Page 129 of Drawn Together

Sebastian looked at me as if the answer were obvious. “Because he thinks he’s in love with you,” he said coldly.

Just the thought made me want to gag.

“There has to be another way. Don’t take me to him, Sebastian. Don’t leave me, please,” I begged, leaning into him and letting him wrap me in his arms. Suddenly, everyone was an enemy, and Sebastian, the only person I could trust, wanted to turn me over to my abuser.

He embraced me for what could have been hours, but I finally let go of him and went into the bathroom. I sat on the floor in there for an hour and a half, thinking over all my options. Thereweren’t many. I thought about Elisabeth, Gabriella’s mom. Did she know any of this? Is that why she ended up divorcing my father? But then I remembered Harold, her new husband, who was a cop… Elisabeth wouldn’t hide something like that from him… But how could she not have known? My father was an expert liar, that was clear, and it was also true that he had companies all over the world, fronts for laundering all the dirty money he made from drug trafficking, I now knew.

I decided not to go to Elisabeth. Not only would it put her in danger, but the last thing I wanted was for Gabriella to find out. My sister loved my dad so much. She needed to stay in London, far removed from all this.

I felt as if someone had suddenly stolen my life away from me. I called Liam to find out how Tami was doing and because I needed to hear his voice. I wanted to beg him to come get me, to take me somewhere far away, but I knew I wouldn’t even make it half a block.

And then there was Sebastian… Finding out he belonged to that horrible world had possibly pained me more than learning that my father was one of the most dangerous narcos in the country.

Not only had Sebastian lied to me, but he made me question whether any of what we’d shared had been real. He’d always warned me that he was no good for me, but I’d thought he was referring to the fact that he was my bodyguard, that he worked for my father, or our age difference… I never imagined it was because he was a murderer… That’s how he had referred to himself:Your father is a murderer, Marfil, just like all the rest of us.

Finally, there was a knock on the bathroom door. I looked at it, trying to determine how I felt about the man waiting on the other side.

“Open up, Marfil,” he said, tapping gently with his knuckles. “Don’t make me break it down…”

I stood up and unlocked the door. There he was, wearing a black sweater I’d never seen on him before. Narco or not, he was still incredibly handsome and sexy. I stared at him, and he stared back at me. I closed my eyes as he gently caressed my cheek with his thumb.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m sorry, Elephant,” he said again, kissing the sensitive skin of my ear.

I felt momentarily comforted, until I remembered what he was planning to do, and I shoved him away. “Don’t kiss me again, Sebastian.”

I moved away from him and walked over to the bed, where I curled into a ball. I had no idea what awaited me or what his new orders were. But I knew that he had made up his mind to leave me with Marcus because I had never seen him so devastated or concerned.

“Drink this,” he said a little while later, giving me a glass of water and a pill, just as he had before.

“I don’t want to relax. I’m fine.”

“You need to rest.”

“What I need is to wake up from this nightmare.”

Sebastian simply looked at me with the pill in his hand. Finally, I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I needed to sleep without seeing the faces of my dead bodyguards lying on the ground or my best friend bleeding out on the concrete or Marcus’s dungeons waiting to swallow me up.

I fell asleep immediately, and when I felt him lift me in his arms, I knew he hadn’t given me the same pill as before. He wasn’t carrying me to bed, but to the car.

The last thing I saw before my eyes closed involuntarily was a single tear sliding down Sebastian’s cheek.

Maybe I’d dreamt it.

EPILOGUESEBASTIAN

Marfil slept the whole way to Newark Airport. This time I wouldn’t be with her on the flight to hold her hand during takeoff and landing. But it wasn’t only that I had to leave her—I had to let her go.

I spent over half an hour seated beside her in the car, waiting patiently for her to wake up. In front of us was Marcus Kozel’s private jet, where everyone was waiting for me to give the okay for her to get on the plane that would take her a thousand miles away.

Marfil began to stir beside me, and I prepared myself for whatever might happen. She slowly opened her eyes, and they shone with love as she saw me beside her. That gleam had driven me crazy for months and would torture me every second until I could see her again. But then she seemed to remember the past hours, the recent events, and a dark shadow crossed her face, erasing any sign of happiness, hope, or relief at seeing me.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking all around and stopping on the plane parked a short distance away. It was a Dassault Falcon 7X, one of the best private planes in the world. It cost almost fifty million dollars, a price tag that demonstrated just how much money was generated by the business I was a part of.

“Newark Airport,” I said, afraid to meet her gaze. I didn’t want to know what was going through her mind, how scaredshe must be. The fact that I couldn’t do anything to change it made me want to kill someone, to kill everyone and escape somewhere far away with her.

“Did you drug me?”

I locked the car doors before she could take off running. I needed to have a few minutes with her. I needed to make sure she understood what was going to happen.