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“I’m so sorry, Drake,” I said, putting a hand on his thigh.
He nodded and gave me a sad smile. “It gets worse.”
Oh shit, I thought.
“The car that hit them ran off. The police found them a few hours later. It seems that fate and coincidence are fickle little cunts who like to fuck over everyone all at once.
“My best friend from kindergarten all through school was a kid named Sebastian Macintosh. He went by Bash. We were inseparable. I’d been close, very close, to telling him about my predilections at one point, thinking maybe he would want to also partake. It turns out, that particular Friday night, instead of hanging out with me, he went after school and got hammered at the house of one of his basketball teammates. He got into his car?—”
“No. Jesus,” I breathed, putting a hand to my mouth.
“—and drove like a bat out of hell. He ended up slamming into and killing my baby sister.” Drake looked at me, and the sadness in his eyes had been replaced by fiery hot rage. “He was only seventeen when it happened. A minor. So the courts only gave him ten years’ probation and a heavy fine. His parents were rich too, you see. His daddy played golf with the district attorney. Hands were shaken, money was paid, jurors intimidated. He got off. Basically, it was like nothing ever happened. He even received a waiver allowing him to leave the state for college. He’d been accepted into Yale.
“Our friendship was done, of course. He tried calling to apologize but that was pointless. I hated him. The fact that he’d killed my sister by being a dumb fuck but also because he hadn’t been punished. Not properly.” Drake’s hand clenched into a shaking fist. “My parents were beyond devastated. Crying all the time. My mother had to go on antidepressants. Dad started drinking. I knew what needed to be done. For me, for everyone, to feel closure.”
“You punished him?” I asked.
Drake went silent as the train slid into another platform, allowing people on and off. We both craned our necks to watch, checking to see if anyone suspicious got on. After the train started forward again, he picked up the thread of the conversation where we’d left off.
“Yes. I punished him. It was the first time in my life I planned it around a person. My father liked woodworking as a hobby. He also enjoyed nature, so he had a tiny cabin and workshop built in the forest near our home. We’d long ago abandoned New York for the South. We lived just outside Charleston, South Carolina, and the cabin was deep in the forest. A place where he could get away from it all, and make fucking rocking chairs or some shit like that. I never had a desire for that type of thing, but it was perfect to do what needed to be done.
“I waited until the news around the trial had died down, and during the summer, before Bash moved up to Connecticut for school, I picked my time.” A distant and almost dreamy look came over his face as he continued. “Bash was having dinner with his girlfriend, and I waited until they were done. She headed home, and he walked down an alley to his parked car. I took him then,” he hissed, his voice laced with rage and delight as he spoke. “I smacked him in the back of the head with a leather sap I’d made myself. It’s basically a piece of thick leather with lead weights inside. He went down like a ton of bricks, and I can still see him. Now, talking about it, I remember standing above his body, looking down. Anyone could have walked up and caught me but I was too wrapped up in it.”
“Were you worried you weren’t doing the right thing? He was your friend after all.”
Drake shook his head, and his lips curled in derision. “Friend. A friend who got drunk and butchered my baby sister? A little girl who did nothing but love. Yes, we’d been friends. We’d confided in each other and experienced so many things for years. Fuck, we’d taught each other how to ride bikes for Christ’s sake, but in that moment, all I could do was think of all the ways I wanted him to pay.
“I dragged him to my car and shoved him into the trunk. He was still out when I pulled over on a dark stretch of highway to tie his hands and feet together and closed him up again. An hour later, he was awake and screaming in the trunk for help, but we were already in the middle of nowhere. There would be no help. None at all.
“Dahlia, I can’t explain the look on his face when I opened the trunk at the cabin.” He smiled and shook his head ruefully. “His eyes got real big, and then a smile formed on his lips. Then, when he saw the look in my eyes, the smile faded. I think he saw it then. All the dark secrets I’d kept so well hidden? I’d let the curtains fall away. He saw me for who I was, and for the first time in his life, Sebastian ‘Bash’ Macintosh was truly and completely scared.”
My leg bounced, unable to contain my excitement. The story was tragic and sad, but I knew what was coming. I knew how Drake would feel when he punished the person who’d taken a lovely girl from the world. I needed to know, had to know, what had happened.
“What did you do to him?” I asked, my voice hushed as though I was in a church.
“I was a kid,” Drake said with a shrug. “I hadn’t had the…experience I have now. Hell, it took forever just to drag his ass in the house. He was thrashing around, screaming for help. Thank god I’d thought to pull over and tie him up. I got him in there, and I was crying when I asked him why he killed Sasha. When he didn’t answer, all he did was sob and scream. I took one of Dad’s wood chisels from a worktable, and slammed it down on his leg. It took this massive hunk of flesh out. Blood went everywhere, and Bash screamed in pain. I can still remember how it felt when I saw that blood ooze out of him. The flayed muscle and skin? The yellowish fat? I can remember my cock getting hard. Rock hard. I’d never been so excited.
“He begged, of course, you know how it is. They always beg. It went easily after that. After the first blood. I cut off his fingers. I scooped out his eyes. I sliced off his cock and balls. All the while, every stab of the knife I kept shouting Sasha’s name at him. I wanted her name to be the last thing he ever heard. Eventually my throat went raw from screaming it, but by then, he was already gone. My best friend turned into a pile of meat and a puddle of blood, piss, shit, and guts.” Drake turned to look at me then, a glimmer of happiness in his eye. “Do you know what I thought? When it was all over?”
“What?”
“I thought he deserved it. Not once, not in all the years since then, have I ever felt bad about it. Bash stopped being my friend the moment he jumped into his car drunk. He was dead to me the moment he killed Sasha. From that day forward, I told myself I’d find a way to punish those who deserved it and help people, people like you, who needed to find that power and ability deep within.” Drake took my hand, running a thumb over my knuckles. “And you, Dahlia Belrose, are my greatest and most wonderful discovery. The fact I found you makes everything I’ve done and gone through worth it.”
Chapter 7
Drake
Naples had been glorious so far. A wonderful respite that allowed us to relax again. Though our attention was heightened. I’d managed to book a room in a high-priced villa compound with seven units and on-site security. We would at least not have to worry about Sam breaking in and slitting our throats in the night.
The additional security had done little to ease Dahlia’s fears. Seeing that cat nailed to our door in Greece had done more to shatter her sense of peace than I’d thought it would. Even now, after several days in the new location, I kept catching her looking over her shoulder, double and triple checking locks, and constantly peering through the curtains at the world outside. It filled me with an unexplainable rage, that he’d caused this fear and anxiety in her.
I’d spent the first few days digging online, trying to track down Sam, but it was becoming increasingly evident that whatever trails he might have left had already been scrubbed clean. Left with no other recourse, I decided to try and raise Dahlia’s spirits a bit. After two days of research, I’d managed to create a surprise that I hoped would work.
“What are we doing today?” she asked over a breakfast of croissants and cappuccino. “Anything?”
Setting my cup down, I nodded. “Have you ever heard of Pompeii?”
“The volcano?” Dahlia asked, her brows knitting in confusion.
