Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
“Hello?” he answered gruffly, sounding tired.
“Drake?” I asked softly, scanning the area around me. I felt like someone was watching me, but I was desperately hoping I was only being paranoid.
“Hayles?” Drake demanded, sounding more alert than he was when he had answered the phone. “What’s wrong?” he asked me.
“Someone broke into my apartment,” I told him, swallowing hard as that feeling of being watched didn’t go away. My skin crawled, goosebumps popping up on my skin. “And I think someone is watching me,” I whispered the last part.
I heard him fumbling around in the background, and then I heard the clanking of keys in the background. “Are you somewhere public?” Drake asked as a car door slammed on his end of the phone.
“I’m on the sidewalk in front of my apartment,” I told him.
“Stay there, and do not hang up this phone, understand? I’m on my way.”
Drake pulled up in front of me about three minutes later. I quickly hung up my phone and pocketed it. My nerves were shot by that point, and I felt like throwing up.
He slid out of his car and quickly walked towards me, his eyes discreetly scanning the area around him for any threats and for anyone watching me.
“Mark is sitting on a bench across the street. He’s been watching you the entire time that you’ve been here, but I assume since you were on the phone with me, he made no moves towards you,” Drake told me. I squeezed my eyes shut as panic gripped my chest, my heart racing wildly—almost painfully.
Drake gripped my chin and forced my eyes up to his. “Breathe, Hayles,” he ordered. I sucked in a sharp breath of air, wincing at the pain it caused in my chest. “Come on. We’re going to pack you some stuff, and you’re going to stay with me, alright?”
I didn’t feel completely safe with Drake. Sure, I felt safer than I felt by myself, but he didn’t instill fear into people.
This moment made me miss Damien, and that thought tore at my soul.
I had thought that I was over him and everything we had been together.
Hadn’t ripping my soul and heart apart, leaving me a shell of a human being, been enough for me? I’d lost the love I had for everything, even coffee, because of him.
I numbly nodded at Drake, though. Holding my hand in his larger one, he led me up the stairs into my apartment building. “Pack your essentials,” he told me. “And hurry.”
I rushed into my room and grabbed my duffel bag out of the top of my closet and threw some clothes into it with my toiletries. When I was finished, Drake grabbed my bag in one hand and my hand in his other, and he tugged me after him down to his car. “Mark is gone,” Drake commented when we stepped outside.
I breathed a shaky sigh of relief as Drake led me to his car. I didn’t know what this Mark man wanted with me, but it couldn’t have been good.
Drake unlocked his car and threw my duffel bag into his back seat. I slid into the passenger seat while he slid into the driver’s seat. “You’ll have all the protection you need and more staying at my place,” Drake told me as he pulled out of his parking spot, heading down the road towards the other side of town.
“What exactly do you do, Drake?” I asked him.
He cut his eyes to me, not answering for a moment. He finally released a quiet sigh. “I’m a gang leader—the leader over the St. Louis part of the Blue Bloods.”
I fisted my hands in my lap. I knew enough about the Blue Bloods to know that they had a lot of territory disputes and were always dealing with something.
But Drake didn’t know I knew all of that, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“That’s supposed to make me safe?” I asked him incredulously.
Drake sighed. “Not at first, no, but once you see all of the men that will be protecting you, you’ll change your mind.”
I rolled my eyes. “Highly doubt it,” I grumbled.
Drake just sighed and turned his radio up. I tapped my fingers to the beat of the song, doing my best to distract my mind from the shit my life had become. Before I knew it, we were pulling up outside of his small, quaint house. After pulling into the garage, he turned the engine off and got out of the car, myself following suit.
When we entered the house, I was practically slapped in the face with the sight of a guy snorting a line of coke up his nose. I turned my accusing eyes to Drake. “Right—Lacie was totally getting her fix from another gang, huh?” I snapped at Drake.
Drake narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t start this shit with me right now, Hayles,” Drake snapped, his eyes flashing dangerously.