His number wasn’t given to me.
My heart sinks as that realization sets in.
Dear God, please let him still be at work. Let anyone still be there. It’s late, I know, but someone has to pick up the phone. Please.
Andrew doesn’t have an assistant yet, so when I ask the main reception for him, they transfer me straight through to his personal line.
It goes to voicemail.
No. No. I actually need you right now, you untrustworthy bastard.
I hang up and call corporate again. This time, I ask for his uncle, who does have an assistant. She gives me a hard time about transferring me, but as soon as I tell her it has to do with the Providence project, she has no problem doing as I ask.
I grind my teeth to refrain from calling her out on her idiocy.
“Hello, Ms. Berkman?”
“Where’s your nephew?” I ask, not wasting any time.
The silence on his end gives me pause.
“I . . . I believe he left to run an important errand.”
He’s lying to me. And, considering he’s a Drevlow, I’m not surprised. “Give me his cell phone.”
“I can’t, Ms. Berkman. If you need to speak with him about something work-related, you can speak with him in the morning.”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, Ms. Berkman. You don’t understand. We need you at this company, and besides, he won’t let me get rid of you now, but I want to make something very clear to you. You almost killed him once; I will not allow you to get close to him and destroy him once again. Do I make myself clear?”
44
Elaina is caressing the back of my head soothingly, her movements weak.
I’m sobbing into this mattress like a fucking idiot. Taking a deep breath, I raise my head and meet her stare.
She tries to speak.
I shake my head and wipe my face clean. “Don’t. It’s okay.”
She shakes her head no and a tear slides down her cheek. “No. It’s not.” Her voice is so fucking frail. As if it’s costing her all her energy to just utter those words.
“I know. But I’m going to fix this, you hear me? I won’t leave you like this.”
Her smile breaks my heart. “I know that, now. Seeing you. Here. But . . .” She pauses and stares up at the ceiling. “For so long, I was convinced that you had turned out like your father.”
“In some ways, I’m worse,” I confess.
“No Drew. The monsters? The real ones? They’re out there. He’s . . . One of them.”
“Stephen Menahan,” I growl that name like the curse it is.
“He ruined her.”
The words are so weak, so feeble, that I almost don’t hear them. “What?” My heart is pounding. A cold sweat spreads. Is she confirming what I suspect? That barely formed, homicidal instinct inducing thought that I haven’t allowed myself to fully form?
Elaina opens her mouth. Before she can repeat herself, her breath wheezes and she begins coughing uncontrollably.
It’s so bad her frail body seems to be seizing on the bed.
Shit. Shit. Fuck. I jump up and press the button for the nurse. Then, I run to the door and yank it open. “Nurse! Doctor! Someone get over here!”
They do. Three nurses and a man I remember very well run inside and rush to Mrs. Berkman’s bedside.
I can do nothing but stand here, hands squeezing my head, as they try to adjust her oxygen.
Her upper body arches off the bed and her next cough gives way to a frightening, wheezing sound.
The heart monitor goes crazy.
“Nurse, get me a chest tube!” The doctor yells.
No. No. No. I know what that means. Fuck. I can’t believe this is happening. God, please help her. Please.
One nurse runs to the cabinets along the wall, grabs a blue, see-through bag, runs back to the doctor, and rips the bag open.
The doctor snaps medical gloves on. Another of the nurses comes up to him, wheeling a small metal tray. On the tray is a metal bowl that she pours a dark purple liquid into.
Within seconds the third nurse has opened another sterile package containing steel medical tongs.
The entire time Elaina is practically shaking from the force of her coughs and the struggle to breathe.
The doctor raises her hospital gown, exposing her side. Using the medical tongs, he dips a large cotton ball in the purple liquid and sterilizes Elaina’s side. He injects her with what I assume is an anesthetic.
Any doubt I was struggling to hold on to about what’s happening collapses.
Just like her lung.
Her lung has fucking collapsed and I’m standing here watching them do a chest tube insertion.
I’m not weak in the face of blood, or gore even, but this is Lexi’s mother.
Lexi’s mother whose lung just collapsed and if they don’t force a tube into her chest, she’s going to die.
Right here.
In front of me.
I’m terrified.
And beyond fucking homicidal.
The doctor uses a scalpel to make a small incision in her side. One of the nurses places the leakage drainage machine at the doctor’s feet.
I finally turn away. If I don’t, the chaos of my unholy rampage while tear through this entire state. A hurricane of bloody carnage that will lead right to Menahan’s door.
My mind checks out. For how long? I don’t know. A tap on my shoulder jerks me out of my daze.
When I turn, I see Dr. Aaberg behind me.
Wait. The heart monitor is beeping normally. She was stabilized?
I look behind the doctor and see Elaina on the bed, her breathing regulated.
That fucking thick tube inserted into her side.
Her watery, gray eyes stare at me with kindness. Maybe even affection. Me, the piece of shit that barely deserves it.
“I’m going to save you.” The vow is gritty. Like broken glass being shoved through cement. But it’s powerful. Honest.
There are very few things I’ve ever truly committed to in life, but when I have, it’s been with every ounce of my fucking soul.
She knows it. Her watery smile, behind that oxygen mask, is full of gratitude.
“Mr. Drevlow, I didn’t know you know Mrs. Beckmann—”
I interrupt Dr. Aaberg. “In your office. Now. We need to speak.”
45
What’s that saying? There’s no rest for the wicked? I guess that’s true. It’s 2:45am and here I sit, in the back of a non-descript black Honda in Leonia, half an hour away from the very center of Manhattan.
A half hour and Finn sitting next to me, fidgety as fuck. “Calm the hell down,” I tell him, scanning the quiet streets before me.
“Calm the hell down? We’re here meeting a government agent that just happens to be deep under cover in the motherfucking Solntsevskaya Bratva, and you want me to calm the fuck down?”
I glare at him. “You wanted to come. You insisted.”
His gray eyes narrow, filled with what seems like hatred. “I’m not letting you get yourself killed!”
“I’m one of the most prominent businessmen in the world—”
“Who’s planning on handing over another very prominent business man to the fucking Russian mafia!”
His hysterics are nothing new to me. Still, I wish he’d calm the fuck down before this supposed agent gets here. “Actually, I’m handing him over to an undercover agent—”
“Who plans on handing Barnard over to the Russians to solidify his cover even more—oh, and I’m not stupid either. I know you plan to be there when they off him.”
“Actually—”
A finger is jammed in my face. “No! Just no! You’re not saying it and you’re certainly not doing it. You will not participate in his actual death!”
My silence makes him gape.
He hisses out a curse and falls back into his seat, yanking at his dirty blond hair. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”
I open my mouth to
answer.
He shushes me. “No. I’m serious. You used your government connections and my ultra-superior hacking skills to get in contact with this guy. Now you’re dipping your big fat toe in the mafia pool and want to dunk it in a bucket of blood as you go? What the fuck man?”
“I didn’t want you to come along for this,” I mumble.
“You really fucking thought I’d just sit in my house in my fucking pajamas while you screw your whole life up?”
This goddamn loyalty of his is stronger than even my will.
I don’t have a blood brother, but he’s the closest thing I have to one.
The back door opens.
Finn and I startle and turn to look at the back.
A dark haired man settles into the back. In the dim car light, his hair flashes bronze and his light green eyes almost glow neon. “Evening Mr. Drevlow.”
“You’re—”
“The person you’re supposed to meet. Brave, I must say. Hacking into our servers the way you did.”
Finn glares at me.
I shrug at him. “It’s your fault you got caught. What happened to your ultra-superior skills?”
“This is the fucking government we’re talking about!”
The man in the back analyzes us with a detached but amused glance. “You’re willing to get your hands dirty and you can get us the one person we’re having a hard time getting to.”
Because Barnard owes the Bratva so much money he’s poured a considerable amount of what’s left of his fortune into his own protection.
He’s in hiding. Has been for the last few months. Does business from some hidden place. I’m sure Menahan knows where he his but he won’t be coughing him up.
Barnard just might be the only person in the world Menahan is actually loyal to.
But me? I can get him out. He wants me. Always has. He never got over what happened all those years ago, how his parents ruined his life after I got him kicked out of school.
He wants me dead. When I offer myself up, he’ll find a way to come knocking.
“What’s your name?” Finn asks the man in the back.
The man gives him a dead smile. More a slight twisting of his lips really. “You both need clearance before you can get information like that.”
“Clearance?”
“Just drive,” the man says calmly. A man used to having his orders obeyed. He settles back comfortably in the seat and stares out the window.
Finn and I exchange a look and I turn the ignition, wondering what the fuck we’re about to get into.
Whatever it is, I don’t give a fuck. I’ve already gone to hell for Lexi. I don’t mind going deeper than that.
46
I didn’t sleep for shit last night. It’s 6:45am and I’m walking around my kitchen like a fucking zombie, lost in the chaos and mind-numbing need for respite.
I can’t stop stressing about my mom.
Sadly—and much to my shame—that isn’t the real reason I haven’t slept.
Richard hates me. I know that now. His tone made it clear.
And why he hates me is eating at me. The questions. The unexpected pain.
I destroyed Drew once. Richard “won’t let me do it again”.
Stephen’s drunken taunts echo in my head, telling me that I had helped him more than anyone could and didn’t even know it. That his revenge against Drew was almost complete and it was all because of me.
My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop my mug full of coffee.
Drew let Kaylee record that video. He planned the whole thing to help his girl embarrass me, right? They had a twisted relationship. She would cheat on him and he had cheated on her. It’s not so far-fetched that she agreed to let him do it.
All of them went down for it. Drew, Kaylee, Barnard, and Stephen. Barnard once told me the only reason he and Stephen went down is because Kaylee and Drew teamed up to blame them for it. That they were truly innocent.
All of them kicked out of school days before graduation. Family money afforded them to still get their certificates and whatnot, but they weren’t allowed to attend the ceremony.
And all because of Drew.
Fuck. I’m back to calling him Drew?
Of course I am.
Because I’m starting to realize what an idiot I might be. There’s more to what happened back then and I never dug deeper. I just let myself believe the worst about Andrew Drevlow because of who his father was.
But how could he be innocent? He confessed. Told the school board he was in on it and gave out names.
Yet, Stephen’s drunk, goading voice reaches out from the past, giving me nothing but doubt. “Destroyed. Because of you. He was never going to survive not having you and now that’s obvious.”
The newspaper articles join in, adding to the mindfuck. Drew almost died six years ago. A year after losing me. No one knows what caused the car wreck, but a few articles speculated that it was intentional.
Bile rises up my throat. Dear Lord, did he try to kill himself?
My phone starts vibrating against the counter with an incoming call. When I see the name across the screen, I snatch it up. “Hello?”
“Good morning Ms. Berkman. I wanted to take the time to call you personally myself.”
“What’s wrong Dr. Aaberg? What’s happened to my mom?” One would think that, after years of this constant vigilance, of the brutal anxiety of waiting for the end, I would be used to this by now.
I’m not. My mom dying isn’t an option for me. I’m nowhere near coming to terms with it.
“She did take a turn for the worse but we’ve stabilized her.”
I exhale in relief.
“Her right lung collapsed last night—”
“What?” I almost screech.
“We inserted a chest tube to help with the leakage and pressure and she’s fine now.”
I start sobbing, the image of my mother having a tube inserted into her to help her breathe crushing me.
“Ms. Berkman, I’m actually calling with some good news.”
“What could possibly be good news right now?”
“Your mother is being transferred.”
“Wait. What?”
“Yes, we’re prepping her to take her to Drevlow Systems, Inc. She’ll be admitted to their pharmaceutical and medical division. They have one of the best—”
“Medical teams. I know. I work for them,” I say numbly, in shock at what I’m hearing.
Dr. Aaberg is clearly in shock to hear I work for them. Then . . . “That explains it,” he mumbles to himself.
“What?”
“You’re her, aren’t you?”
That questions shatters the last of my world. Pieces of reality, of the story I’d believed, crumble at my feet. “Did . . . Did Andrew ask you to do this for my mother?”
“Yes. He was here visiting her last night when her lung collapsed.”
My legs are the ones that almost collapse. I’m bombarded by relief, gratitude, suspicion, pain, questions. I don’t have to wonder how he found out about my mom. The contract between his company and me states it very clear.
“Ye—years ago. When he almost died. Were you his attending physician?” I ask.
Dr. Aaberg hesitates. “Yes . . . But I can tell you no more than that. You’ll have to ask Mr. Drevlow if you want more information.”
He doesn’t have to tell me anything else. “You’re her, aren’t you?”
“You almost killed him once; I will not allow you to get close to him and destroy him once again.”
I grab onto the edge of the sink, shaking, on the verge of breaking apart. A sandcastle facing a hurricane. No chance of survival.
“I also want to let you know that Mr. Drevlow has hired me to be a part of your mom’s medical team—”
“Because of your knowledge of her medical history and your connection with his family.” I have no doubt of my claim. All it would take is a single hack, a break into the hospital’s medical records, and I’
d confirm it.
Dr. Aaberg has a long history with the Drevlow family.
He starts to deny the second part of my claim, clearly afraid of angering Drew by giving me too much information.
Fuck that. I’m getting the info myself. I bid Dr. Aaberg a good day and run out of my apartment. Destination? Work. I’m facing my boss today and demanding it all.
Even if the truth kills me.
47
My office is empty.
Empty.
My computers have been moved.
My—my things.
Oh God. Where are my pictures of me and my mom? Where are they?
I decided to stop down here before heading up and requesting a meeting with Andrew. Thought it would be nice to drop my purse off in my office.
But . . . This isn’t my office anymore, is it?
It’s not. The emptiness screams it at me.
What the fuck is going on?
“Ms. Berkman?”
I turn at the sound of that sweet, nervous voice and see a red-head standing behind me. Megan. She works down here, one of the lead software developers. Under me, of course. I was hired to be her boss.
Megan, with her 1950s style dresses, her cute short heels, and her navy blue, cat-eye glasses. Today her bright hair is in a ponytail high on her head.
She’s eyeing me nervously. I adjust my own glasses and try to appear less unhinged. “Megan, do you have any idea—”
“Mr. Drevlow is waiting for you in his office. He wanted me to inform you to go straight up there.”
Of course he is.
Pure, primal, commanding energy, forty-two floors above our heads, and I still feel him.
Waiting for me.
Calling me.
I felt him the moment I came down here.
“But my office—”
Megan swallows nervously. I realize she’s intimidated by me now. When we met, most people seemed friendly and open enough.
Then Andrew stormed down here yesterday, bellowing my name like a conquering warlord seeking his plunder.
And just like that, he gave me power over these people. Power I didn’t ask for.
“He said he’ll explain everything to you.”
Systematic Siege Box Set: Parts 1-3 Page 13
