his head silenced him.
Julian and I whirled around to Douglas, who was tucking his weapon back into his waistband. His brows drew up, and he blinked at the twin expressions of rage on our faces.
“You goddamn idiot!” Julian smacked him on the back of the head. Douglas shot him an equally cold glare back.
“What the fuck was that, Douglas?” I snarled. A heated fury rose within me, almost as potent as the moment I found out Helen had been attacked and when we located Jack days later.
He put his hands up, shrinking into himself under the harsh force of my stare. Realizing he made a mistake, the idiot had the sense to appear at least somewhat sheepish.