Chapter 27
LOGAN
This is it.
The end of freedom as once I knew it, and the beginning of the imprisonment that is marrying Killian Lorde.
Up until he popped the question, it was a looming fear, this trainwreck I couldn’t stop. I’ve dreaded this future, and at times I’ve denied it, but now there’s no question.
Despite my resistance, last week when he tortured Wilmore Cronkite and ensured the security of my family, I didn’t have any doubts about his loyalty or protection.
I refused to submit but offered myself up to satisfy the darkness in him, and really, in me too.
When we fucked, I felt alive. I was without judgment or self-hatred, just appreciating someone who could see me. Really see me.
Yes, I will have to forfeit my silly notions about love, but maybe that’s the price I’ve always been destined to pay. And as long as the Wildes are safe, what else really matters?
The following Monday, Killian permits me to use his office space to manage some business matters, so I’m at work when Wrath enters the room. He’s doing much better, his injuries healed over for the most part.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding.” Wrath sidles up to the desk, the way he typically does.
It grates on my nerves because I feel like he’s just coming here to distract me from getting anything done.
“I called and checked in on Malaki and Ror,” he says.
“They’re doing well, despite hating you for pulling them away from classes. ”
Malaki and Rory had to go into hiding, though I’m sure that won’t be for long. Since Killian revealed Wilmore’s intentions, the Cronkites have cooperated as a gesture of good faith to help us hunt down the men hired to assassinate my brothers.
“Are they keeping up with their schoolwork?” I press, since I told them this wasn’t a vacation.
They’ve arranged to complete assignments digitally while we handle this.
Their education is important, as it will ensure they won’t wind up entangled in the family business the way the rest of us have been.
Of course, as this incident has shown, there’s no real way of escaping it, but I’ll do everything in my power to keep it from infringing upon their lives.
Wrath squints. “You think those guys are the ones you have to keep in line?”
He’s right. It was a weird question since they’ve both always gone above and beyond. Feels like it came from some remnant of Dad within me, lurking and micromanaging.
“Anything else?” I ask. “I have a lot to do today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I keeping you from your wedding plans?”
We lock eyes.
Killian and I first announced our engagement alongside the plans we were making for our brothers and the Cronkites, so there wasn’t time to address our impending wedding, but now that things have quieted down, it’s time to face the consequences, including getting the appropriate amount of hell from my brothers.
“It’s nothing,” I lie.
“I know it’s a sham wedding. I figure you can still get laid outside of Killian.”
“That won’t be happening,” I say before I even have a chance to self-censor.
One of the few times where this impulsive Wilde gene is doing me a favor because the thought that Killian might be recording audio in this room, if I were to lie, even that much might be enough to set him off.
And after what he’s done for us, I don’t intend for him to ever think I would betray him.
I should’ve considered Wrath’s reaction, though, because now he’s looking at me wide-eyed, mouth agape.
“What?” He sounds eerily similar to how I did right after I discovered Killian’s sick intentions.
At least, that’s how I perceived them back then. Now it all makes me feel safe. Secure.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I return my attention to my laptop.
“Wait. Is this a joke?”
“Why would I joke about something like that?”
“I’m having a difficult time understanding why any of this is happening, but come on. Like you aren’t gonna have sex ever again?”
Again, I should keep my mouth shut, but I say, “I didn’t say that.”
Wrath is silent, which for him, says too much.
“Can you please get on so I can finish up here? I’ve got too much to do.”
Wrath leans down, like he’s trying to force me to look at him or get something close to eye contact. “I don’t understand, and I think you owe me an explanation. Dude, you like him? You’re attracted to guys? Where the fuck do I even begin?”
“We don’t begin anywhere because the conversation’s over.”
“Whoa, whoa. That’s not happening. This stuff is a big deal. You like Killian?”
“How I feel about Killian is irrelevant.”
But fuck, I do like the bastard.
Not just the parts he shows the rest of the world, but that part that, like mine, he reserves for those he must punish for inflicting pain on our families. I like him in a way I know he’s incapable of liking me, which pisses me off, but what can I do about that?
“What is going on?” Wrath asks. “What are you talking about?”
“Killian can protect this family, and he has certain ideas about how this is to be done, and I don’t have any reason to fight him on it.”
“But you have to be what? His concubine?”
“His husband. Now shut up. I said I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Are you gonna tell the others about how fucking serious this is?”
“I shouldn’t have even told you. It was a slipup. It’s just been weighing so heavily on me. Don’t repeat this to any of them.”
He angles his head, issuing a glare that suggests it’s an unfair demand of the guy we both know will blab the moment he leaves this room.
I huff out my frustration. “At least when you tell them, let them know nothing is changing my mind about this. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what Dad wanted.”
“You’re not thinking this through, Log. He wouldn’t have wanted you to be miserable.”
“You’re wrong. Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to be miserable. He knew I have a certain place in this family, and it’s to ensure that everyone else is safe. Got it?”
He sighs. “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“Good thing it’s not really subject to what you feel.”
He’s quiet, and I look at the document I’ve pulled up, but I’m unable to even pretend to work given what Wrath’s brought up.
“When you gonna tell Mom?”
Every muscle in my body tenses up. What does it matter what Mom thinks?
She’s dead.
To me, at least. Otherwise, she’s very much alive, though some days I wish she wasn’t.
My mind flashes to that violent day when we were kids. Her wide eyes, the feral expression on her face as she came at me.
I beat the haunting memories back to the past where they belong, wishing it were as easy to push my mother out of my life.
“Soon,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Soon?”
My siblings don’t understand my disdain for her, especially not her precious Wrath. But she planned to kill him that day, same as the rest of us. The day she lost her mind.
“Yes,” I say, “and that’s the one person I expect you not to reveal it to before I’m ready, and you have no reason to because you won’t be visiting her before me, got it?”
Despite what she did, we’re all still in contact with her, however minimal, which is more than she deserves. Wrath doesn’t exactly run off to tell her the latest family gossip, so if he chooses to do it now, it’d be a deliberate attempt to go against me.
But I will have to tell our egg donor at some point. She’s blood, after all. Blood is everything. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t excise her from our lives any more than I could extract parts of my DNA with a blood withdrawal.
I wait for Wrath to respond to my request, but his gaze wavers, so I push to my feet, rapidly approaching him.
He stands tall, the idiot, clearly willing to get his ass beat again, and though reasonably, I know he’d beat mine, I’d still take a few shots at that pretty, mostly healed-up mug.
I grip his arm. “Tell me you understand and won’t say anything to Mom.
I have the right to be the one to tell her. You can tell anyone else.”
“She’s gonna find out, so you should visit her soon.”
“I will. We just need time to get through this, and then I’ll head down to Misery.” Misery, Georgia, is where the Recourse is located, the facility where guys like us can make problems like Mom disappear.
“Now say you won’t tell her,” I press.
He raises his hands in a defensive stance. “Okay, okay. I will avoid Mom until you’ve told her the news, but you know she’s gonna want to know if you’re in love.”
“That’s not really an option for us,” I reply, earning another confused look from Wrath, but I don’t have much sympathy for his confusion because my life has been nothing but confusion the past few weeks.
He yanks his arm free of my grip. “Regardless of what you think, Mom loves us.”
“And regardless of what you think, if it were up to her, we’d all already be dead.” He can’t fight me on that one because he knows it’s true.
But whether I like it or not, I’ll have to face that monster once again.