Systematic Siege Box Set: Parts 1-3

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  36

  I exit the car and bend down quickly to stick the small tracker to the bottom of her car.

  Yes, I’m breaking the law.

  Yes, I plan on stalking her.

  No, I don’t give a fuck how wrong that is.

  That ring tone was set to be loud and obnoxious for a reason.

  It’s a warning. Something’s going on.

  Lexi’s speaking in a hurried, hushed tone I can’t fully make out. I think I hear medicine, testing, possibilities.

  I hurry around the side of the car, determined to figure out what the hell is this about.

  “I’m on my way,” Lexi says just as I get close enough and she ends the call. She tries to rush past me to pick up her purse.

  I block her path.

  Frantic, she tries pushing me out of her way.

  Silly girl. I finally have her back in my life. Nothing’s moving me.

  I grab her arms. “Look at me.”

  Wide, blown pupils focus on my face.

  “What’s going on?”

  She rips her arms out of my grasp. “None of your business.”

  “I waited seven fucking years to find you. You just choked on my dick and swallowed every drop of my come. Everything about you is my business. Understand?”

  She gives me the mother of all nasty glares and storms around me. As she bends down to shove everything back in her purse, I move to block the driver’s side so she can’t get in.

  I’m pushing too hard. Too fast. She’s like a scared little kitten I have to coax to my side, but the panic in her expression has hijacked my common sense.

  “I’ll fix everything,” I tell her. “Tell me what’s wrong and I swear to God I’ll raze the whole world down and rebuild it for you in order to fix all your problems.”

  Purse in her arms, she stumbles back away from me, her eyes wide and disbelieving. She tries to hide it but I see it.

  Despair.

  Longing.

  Hope.

  I know the look of someone who considers themselves utterly alone in the world and that’s it. She shutters her expression and ducks her head.

  Too late. My heart’s broken wider for her than ever. I’m bleeding at her fucking feet and I know she can’t even see it. “Tell me.” I step closer and reach out my hand. “I’ll fix it. Right the fuck now.”

  “You can’t.”

  That tone of hers perfectly mimics what I saw in her eyes before. She might not know it, but she’s broadcasting her need loud and clear.

  She won’t let me in.

  She doesn’t trust me.

  I know she has every right not to.

  But it isn’t just me. Lexi has become an island unto herself. Loneliness radiates off her as strong as her need for help.

  This woman doesn’t trust anyone anymore. She doesn’t let anyone in.

  And I know, with absolute certainty, that Menahan is as much to blame as I am.

  “What did he do to you, Lexi?”

  She scoffs and tries to bodily move me out of her way. “I don’t have time for this shit.” That guarded anger is back.

  By asking her that question, I gave her a reason to completely close herself off again.

  Fine. She doesn’t have to tell me. Eventually, I will find out.

  I move out of her way. “I’m here. Whatever you need. My entire fortune is at your disposal.”

  Another scoff and her door slams closed. Two seconds later, she’s peeling out of the parking lot at a speed that worries me.

  I run to my Pagani Huayra and jump in. In the blink of an eye, I have my phone clipped to the dashboard and the tracking app fired up. I connect the coordinates to my onboard GPS and slam my foot down on the gas.

  It takes me less than thirty seconds to catch up to her thanks to the monster engine in this car. I slow down once I have her in my sights, knowing that this car is way too fucking flashy not to catch attention.

  If she so much as catches a glimpse of this car, she’ll know she’s being tailed.

  If she remembers anything about me and my obsession for ridiculously expensive, high-tech vehicles, she’ll know it’s me.

  I slow down some more, letting her gain some more distance. I won’t lose her thanks to the tracker so I can afford to risk it.

  It isn’t until she blows a third red light—and I’m forced to do the same—that I mentally hit Defcon Five.

  This shit, whatever it is, is worse than I imagined.

  And I realize that Lexi is gunning it for the highway leading out of Newark.

  Luck must be watching out for us both. At the speed we’re driving, it’s a miracle we aren’t pulled over on the NJ-17.

  Lexi swerves in and out of cars in her haste. I don’t do so, but only because I can see which direction she’s heading and I don’t want to call any more attention to myself by doing the same.

  When she flies toward the S Summit Avenue exit toward Hackensack, my heart drops into my stomach. I don’t know if it’s this insane, almost cosmic connection I have with the girl, but suddenly I have a really big feeling about where she’s heading.

  The towering, huge buildings that make up the Hackensack University Medical Center come into view, and I know without a doubt that that’s where Lexi’s heading.

  37

  I’m parked in one of the parking lots with my cell phone up to my ear and my eyes glued on the main building of the hospital.

  Lexi ran in there about five minutes ago. There hasn’t been a chance for me to install a tracker on her phone, and for some reason I . . . I don’t want to.

  I have the one on her car and that’s bad enough. I’m already invading her privacy to a heinous extent.

  It’s not just the tracker. It’s my current line of questioning. “Who’s in there Uncle Robert?” I ask again.

  “What makes you think I know the answer to the question, Drew?”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me. We’re the biggest donors to this hospital. We practically own the fucking place. Now, tell me who the fuck is in there.”

  Silence. The kind of silence that screams guilt louder than any admission ever could. “I can’t, Drew. Something’s very wrong with you when it comes to that woman.”

  I don’t bother disagreeing with his assessment because it’s dead-on. “Send me a copy of the contract then.” I have a feeling the information I’m after will be on there.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason.”

  So the information is on there. “You do know I’m your fucking boss now, right?”

  A few more minutes of silence. This time, instead of guilt, I feel his disbelief leaking through the connection.

  “What did you just say to me?”

  Ah, the deadly side of Robert Drevlow.

  He’s a decent human being, for the most part. But that’s only half of who he is. In the end, there’s an evil darkness encoded in our DNA. A stain that passes down from generation to generation.

  Uncle Robert and I, we try to be kind. To be different than our coding tells us to be.

  But at the end of the day, a wolf is still a wolf.

  A lion is still a lion.

  And the devil is still the devil.

  We can play pretend all we want, we’re all still monsters.

  And I’m a bigger one than my uncle can ever be. Losing Lexi did that to me.

  “You heard me. You put me in this position. You wanted me here. Well, now here I am, and as your boss, I demand that you send me that contract directly to my inbox.”

  “She really is the reason you went crazy.”

  “That and our genetics, I suppose.”

  He barks out a surprised laugh and my lips twitch in response. His voice, when he speaks however, has no trace of humor in it. “You can’t go back down that path.”

  “I won’t.”

  “A junkie is always mentally junkie. You know that.”

  “I was chasing her.” It’s true. Every time I slid that
needle into a vein, I was chasing the feeling of having her. Ridiculous, I know that now. No drug could ever compare.

  “Andrew, you are the head of this company now. You can’t go back to that lifestyle.”

  “She’s back in my life. I’m sure this contract is iron-clad and long enough to keep her here as long as I need her—” long enough to get her to forgive me and love me again “—so trust me. I won’t be touching that shit again.”

  “Give me five minutes then.”

  Good. He knows his place.

  I’d like to say it bothers me to have to subjugate him like this, but nothing gets in the way of me helping Lexi.

  Besides, I have too much Drevlow blood in me to care about such things.

  I hang up the phone and stare at the entrance to the hospital. I have a bad feeling about what’s—who’s—in that hospital. For Lexi to run here like this, it has to be someone beyond important.

  I remember Mrs. Berkman. What she looked like—an exact but older replica of Lexi. Her heart—as loving and kind as her daughter’s.

  She was so nice to me when I was a boy.

  No. It can’t be her. I refuse to believe it. Life can’t be so cruel as to deal that blow to my Lexi.

  But yes it can. I know that. I learned that once and for all the day I lost her.

  The memory comes over me suddenly, taking me back to one of the most fucked up days of my life.

  38

  It’s the perfect fucking morning.

  Yeah, I know, make fun of me. Laugh all you want. But I swear to God I heard birds singing outside my window and shit when I woke up.

  The first thing I did when I opened my eyes? Smile like a motherfucking lovesick fool.

  The second? Hit up my girl, wish her a good morning, and told her how much I fucking miss her.

  Kaylee’s been blowing up my phone since last night.

  I don’t care. She doesn’t stop that shit and I’ll end up blocking her. The days of life getting between me and Lexi are way over.

  I’m literally whistling as I get ready for school. Rushing through my morning routine, I do the bare minimum when it comes to grooming and get ready to bolt out the door.

  A knock on my door makes me pause.

  “It’s me, honey.”

  Mom.

  I smile at her and grab my backpack. On my way out the door, I pause to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  She grabs my arm. “Your father is demanding to see you.” The barely hidden disdain in her voice is sad, man. Really sad. I don’t know jack shit about marriage, but I know that theirs is just all kinds of fucked up. “Mom, I love you, but I’m not in the mood to see him right now.”

  I’m high off Lexi. That’s all I care to feel today.

  “Honey, he isn’t giving you or me a choice in the matter.” Her brown eyes search mine. “Did you do something or is this him being his typical self?”

  “I didn’t—” Unless Kaylee, that whining little girl, called him and told him I left her.

  Fuck.

  Whatever. I was going to have to deal with this eventually.

  I kiss my mom on the cheek and head down the hall without saying another word. It takes me five minutes to make it downstairs to his office.

  The door’s closed. Of course it is. He wants everyone to knock, and then wait for him to deem us worthy of entry.

  Damn. I just want to get into my car and head to school. To Lexi.

  I knock on the door, grinding my teeth together. He doesn’t answer. I grind my teeth harder and wait a full minute before knocking again.

  This vanity-filled motherfucker is going to make me late.

  “Come in!” Short. Clipped. Displeasure? Evident.

  I take a deep breath, pray for the self-control not to end him, and open the door.

  The lord and master is sitting behind his huge, ridiculous desk, fingers steepled. The utter disgust in his eyes does nothing to me. I’ve been seeing it for too long to be fazed by it.

  “Good morning,” I say like a polite little robot, keeping my expression neutral.

  “Shut the fuck up and close the door.”

  Oh, he’s so educated when he wants to be.

  More like a piece of shit right off the streets.

  I close the door and wait right where I am, knowing that he’ll tell me when he wants me to come close.

  “You want me to destroy that little Ms. Berkman, don’t you?”

  A primal, dangerous reaction explodes in my cells, and I have to lock every muscle to control it.

  No one threatens Lexi. No one hurts her. No one. One day, this asshole is going to learn that the hard way.

  For a few moments, I’m worried he found out about me and her, and my mind races to come up with believable lies.

  But no, he didn’t. His gaze is too questioning. This piece of crap is fishing for a reaction.

  Kaylee called him. I know she did.

  “This has nothing to do with that little Ms. Nobody,” I say, surprised at how convincing I sound. Then again, when one has to play a role their whole life, eventually it comes by rote.

  “Oh? This week she’s little Ms. Nobody?”

  “She’s fucking some lowlife in the Chess club.” Fuck man. That lie burns in the back of my throat.

  My father throws his head back and laughs. “Ah. So the slut finally reveals herself.”

  Let it go. What he says means nothing. Fuck his opinion. It doesn’t matter what he says about her ‘cause it’ll never be true.

  “There’s nothing worse than a whore that can’t control herself.”

  Fucking double standard of his. Hell, his entire identity is a double standard. “That’s very true, father. Which is why I’m sure you’ll understand why I broke up with Kaylee.” My father’s head snaps down and his eyes narrow. “What? Did you think I wouldn’t know she rushed to call you?”

  “What are you saying, boy?”

  “I will never marry a slut that can’t stop guzzling other men’s come left and right.”

  39

  My father’s head tilts back with shock. His eyes narrow suspiciously and I can already tell he doesn’t believe me before he even speaks. “Kaylee wouldn’t behave like that.”

  “Of course she would. She isn’t my mother.” It’s a deliberate jab. A reminder that he doesn’t deserve a good woman like my mother. A woman that remains faithful to him only because he’s her husband, not because he deserves it.

  “Kaylee was raised to be better. And watch your words with me boy.”

  I shrug. “She was raised to be better but she isn’t. If you don’t believe me, go ahead. Spy on her.” I know he has the means to do so, too. “But I deserve better than her. A woman is supposed to do right by her husband at all times. She can’t even be faithful to me while I’m her boyfriend.”

  Throwing my father’s words back in his face is a strategic move. I don’t believe I deserve better, but my father will. Whatever he believes about me personally, his philosophy is still the same: a man can do whatever he wants. A woman must behave and be good to that man regardless.

  Chauvinistic, misogynistic, antiquated bullshit. I know. But if I can use it to play him, I will.

  It fucking scares me how much I’m like him sometimes.

  “I’m going to look into this.” There’s a silent fury in my father’s eyes. I’ve just ruined Kaylee’s life by doing this.

  Better her than Lexi. Sorry.

  “You do that.” I spin around and walk out of his office.

  “Don’t think this gives you an excuse to go after that Berkman girl!” he calls after me.

  “Jesus Christ, no one even said her name!” I yell back and keep it moving. My blood pounds hot through my veins.

  What I wouldn’t give to once, just once, slam my fist into that man’s mouth.

  I slam into my convertible and speed out of the driveway at full speed. Twenty minutes ‘til school starts. Damn it, I’m cutting it close, and I really, really want to spend time w
ith Lexi before I go inside.

  Although I’m driving like a criminal, and I know it’s dangerous, I pull out my cell and dial her number.

  My girl answers on the first ring. “Drew?”

  “Of course, baby. Who else would it be?” The fact that she picked up so quickly when she saw my number has me high as hell on happiness.

  She giggles and I swear my fucking toes curl. “I can barely hear you. Is that the wind I hear?”

  I’m driving over a hundred, all windows down. Of course the sound of all that air is messing with the reception. I slow down just enough to free my other hand for a few seconds and raise all the windows.

  Once they’re up, I push down on the gas and break a hundred again. “Better?”

  “Drew, stop speeding. I’m worried about you.”

  And I love you like crazy girl. The response is stuck in my throat, where it belongs. Now’s not the time. Not yet. But soon, I promise myself. “I can’t help it that I’m dying to see you.”

  Another adorable giggle. “But if you get hurt, we won’t be able to see each other at all.”

  “Just wait for me where we always meet up. I should be there in less than ten.”

  She agrees and hangs up the phone.

  I hang up as well, completely oblivious to everything but my need to reach her.

  The sound of a cop siren makes me jump in my seat.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  Pulling over is the last thing I want to do, but what choice do I have? If I try to lose him, I’ll end up in a cop chase and no doubt in jail right after.

  Frustrated, I flip the turn signal, and pull over to the side of the road. The cop approaches the car and gives me the usual “Do you know how fast you were going?” spiel.

  I play my part of repentant young man and give him all my identification. I let him give me the speeding ticket without saying a word to the contrary.

  Fuck paying it. I have more than enough money not to care about that. But I need him to finish giving me the damn thing, stat.

  Thanks to him, I make it to school almost fifteen minutes late. My entire grade is already been pulled into the auditorium for one of the year-end announcements.