3
Islid my key into the lock on my apartment door, only to find it already unlocked. In fact, my door swung open easily since it hadn’t been closed all the way. Panic swirled in my gut, tightening my airways. I quickly rushed back down the corridor and down to the street outside of my apartment building.
Someone had broken into my apartment.
And I had a feeling that it had to do with Lacie.
I fumbled with my phone, having to enter the passcode three times to unlock it before I finally got it right. With shaking hands, I scrolled through my contacts and pulled up Drake’s phone number, pressing call without hesitation.
I mean, he had told me to call him if I ever needed anything, right?
And something told me I wanted Drake for this—not the police.
“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 pulledup 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.