39
LOGAN
B loom had been missing for hours, and my composure was unraveling fast. Every second that passed felt like an eternity, every dead end tightening the noose around my sanity. I paced the casino like a caged animal, clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides. The air was heavy and thick from the growing frustration. We’d run out of options and had regrouped back at the casino to plan our next moves.
“I don’t get it.” Mort’s deep voice cut through the tense silence. He had his massive arms crossed over his chest, his frown as grim as the rest of the faces around me. “His cell phone showed his last location was in that building. I was so fucking sure we’d find them at Dr. Simms’s office.”
So was I. Every time Bloom had wanted to find me, he had. Why did the one time I needed to find him prove to be hopeless?
“The good thing is that we have time,” Grimm said. “If Simms wanted to kill Bloom, he would’ve done it right there, same as he did when he shot…”
Max.
Grimm might not have said his name, but we all knew he was thinking about Max who was fighting for his life. The room fell silent, pressing and somber. The weight of Max’s fate hung in the air, unspoken but impossible to ignore. Jamie was a fine doctor, and Max was his friend. He would do everything in his power to save him, but even Jamie had limits. He didn’t control life and death. None of us did.
“Any word from Crowe?” I asked, my voice tight. “Is anyone else at the hospital with him?”
“Chris is there, and Saint went to check up on him but nothing yet,” Gerald said. He’d been plastered to Bay’s side since we’d returned from Dr. Simms’s building. I didn’t blame him. I wanted to hold Bloom in the same way and never let him go.
“No news is good news.” Uncle Mickey placed a bottle of water in front of me. I’d forgotten he was still around. I took the bottle gratefully. My throat was parched.
“Thanks, Uncle Mickey.” I twisted off the cap and took a long sip, savoring the cool liquid as it rushed down my throat.
“No worries. If you want, I can get you more men from New York by morning. We can have them scour Smoky Vale from top to bottom and find that bastard.”
Normally, I wanted nothing to do with my family’s soldiers, but I was desperate to find Bloom. Still, my uncle’s men were the type to kill first and ask questions later. That wasn’t the kind of havoc I wanted to wreak on Smoky Vale.
But if that was what it took…
“If we still haven’t come up with an answer by morning.” I caught Grimm’s frown. He didn’t seem keen on the Mafia invading his territory, but he didn’t say anything.
“What do we do now?” Bay slammed his fist into his open palm, the sharp sound echoing in the room. “The longer he’s gone, the harder it’ll be to find him.”
“We’ve got to find him,” I muttered.
The door burst open, and Noose and Whip strode in, carrying two boxes between them.
“We didn’t think it safe to check through these at Dr. Simms’s house.” Noose set the boxes on the table. “We grabbed what we could from his office. Maybe we can find some clues as to where he could have taken Bloom.”
“Open them.” I stepped closer as Whip ripped the tape off the first box. Inside were personal effects—papers, folders, and a few small, nondescript items. We dove in, sorting through them with desperate focus, every scrap of paper a potential clue.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Uncle Mickey asked.
“Anything that can be a clue. Literally anything.”
We poured over the countless documents, scanning for any hint of an address or location. One by one, pieces of paper were inspected, then discarded onto a growing pile.
Someone stormed into the casino. I looked up, hoping for Bloom, though I knew this was unlikely. Crowe raced toward me, his face a mask of fury. My heart skipped a beat, dread pooling in my stomach.
“Is Max…” I whispered.
Crowe stopped in front of me and swung, his fist connecting with my gut and knocking the wind out of me. I stumbled back into a table, clutching my stomach as pain radiated through me.
“You son of a bitch!” Crowe roared, throwing a crumpled envelope at my chest. It hit me and fell to the floor. “This was on Max! A fucking letter from Bloom telling me what you two were planning. I wasn’t supposed to see it until after you left. You were going to take him away? Just like that? Without telling anyone?”
I swallowed hard, guilt twisting in my gut as I straightened. “Crowe, I—”
“Just who the fuck do you think you are?” he thundered, his voice shaking with barely contained rage.
“I was trying to keep him safe,” I snapped. “To keep all of you safe.”
“Bloom hasn’t been safe since the moment he laid eyes on you. He’s been risking his neck for you since day one. He’d have been better if he’d stayed in Riverton and not met you. You should stay the fuck away from him.” He stepped toward me again, but Bay barred his path.
“Crowe, this isn’t you talking, man. You know he’s been taking care of Bloom. You’re just upset about Max. Calm the fuck down. Everyone’s tense, man, but now’s not the time to lose our heads. How’s Max?”
“I don’t know because no one at the hospital tells me shit, and I had to get out of there before I did something dumb and barge into the operating room to see him.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
Crowe pointed at me. “And to find out this POS would have actually left with Bloom and never returned?”
“Crowe, Logan was just protecting Bloom.” Grimm placed a hand on Crowe’s shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t forget that Bloom made the decision to go with him.”
Crowe turned on him, narrowing his eyes. “You knew?” His voice cracked.
Grimm glanced at me, then back at the other biker. “Yes.”
Crowe took a step back, forcing Grimm to drop his hands. “How can you side with him?”
“I’m not taking sides. It wasn’t my business to stop him.”
“You had to have known I wouldn’t agree with this.”
“It was the only way to keep him safe from my family.” I moved around Bay, not needing him to shield me. So I’d miscalculated and Dr. Simms was the one we should have been guarding against, but I’d had no intention of hurting anyone. It just couldn’t be helped.
“You better find him,” Crowe said, his voice cold and deadly. “And when you do, I need the fucker who did all this alive so I can teach him the meaning of fear. Find him, Doc, or it’ll be hell to pay. I will not lose them.”
He stormed out, leaving the room in stunned silence. I picked up the letter and, with trembling hands, unfolded it. His handwriting was messy, incredibly hard to read. He had terrible spelling, and some of his letters were the wrong way, but there was no mistaking what it was—a good-bye to Crowe and his brothers.
“Don’t take it to heart,” Grimm said to me. “Crowe’s emotional right now because of Max. You did what you thought was best for everyone at the time. Let’s keep digging for clues.”
We returned to riffling through the boxes. The room buzzed with quiet activity: papers rustled, items clattered against the table, and muttered curses filled the air whenever someone came up empty-handed. My focus was laser-sharp, my mind drowning in a relentless loop of find him, find him, find him.
A grunt broke through the din, and I glanced up. Whip stood stiffly, rubbing at his lower back. “I’ll be a permanent hunchback if I don’t sit soon,” he muttered.
“Quit whining.” Noose stepped up beside him. Without hesitation, he slipped his hand under Whip’s shirt and rubbed slow circles over the small of his back, his movements casual, almost absentminded. Whip didn’t even flinch, just leaned slightly into the touch with a grunt of appreciation.
I froze, the scene pulling me out of my single-minded determination. The biker caught my gaze, his expression unreadable. There was no shame on his face, no embarrassment, just a steady, challenging stare as though daring me to say something.
I didn’t. I had bigger things to worry about.
“Guys, wait,” Bay said. He had his hands in the second box and carefully pulled out a folder. “There’s something here.”
We all crowded around him. He flipped it open, revealing a stack of documents and photographs. The top page was marked with a symbol—a geometric design that looked like a maze, simple yet unsettling. Beneath it, in bold letters, were the words The Mnemosyne Order.
I picked up the folded paper on top, smoothed it out, and read softly,
“We are the architects of memory, the weavers of truth and illusion.In the labyrinth of the mind, we hold the keys to the past, present, and future.We pledge to uncover the depths of human perception, to reshape what was, and to define what will be.
No memory is sacred. No reality is fixed.We embrace the power to create, destroy, and rebuild.For through memory, we command identity.
As Mnemosynes, we vow to push the boundaries of consciousness, to shatter the mirrors of certainty, and to rewrite the stories of the mind.This is our purpose, our creed, our calling.
We are The Mnemosyne Order, and through us, the truth becomes malleable.”
A chill ran down my spine as I finished the last sentence. The hairs on the back of my arms stood on end. I shot a glance around the room, finding mirrored expressions of bewilderment. “The fuck!” Bay cried. “What the hell is this? A cult?”
My chest rose and fell. It was just as I’d suspected when I asked Crowe earlier about Bloom’s past. The memories Bloom had all of a sudden about being sexually assaulted as a child weren’t real. Dr. Simms had deliberately planted them there, manipulating his mind for something called The Mnemosyne Order.
“That son of a bitch.” I let the paper fall back onto the table. What he was doing was unconscionable.
“What is it?” Gerald asked. “Surely it’s not what I think it is.”
“It is. Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory. They’re playing with people’s minds, planting false memories. It’s one of the biggest cautions of hypnotherapy.”
“B-b-but if this is an order, does it mean there are more of them engaged in this practice?”
“Seems like it. We need to find Bloom.”
Before Dr. Simms did irreparable damage. My heart pounded as I swept up the papers from the table and stuffed them back into the folder. “This isn’t working. I need to be out there, searching for him.” I stooped to pick up a piece of paper that had fluttered to the floor. “Uncle Mickey, you have…”
I frowned at the paper in my hand.
“What is it?” Uncle Mickey asked.
“Wait a minute. Where is the pile with the bills?”
“Right here.” Noose shoved the stack of paper over to me. I flipped through them, my pulse pounding in my temples. I spread out the utility bills and matched the addresses. They were different. The son of a bitch didn’t just have one office in that building. There was another. We’d walked right past them.
“He tricked us,” I whispered.
“What do you mean?”
I dropped the paper and raced for the exit. “They’re still there in the building!”