Chapter 160
Summer's POV
I couldn't move. My legs felt like they'd turned to stone, rooted to the cracked pavement while Drake's words crawled over my skin like something rotten and alive.
"So what do you think, sweetheart?" He took a step closer, and I caught the full force of the alcohol on his breath—cheap whiskey mixed with something sour. "You and my boy already sleeping together? That why you're here? Checking on your investment?"
My throat closed up, trapping any response I might have managed, and all I could do was stand there while he kept talking, kept moving closer.
"That's—that's not—" I couldn't get the words out, couldn't make my mouth form anything coherent while my heart hammered so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.
"Oh, come on." Another step, and now he was only a few feet away, close enough that I could see the broken capillaries in his nose, the yellow tinge to the whites of his eyes. "Rich girl like you. Pretty thing. I bet you've got him wrapped around your little finger, huh? Does he do whatever you want? Does he—"
"Stop." My voice came out as barely a whisper, pathetic and small.
Drake laughed, the sound ugly and knowing. "What's wrong? Embarrassed? Don't be. It's natural. Young love and all that." He looked past me at Kieran, his smile widening into something cruel. "She's a real catch, kid. You better hold on tight. Girls like that don't usually go for trash like us."
I felt something hot running down my face and realized with distant horror that I was crying, that tears were streaming down my cheeks and I hadn't even noticed when they'd started.
"Hey, hey." Drake's voice went soft, almost gentle in a way that made my skin crawl worse than the shouting had. "Don't cry. I'm just teasing. Look, I'll tell you what. You want him? You can have him." He spread his hands in a gesture of mock generosity. "Give me a hundred grand and he's all yours. I'll even throw in a wedding blessing. How's that sound? You'd be my daughter-in-law. Well, no—actually, I'll just give him to you. Like a present. What do you think?"
He took another step, then another, closing the distance until I could see the pores on his face, the stubble on his jaw, the way his pupils were dilated despite the streetlight. He was so close now I could smell not just the alcohol but the sweat, the unwashed clothes, the general decay that seemed to cling to him like a second skin.
"Come on, Summer. Let's make a deal."
My phone. I still had my phone clutched in my hand, the screen dark and useless.
"I'm calling the police." I held it up with a hand that shook so badly I almost dropped it, my thumb fumbling for the screen. "I'm—I'm calling them right now."
Drake's smile widened, showing teeth stained yellow from cigarettes. "Go ahead. Call them." He pulled out his own phone with exaggerated slowness, waving it like a prop in some sick performance. "I'll wait. And when they get here, they'll take him too."
"You provoked him. You—"
"Did I?" Drake tilted his head with mock innocence, and I wanted to claw that expression off his face. "I was just talking. Just trying to have a conversation. He's the one who got violent." He leaned in closer, and I could see my own reflection in his bloodshot eyes. "So go ahead. Call the cops. Let's see what happens. It'll be so romantic. You two can visit each other in jail. I'm touched, really."
He reached out like he was going to touch my face, his fingers grimy and trembling slightly, and something in me screamed to run, to move, to do anything—
That's when Kieran moved.
His fist connected with Drake's jaw before I even saw him swing, the sound wet and crunching in a way that made my stomach turn over. Drake stumbled back, blood pouring from his mouth in a dark stream that looked black under the streetlights, and when he spat on the ground I saw a tooth mixed with the red, small and white and obscene against the dirty pavement.
"Fuck!" He touched his face with shaking fingers, staring at the blood like he couldn't quite believe it was his. "I can't believe I raised such a fucking idiot. You just ruined my handsome face, you little shit."
Then he swung back.
His fist caught Kieran on the right side of his face with a sound like meat hitting a butcher's block, solid and sickening. Kieran went down hard, his head hitting the pavement with a crack that made everything inside me go cold and still.
I screamed. I didn't mean to, didn't plan it, but the sound tore out of my throat raw and animal.
Behind me, Lily started crying, high-pitched wails that cut through everything else.
"Stop!" Catherine threw herself between them, her thin body barely a barrier, her hands outstretched like she could physically hold back the violence that had defined her marriage. "Please stop! Please!"
"The police are on their way!" Mia's voice cut through everything, strong and clear despite the tremor I could hear underneath. She was standing by her car, phone still pressed to her ear, her face pale but determined under the streetlight. "They're coming right now!"
Drake looked at her, then at Kieran struggling to push himself up, then at all the phones pointed at him—mine, someone from a window above, the glowing screens capturing everything. His expression flickered for just a second, something like calculation crossing his features before the sneer returned.
"Self-defense," he said loudly, projecting like an actor on a stage. "Everyone saw it. He swung first."
I heard sirens in the distance, still blocks away but getting closer, the wail cutting through the night air.
Drake's face went dark, the sneer dropping away to reveal something uglier underneath. "Damn it." He spat more blood on the ground, the red splashing across the concrete. "You think you're so smart, don't you? Think you can just change the locks and I'll go away?" He looked at Kieran, who was slowly getting to his feet, one hand pressed to his bleeding face. "I'll be back. You hear me? I'll be back every single day. I'll make your life hell. You can't keep me out forever."