Chapter Nineteen

Belle

The warehouse reeked of mildew. Rot and other smells assaulted my nostrils. Coughing as I came to, I almost shrieked as a rat scurried past me in the dim light. Then the overhead fluorescents flickered on, and I went from being ready to scream to launching into a tirade against the man who’d done this to me. George stood there next to a table with a small tray of food on it with a gun trained on me.

“It didn’t have to come to this.”

“You didn’t have to turn out to be a fucked-up wannabe rapist either, but I guess we all have made some shitty life choices lately,” I bit back, struggling against the bonds tied around me. “I’m serious. You just let me out of here. I’d like five minutes with you, you piece of crap!”

“I’m deadly serious, Belle.”

I stopped thrashing as I eyed his Glock. “I’m pretty sure you are. But why are you doing this? George, there are tons of other women in L.A. Fuck, any other woman. I’m not interested. I’m going to make sure you go away forever.”

“This isn’t about you, not in that way,” he said.

“Then can you please enlighten me? Because I’m getting whiplash from your Jekyll and Hyde act.”

He nodded. “I wasn’t going to come after you. Don’t get me wrong, I was going to head to Switzerland long before my trial, but I wasn’t dumb enough to keep pursuing you. You’re drop dead gorgeous, Belle, but you’re not worth federal prison.”

“Thanks,” I deadpanned. “So, why I am in a deep, dank dungeon and tied to a chair?”

“Gee, sis, don’t be so harsh,” Carol said, as she slipped through the shadows to hold her own gun trained on me. “It’s a warehouse. Sure, our company hasn’t used it in years, but it’s hardly a dungeon.”

“Carol?” My heart pounded so hard against my breastbone that I thought it would shatter. “What’s going on?”

“You’re piecing it together, aren’t you? You were the one who couldn’t just take a hint and go home instead of poking her nose into everything.”

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe anything I was seeing. My brain was fitting the parts together, like the world’s shittiest jigsaw puzzle, but I had to be wrong. I just had to be. “What?”

“Say it,” Carol screamed, brandishing her weapon. “Tell us all what’s going on, Belle.”

“I… you’re the one embezzling from the merger? I don’t… why would you do that? After we all worked so hard to secure it?”

“No, George and I worked hard to sink the company. We wanted to be free of Dad and his outdated ideas. I thought we’d clenched it, and then you go off and sleep your way into Drake’s billions, didn’t you, sis?”

George clenched his jaw. “Like I’d touch you now. I don’t want McManus’s sloppy seconds.”

“Fuck you, George!” I shouted.

“Not ever, Belle. You’re tainted by that trash,” he said, slipping his hand into my sister’s. “I have the good one.”

“The one who should have been Daddy’s favorite. I worked my ass off at the company for years before you ever came on. I was the one trying to explain over and over about social media, but he’d never get it, never modernize. He’d always lean on me, but he’d never see me, not with precious Belle there.”

“So, what? You worked to help speed up crashing the company?”

“Yes. He deserved it,” she said, stating it as calmly as any other fact like the time or the weather outside. That was what chilled me so deeply. Carol didn’t care. How long had my sister been like this? How had I never seen the cruelty seeping into her heart? “Then we figured once you pulled off the impossible that we’d just set up a slush fund and disappear, but you couldn’t even let us have that.”

“Is that why George attacked me?”

“That wasn’t part of the plan, exactly,” Carol snapped.

“It wasn’t? Huh, sis, sounds like you’re second runner-up again,” I snapped, my anger burning through me, leading me to say things that would probably get me shot. “I bet getting a call from George in prison shocked the hell out of you. How many strings did you pull to get him bail?”

“It doesn’t matter now. I don’t want McManus’s leftovers,” George said again. “But I do want my money, and if you report what we’ve done, we don’t get our Swiss nest egg.”

“Actually,” Carol said. “I think I like the way this worked out better. Sometimes, kidnappings go wrong, you know. Sometimes, they don’t collect the money and the victims… well...”

I swallowed hard. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Daddy will always love you better. If I take you out, then he won’t,” she said, cocking the gun.

I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact of a bullet. “Drake, I love you.”

There was a shot, so loud it deafened me. But there was no impact.

Dear God, had she missed?

Opening my eyes, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Drake stalking into the room, his own gun trained at George. My sister was on her knees, cradling her arm as best she could. Her shoulder was gushing blood, but I knew Drake. He’d had some of the best training in the Marines. He’d have missed an artery, have known how, but Carol wouldn’t be shooting anyone else tonight.

“Drop it, George,” Drake said. “Drop it now or I blow your fucking head off.”

George shook his head. “You think you’re something, don’t you? Riding in here like her knight in shining armor, but you’re not. You’re a joke.”

“Maybe, but you need to drop that or I will drop you.”

George cocked his gun and aimed it for my head. “She only wants you, and I can’t understand why.”

“We can talk about that,” Drake said, inching toward him.

I placed my feet flat on the floor and bent my knees as best as I could. Everything happened so fast after that. Drake edged forward again, and George shot. I kicked with everything I had and my chair flew backward, causing the bullet to miss me by inches, leaving the bullet flying by my ears so close I could feel the breeze it blew up. When I crashed hard to the floor, the ancient spindles shattered and I wriggled out of my bonds. Hopping up, I rushed to Drake, to help him.

But he didn’t need help finishing this fight.

Just like that night in the alley with the men who’d tried to hurt me, Drake was out of control. He had George pinned under him and was whaling on the other man. His fist pounded again and again into George’s nose and eyes and his hands were slicked in blood.

Rushing forward, I fell on Drake’s arm. “Please, stop!”

Drake stilled but his voice was still rough, still unfocused when he spoke. “He hurt you.”

“I know, but he can go to jail. Please, Drake, don’t kill him.”

“He hurt you,” Drake repeated as if it was the most obvious, simplest fact in the world. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I knelt beside him and put my hand on his cheek. “No, you don’t, but I won’t let you hurt yourself, Drake. I promised myself that. Now, Master, let him go, for me.”

That seemed to cut through his confusion, through the blood lust and memories of battle that sometimes played with his mind. Drake stood up and backed away from George. I didn’t worry about securing him. He was breathing, blood bubbling up from his nose, but he wasn’t going to be walking out of here anytime soon.

“Do you have a phone,” I asked, my voice still wavering as the nausea consumed me. “I want to call my parents and the cops, too.”

“I… Christ!” he shouted, almost retching. “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” I said, finally noticing clarity back in those sincere brown eyes of his. “You saved me, Drake. That’s all that matters; now let’s call the police and go home.”’