Chapter 220
Kieran's POV
The phone rang at 4 AM.
I stared at the screen, watching the unknown number flash against the darkness of my dorm room. My hand hovered over it for three rings before I picked up, already knowing who it was. Some part of me had been waiting for this call since the day they put my face on that goddamn poster.
"Kieran." The voice was thick with alcohol and something worse—satisfaction. "Saw you got rich, son."
I hung up immediately. My thumb was still on the red button when the text came through.
Your pretty girlfriend Summer Hayes
My blood turned to ice.
Answer the phone or I'll make sure she knows how 'warm' things are at home
The next message was a photo of Summer walking across the campus, coffee in hand, completely unaware someone was following her with a camera.
The phone rang again.
This time I answered.
"That's better." Drake's laugh made my skin crawl. "Been following that girl for a few days now. Real pretty. Lives in a nice neighborhood too. Wonder what she'd think if she knew about your mom and little Lily, living in that shithole in Southie..."
"Don't." The word came out strangled. "Don't you fucking—"
"Tonight, Kieran. Before sundown. Fifty thousand in cash. There's a warehouse in Old Colony Projects, you know the one. Come alone, or I visit your girlfriend. Maybe I'll tell her some stories about her boyfriend's family. Maybe I'll do more than talk."
My right hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone. "That's—that's less than fourteen hours. I can't just—"
"Not my problem." His voice turned sharp. "You already used up your one good hand on me, remember? What're you gonna do with that fucked-up claw you got left? Go cry to a bank teller?"
I wanted to tell him I'd kill him. That I'd find a way to end this, to make sure he never threatened anyone I loved again. But the words stuck in my throat because we both knew the truth—I was seventeen, he was an adult with nothing left to lose, and the law had already proven it wouldn't protect us.
"Fifty thousand," Drake repeated. "Sundown. Don't make me come looking for you."
The line went dead.
I sat there in the dark, phone still pressed to my ear, listening to silence. My mind was racing through possibilities, each one worse than the last. I could go to Coach Anderson. To Summer's mom. To the police. But Drake had made his threat clear—any official involvement and he'd hurt the people I loved before anyone could stop him.
And the timeline he'd given me was brutal. Not days—hours. He wanted me panicked, scrambling, too desperate to think straight. That was how Drake operated. Never give them time to plan.
Fifty thousand dollars. I had maybe sixty thousand left after paying for Lily's cochlear implant and covering our rent for the next few months. I could give him almost everything and still have enough to survive until graduation. It would mean giving up MIT, giving up any chance of getting ahead, but at least everyone would be safe.
Except they wouldn't be. Because guys like Drake never stopped at one payment. He'd come back again and again, bleeding me dry until there was nothing left. And when the money ran out, he'd find other ways to hurt us.
I pulled up my phone and stared at Summer's last text from yesterday. A photo of her chemistry notes with a doodle of a cat wearing safety goggles. Miss you. Come study with me tomorrow?
My chest felt like someone was standing on it.
I couldn't let Drake anywhere near her. Couldn't let him use her as leverage against me. But I also couldn't just disappear without explanation—she'd come looking for me, and that would put her directly in his path.
The smart thing would be to give him the money. Take the loss, accept the defeat, and hope he'd stay away long enough for me to figure out a more permanent solution.
But I'd been making "smart" choices my whole life, and where had it gotten me? Right here, at four in the morning, trying to figure out how much of my future I could trade for a few more months of peace.
I got dressed in the dark, pulled on my jacket, and grabbed my backpack. If I was going to do this, I needed to be smart about it. Needed to think like someone who'd grown up fighting for survival, not like the scholarship kid who thought good grades could solve everything.