LAUREN
I
wanted to kill everybody in the room and save Matt, even if it meant dying myself. It was partly because I was concerned about him, but mostly because I wanted to send a great big fuck-you to Drake. I wanted Drake to see my concern for Matt so it would make him jealous. I wanted to pretend that I had never fallen in love with Drake's traitorous ass. The ache in the center of my chest kept reminding me that I was indeed still in love with him.
“Get her up. This is bullshit. We didn't bring her here for a fucking lovefest reunion. Fucking torture her until she tells me where my fucking money is,” Kudrin snarled.
“Aghgh!” I cried as I was dragged up from the floor. I caught a glimpse of Drake standing there watching this all unfold. Like a brick falling from the sky, it finally hit me. I could picture Drake's taxi pulling up right behind mine outside of the bar in New York. I could picture him racing to hold the door open for me. I could picture him watching me inside the bar. The moment he approached me also played like a movie in my mind now.
“You motherfucka!! You lying motherfucka!” I barked with my eyes trained on Drake's gorgeous face. I had figured it all out just like that. Drake had followed me that day I was shopping in New York. He knew all along who I was. He had also followed me back to Virginia Beach. He may have even listened to all of my conversations with Daysha. One thing he didn't know . . . that no one else knew . . . was where the rest of the money was stashed. I wasn't telling them either. If I couldn't have it no one could. I made up my mind about that.
“Strip her, tie her up, and hang her from the rafters. I got some shit for her that will be like truth serum,” Kudrin growled. “I want my money.”
“Agh! Help me! Don't do this!” I screamed when I felt a bunch of hands all over me. All the while I was staring dead at Drake. I am sure he could see the devastation and pain in my eyes.
I jumped and started shaking when the sound of the material of my shirt ripping resounded loudly off the hollowed walls of the warehouse. The freezing cold air in the room slapped at my naked skin. My nipples betrayed me and became erect as if I was turned on.
“Nice tits,” one of the goons said, followed by a cruel chuckle. Another one came over and squeezed a handful of my breasts. The goons surrounded me like buzzards over a dead carcass. They were jeering at me and taking a free-for-all fondling my body. I stood stock still and let them have their way.
“Nice and suckable,” the other goon said lecherously.
“Aye, boss, with a body this fine, you should let us all have a piece of her before we kill her,” the third one with the chunk missing from his ear joked as he cut my skirt away from my waist. I was shivering even more now, more from fear than cold. I closed my eyes and began to pray.
“Matter of fact . . . I'm about to make her beg me to treat her like the whore she is.” The same goon leered. He pushed me forward and started dropping to his knees from behind me.
BANG! BANG!
The goons were cut short by gunshots. His body lurched forward onto my back. I jumped up.
“Agh!!” I shrieked. The booming sound of gunshots had made me completely deaf. Instinctively, I threw my hands up to my head and covered my ears.
BANG! BANG! Two more shots rang out but they sounded muffled to me. I didn't even realize I was jumping up and down. Then I felt a strong hand latch on to my left arm with a death grip.
“Get off of me!” I wailed. I didn't know what was going on. I could hear the faint sound of a voice in my left ear, but I couldn't understand what it was saying. I looked up with fear dancing in my eyes. It was Drake. He was the one holding on to me. He was pulling me but I was too frightened to move.
“Come on! Let's go!” he was screaming but it looked to me like he was just mouthing the words. “Let's go!” He took his suit jacket and hung it around my quaking shoulders to cover me. I was shaking my head no and trying to pull away from him. I didn't trust him. Wasn't he with these goons? Hadn't he set me up? Didn't he work for Nikolai Kudrin? Then I realized that it was Drake who had shot the goons. Kudrin was lying on the ground too but I wasn't sure if he'd gotten shot.
“Lauren,” I heard Matt call out to me one last time. I tried to turn around, but Drake tightened his grasp on my arm.
“C'mon,” Drake urged, pulling me in the opposite direction from Matt. “You can't do shit for him now! Let's go!” Drake barked at me.
“Lauren! No! Lauren!” I heard Matt scream. I turned in his direction. I watched him roll onto his side in an attempt to get up. One of the goons who was on the ground nursing a gunshot wound extended his foot and kicked Matt in the ribs. I saw when Matt toppled back over.
“Oh my God! Matt! He's going to die!” I hollered as I watched him fall flat to the floor.
“You don't fucking listen,” Drake roared. He grabbed me around my waist and hoisted me up onto his shoulder.
BANG!
“Agh!” I screamed as I felt a bullet whiz right past my face. They were shooting at us.
BANG! BANG!
With me on his shoulder Drake whirled around and returned two shots in the direction of the goons and Kudrin. It was like some shit out of a movie how perfect those shots hit their intended targets. One of the goons dropped to the floor again. This time I could see that he wouldn't be getting back up.
“Let me go! I can't leave him like this! It's all my fault!” I cried out. “I don't trust you! You are a fucking liar!” I yelled as I punched Drake in his back.
Drake ignored my cries and my little hits didn't faze him in the least. Carrying me like a rag doll, Drake raced through the warehouse doors to a black Bentley. He opened the door and dumped me into the passenger seat. Then he raced around and got into the driver's seat. He still had his gun in his hand.
“Let me go! Please! Let me go!” I cried out. I was rocking back and forth and hugging myself. I had just experienced something that was too surreal to believe. I think I was still in shock.
“I'm not letting you go,” Drake said calmly. “Now just sit tight and be quiet. I will explain everything. We've just got to get away from here first.”
“I hate you! You liar! You set me up! You're a fucking liar!” I cried. I was experiencing so many mixed-up emotions. Drake had betrayed me but he had also just saved my life. It was all too confusing.
“You think I betrayed you, but I saved your life, Lauren. My ex-boss Nikolai Kudrin was going to torture and kill you for stealing from him. It wasn't even about the money. He didn't need the money . . . for him it was the principle. It was the fact that someone like you had the balls to steal from him. It was his pride and ego that was injured more than his pockets. You had outsmarted him. He never likes to be outsmarted. What he had planned for you wasn't fit for a human . . . so you can thank me later,” Drake explained.
“But you . . . you lied to me. You let me believe that we had something,” I sobbed until my shoulders quaked. “You let me fall in love with you. You made me believe that you loved me, too. You're a fucking liar!”
“Shhh. You're right. I lied. In the beginning it was all about finding you and finding Kudrin's money. Yes, I was standing as his right-hand man so I was sent to follow you. To find out where you lived. To see where you had the money hidden. I was assigned to do all of that . . . but once I found you, followed you, spoke to you, kissed you and made move to you . . . Lauren, knowing you made it impossible to follow through with my assignment. At some point it became more about protecting you from what I knew was coming rather than turning you over to Kudrin. I could've told him where you were the day I followed you, but I didn't. I knew when you left the letter at the apartment in New York that you were coming back to danger. I knew that Kudrin would find you as soon as you stepped foot back in Virginia Beach. . . .” Drake paused as he focused on swerving around the traffic ahead of us. I had no idea were he was going and I didn't care. Everything he was telling me was crazy. The worst I thought could happen was that the police would track and find me. Not that my score would end up being a crazy thug, as bad as any street hustler about his money.
I grabbed on to the door handle to steady myself as the car continued to swerve. Drake continued. “They had been following your friend Daysha practically since you'd left. They knew eventually she would be the one to lead them to you if I didn't. I had never told them that I had found you. I wanted to move you as far away from the danger as I could. They knew Matt didn't have the money or else he would have been dead a long time ago. When you left New York, I knew what was up so I came right away. I came to save you, not betray you,” Drake said with feeling and a sincerity that no man had ever shown me. No one had cared that much for me since Mrs. Shepherd. I continued to cry uncontrollablyâa mixture of fear, love, confusion, and surrender all rolled into my emotions. Inside I felt all warm and mushy from Drake's words.
“But who are you?” I croaked through my tears. “I feel like I am in love with someone I don't even know. Who the fuck are you?” I sobbed.
Drake pulled the car over on a desolate country road. He put it in park and turned toward me. His handsome face melted my insides and I looked away. I was scared of my feelings for him, especially with all the deception between us.
“Look at me,” he demanded in a soft tone that was almost a whisper. I hung my head and shook it left to right. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the tears drain out of the sides. “I can't look at you. I don't know you.”
“Please. Look at me, Lauren,” Drake said again in a soft whispery voice. This time he extended his hand and put it behind my head to urge me to turn it toward him. “Just give me that . . . at least.”
“I can't,” I sobbed. “I just can't. It hurts too much.”
“You can and you will. What I have to say I need to be looking into your eyes to say,” Drake said. With sobs hiccupping through my chest, I finally relented. I slowly turned my head and gazed into Drake's eyes. A flash of heat lit up my face as I stared deep into his beautiful chestnut eyes. I swear his face was so damn fine that it made everything I was feeling even more intensified.
“My name is Derek Hague. I've been working as a cleaner for Kudrin for two years. I gained his trust and I became his right-hand man. When Kudrin sent me to find you, then follow you to the money and then to bring you to him, it was just another assignment for me.”
I grabbed the handle of the car door, ready to open it and make my escape. His confession made me feel like I'd traded one bad situation for another. My pause gave him time to hit the automatic door locks, trapping me in the car with a man I loved but didn't really know. I squinted my eyes closed as he continued.
“But after I met you, I knew I couldn't . . . do what I knew he'd eventually ask me to do. And as we grew closer, and I began to fall for you, protecting you became my first priority. Not Nik. Not completing my assignment.” Drake leaned over and tried to pull me into his arms. But I wasn't ready yet to forgive him.
“A man in my line of work has a lot of contacts and people who owe him favors. That's how I know that right now police officers are swarming that warehouse. They will save Matt's life so he can be prosecuted. There are also police officers swarming Yancy's place and bringing her in. I made sure that I worked behind the scenes to clear your name. I was the cooperating witness. I got you off, simply because I want to be with you. And if you want to be with me, we have to leave this place for good. Will you go with me?” Drake . . . I mean Derek explained everything to me. My head was spinning from everything he had just said. My heart was thumping wildly and I began sobbing like crazy.
“Nobody has ever cared about me enough to go through all of this. I . . . I . . . don't even know what to say,” I said through tears.
“Then just say yes,” Derek whispered.
Then he pulled my head toward him and leaned closer to me. “Wait, it hurts right there,” I said, referring to the bruises I had alongside my face.
“I'm sorry,” he said as he loosened the grip on my face. When his lips finally touched mine, the kiss was different from any other one we had exchanged. Our tongues danced together and our hearts, bodies, and minds connected on a level I could never explain with words. I was still scared, but I had also never been this happy in my life. Everything I had been through began to fall away in that moment. Derek stopped kissing me and leaned back.
“Will you go with me?” he asked again.
“I will go with you,” I whispered.
He smiled and I saw his shoulders slump with relief. He started the car and we began to drive. I didn't know where we were going or what life was going to be like for us, but I knew that the feelings I had for this man were totally different than anything I had ever experienced. I thought about Mrs. Shepherd and how I wasn't going to be able to see her. I sent a prayer up for her, hoping that she wasn't in pain and that she'd be able to recover from her stroke. And I tried to keep my last vision of Matt out of my mind's eye. I felt awful about it and I hoped to God what Derek had said was true about the police swarming the warehouse and saving Matt's life.
After a few long minutes, Derek broke the silence inside of the car.
“I have the money from the safe that you had stashed at the assisted living home,” he said like it was no big deal. My eyes went wide and I whipped my head in his direction. He smiled. “Oh, and Mrs. Shepherd has been moved to a safe place. She didn't have a stroke. She was never sick. I will arrange for you to see her soon.”