Chapter 24 – Drake
DRAKE
Iawoke to someone lifting me off the ground, kicking up dirt that flew onto my face. Rocking to the side, I peeked up at the person carrying me. I blinked a few more times, and light splashed my face.
“Drake,” a familiar voice said. “Can you hear me?”
Cole.
My cousin.
I forced my eyes all the way open, but it hurt to do anything but roll my head to the side.
“You’re going to be okay,” Cole said.
“Tate,” I croaked, my voice raw from dehydration.
Cole sniffed.
No answer.
As Cole lowered me onto a stretcher, my bones and muscles ached—another sign of dehydration and starvation. I blinked a few times to clear my blurred vision. My eyelids felt heavy and swollen.
Cole rolled the stretcher across the bumpy terrain, letting out soft sobs. The New Mexico heat smacked me in the face.
By some miracle, I survived.
Between the high CO2 levels, lack of oxygen, water, and food, my chances were slim. Add in all the torture, and I was lucky to be alive. I must have done something right to be granted this gift.
Cole pushed the stretcher up a ramp and into a mobile medical unit. Two men dressed in scrubs rose, waiting, ready to hook me up to an IV line. They pumped something into my veins, and that was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness.
I woke up on a bed beside Marcello. He lay on his side, snoring softly, his face cleaned up but still cut and bruised. They had beaten him so severely that his lip was twice the usual size and his eyes swelled.
Turbulence rocked the private jet. At that, a wave of sickness tore through my stomach, bile rising in my throat. I felt slightly better than before from getting IV fluids. By the looks of my arms, they patched me up, but everything hurt like a motherfucker.
I glanced at the interior and realized the plane belonged to Atlantic Airlines, a company owned by Damian and Bastian Salvatore.
Rubbing my tired eyes, I sat up and slung my legs off the bed.
Marcello was here.
Tate wasn’t.
Before I passed out, Cole never responded to my question. He refused to tell me whether Tate was okay.
He was dead.
I could feel it, like a limb severed from my body, reminding me it was no longer there.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Propping my elbows on my knees, I cried so hard my lungs hurt. Each wound felt as if it were tearing open, ripping me apart from the inside out.
“Drake,” Marcello whispered.
His deep voice was rough and scratchy.
I slowly turned my head to face him. “I wish I had died in that cave. It should have been me. Tate didn’t deserve that.” My body shook from crying so hard. “What am I going to tell his sister? Liv will never forgive me.”
Marcello sat up. “Don’t do this to yourself, Drake. Tate signed up for this when he took the job as your head of security. He died with honor.”
“But his death was in vain. He would want it to mean something.”
No one knew Tate was my half-brother. Growing up as the only child of a billionaire, I didn’t have many friends. Only the children of the founding families. But when I met Tate, it was like my life had fallen into place.
“You did everything you could to save Tate. There’s nothing you could have done differently to change the outcome.”
“Those men wanted to punish you. And they used Tate to do it.”
“I gave them access to Lovelace.” I dabbed at my tears with my shirt. “If the cave hadn’t collapsed, maybe he would still be here.”
“No, he wouldn’t. They would have killed us.”
I wanted to tell Marcello the truth about the voice I’d heard on the phone in the cave. But I didn’t trust myself or my memory.
Had I imagined it?
Before the cave’s collapse, I was on the verge of losing consciousness, head pounding, pain radiating throughout my body.
I leaned into Marcello and squeezed his shoulder. “Right now, I’m more worried about telling Liv that Tate is dead. I can’t think about anything else.”
The speaker in the room’s corner made a crackling sound, and then the pilot said, “We’re making our descent and will land in Hartford in twenty-five minutes.”
Marcello patted my knee. “We’re almost home.”
“Yeah.” I let out a pained sigh, dreading my next conversation with Olivia. “Home.”
After landing in Hartford, we took a helicopter to Devil’s Creek. The pilot landed on the helipad at the Salvatore Estate, where over a dozen of our friends and family waited for us.
I spotted Olivia in the sea of people, crammed between Sonny and Aiden. She wore a pair of black sweatpants and a red tank top that showed off her big tits. With dark hair slung over her shoulder, she stared with wide eyes as Marcello exited the helicopter first.
My heart hammered in my chest as I thought of all the ways I could tell Olivia that her brother was dead because of me.
She would hate me.
Leave me.
I already knew it.
So, I sat there for a moment, biting back the blinding pain in my jaw. I hadn’t had the nerve to look in the mirror on the plane. My face probably looked worse than it felt, like a truck had run me over and then backed up again.
After the Salvatores gathered around Marcello, each taking turns hugging him, I climbed out of the helicopter. I staggered to the side, struggling to maintain my balance.
Thankfully, Arlo Salvatore noticed and gripped my shoulder, pulling me into his arms. “Welcome home, son. I’m so sorry about Tate. He was a good man.”
I bobbed my head and choked back a sob. “I tried to save him.”
“You know what must be done, Drake.”
As the former Grand Master of The Devil’s Knights, Arlo was the leader of the secret society when I joined seven years ago.
“Yes, sir,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.
Everyone wanted me to break the law and use Lovelace to take down our enemies once and for all. But I wasn’t ready to cross that line.
Olivia ran to me and squealed. “Drake. Oh, God.”
She shook her head in disbelief, staring at my face, and then her arms wrapped around me, crushing my broken ribs.
I let out a groan.
She pulled back and looked up at me. “Sorry, did I hurt you?”
“It’s okay. Just hard to breathe.”
I was still weak and tired, even after getting fluids from the medical staff onboard the plane. They checked our vitals, patched up our wounds, and scanned for broken bones.
Physically, I was okay and would fully heal within the next eight weeks. But mentally, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
I didn’t deserve to be alive.
Since waking up on the plane, every awful moment in that cave flashed through my mind like a movie. Over and over, the images entered my brain, reminding me of the mistakes I had made. Thinking back to the moment we woke up in the cave, I should have done more.
I could have broken my thumb and freed myself from the zip ties. But I didn’t have the strength. Neither did Tate. I also couldn’t feel my fingers or hands from being restrained.
She hugged me again, her makeup streaked with tears. “Where’s Tate?”
On the helicopter ride here, I had rehearsed all the things I would say to her. All the ways I would soften the blow. But there wasn’t a correct way to tell her I royally fucked up and would have given anything to switch places with Tate.
“He’s dead,” I said, unable to fully meet her gaze.
Olivia shook her head, her entire body trembling. “No. No, he’s not.”
I held her in my arms as she cried on my chest. “They killed him. I’m so sorry, Liv. It’s all my fault.”
Her blood-curdling scream pierced my eardrum and sent a shiver down my spine.
I had expected this.
This is all my fault.
“Stop it, Drake,” she whimpered, swatting a hand at my bruised chest. “Just tell me the truth.”
“I am, Liv.” I bent down and held her at arm’s length, tears spilling down my cheeks. “They airlifted his body to the morgue in Beacon Bay. We can see him…. But I don’t think you should. He’s unrecognizable.”
“No,” Olivia shouted, dropping to her knees on the asphalt. “No, no, no… He can’t be… Tate.”
I wanted to get on the ground with her, but I could hardly stand on my own. So, I put my hand on her shoulder, just to let her know I was there. That I loved her and would be here for her.
Across the blacktop, I spotted Cole and Grace Marshall. My cousin’s wife carried their newborn son, Hale, who slept soundly, despite the noise from the rotary blades.
With life comes death.
I thought about how my father’s death led to five of the happiest years of my life. He gave me a brother who filled my life with purpose and joy. And with that brother came the woman I would one day marry.
Once we both had time to process, I would tell her everything. The secrets Tate and I hid. All the lies we told to keep her safe. If Olivia ever forgave me, I would make her my wife and uphold the deal I made with Tate.