Chapter 47
Serena
“Logan?”
I’m not sure what’s going on. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, ready to run up them to the panic room, I hesitate because Logan is standing in the doorway.
Slowly, he raises his hands and is shoved inside.
“Logan!” I exclaim, moving forward when I see he is being held at knifepoint by a tall brunette with sharp features and expensive clothes.
Her gaze zeroes in on me, her eyes narrowing. “Get inside,” she mutters, shoving Logan again, digging the blade into his neck and then reaching under his coat. Slamming the door closed with her foot, she releases Logan and presses the gun she took from him to his temple.
Eyes on me, she asks, “Who are you?”
“Upstairs,” Logan murmurs.
Knowing I should go, I remain rooted to the spot. Not out of terror of being shot by this woman, but for Logan, who she clearly has a beef with. She’s here for him, not me. She doesn’t even know who I am.
“Go!” he grits out, his hands half held up in surrender, but one is twitching, almost as if he’s getting ready to strike.
Shaking my head, hating the look of anger in his eyes that I’ve disobeyed him, I stand my ground. I’m not running to safety while he gets shot or worse. How could I live with myself?
“Serena Wakefield,” I say to the woman, hopefully distracting her so Logan can do whatever he’s itching to do.
She purses her lips, but then brings the gun back and whacks Logan in the back of the head with it.
“Logan!” I shriek as he slumps to the floor, lunging forward until the woman steps toward me, gun leveled at my face.
“What do you want?” I ask. I’ve got fuck all except the few clothes and toiletries that Rue brought over a week ago. I have no money because I sent everything that I had left back to the woman who raised me, leaving me completely broke.
“I want him dead,” she spits out. “But you…maybe I can make him hurt first.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” I stammer.
“You mean something to him, or he wouldn’t have told you to run.” She squints at me, coming closer. “You his daughter or something?”
Balking at the insult, I choke out, “Eww. No, I’m his girlfriend.”
She snorts with amusement. “Oh, really? Do yourself a favor, girlie, and forget that label. Logan doesn’t do relationships.”
“He does with me,” I state slowly, the feeling of jealousy rising, about to bubble out. Containing it because it makes me want to claw her eyes out with my bare hands, I bite the inside of my lip, telling myself not to do anything foolish.
“Oh, you are so deluded. Is that what he’s spun you?” Her mock sad face angers me. She has no idea what she’s talking about.
“Probably deflowered you, did he? You look young enough,” she scoffs. “Guess he decided to switch to the less experienced.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Why is she doing this? Why is she trying to hurt me?
“Take it from me, Serena, Logan Carter is a user. He will fuck you and leave you and then come back and kill you if you show any signs of power. I’ve realized he wants his women weak. It’s why he wouldn’t help Shelley and me.”
“Who is Shelley?” I ask with trepidation.
Her dark eyes laser through mine with a fury that makes me take a step back. “My twin that he killed.”
“What?” My stomach coils into a knot. Twins?
She raises her eyebrow at me, smugness written all over her cruel face.
“We fucked him so hard,” she purrs. “All night long, we took turns with him. He’d fill my pussy with cum and then take Shelley and do the same to her, over and over…”
“Lies,” I hiss, but with a victorious smile.
I know she’s lying. Logan told me he always wore a condom until he had sex with me.
Even knowing he wouldn’t lie to me about it, I know it’s true in the way he groans about how good I feel wetting his cock, how warm and juicy, and how attracted he is to see his cum dripping out of me.
“You’ve never felt his cock inside you, not the way I have. ”
My implication hits home, and she hisses, coming closer.
My confidence fails me, and I step back again, further away from Logan.
But I’ve remembered something. I do need to get upstairs because I saw a gun in Logan’s closet the other day, in the panic room.
If I could just get to it, even when I have no idea how to use it, it will help even the score, and maybe I can get it to Logan before she shoots me.
Backing up until I see the bottom stair in my peripheral vision, I clench my fists and gather every ounce of courage I have left in me to try to save the man I love.
I have to do everything I can, or I’ve failed him.
Launching myself up the stairs, knowing she is going to follow me, I’m not wrong. Taking them two at a time, she roars and chases me, catching me at the top.
“I didn’t come here to kill you, but I will,” she snarls, grabbing my braid tightly.
“Leave her alone, Shelley!” Logan thunders, appearing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Kelly,” she snaps, turning to him.
“Huh?” he asks, a puzzled expression on his face that I would find funny if I weren’t hovering on the edge of the staircase in the grip of a mad woman.
“I’m Kelly. The woman you killed was Shelley.”
“Ooh,” he drawls. “Twins. That makes more sense than you coming back from the dead.”
“You killed her, you fucking prick. Sliced her throat like she meant nothing to you!”
“She didn’t,” Logan says, rubbing his head, unconcerned about the gun pointing in his face.
“You couldn’t even tell the fucking difference, could you?”
His face pales before he scoffs. “You played that lame game. Seriously?”
“Always. You have no idea the depth of this cover, but you’ve ruined it. You killed her, leaving me all alone, so now I’m going to kill this little blonde plaything you seem to have an attachment to.”
“She’s innocent in all this,” Logan says, stepping onto the bottom stair.
I struggle in Kelly’s grip, knowing I have to get out of this. I was stupid enough to think I could be as ruthless as she is, but I wasn’t quick enough or strong enough, and now Logan and I are probably going to die.
Not caring about me as much, I growl when I think about her killing Logan.
Focusing all my energy, I clench my fist and tense my arm, drawing it up so I can slam it back into her stomach.
I’ve never done this before, so I have no idea what I’m doing or if it’ll work or anything.
But Logan told me that when someone attacks me, I fight. So I will. I won’t let him down.
Gritting my teeth, I elbow her as hard as I can.
With the pain reverberating up my arm, I duck out of her loosened grip, and while she is still surprised, I reach for the gun.
“NO!” Logan thunders, lunging up the stairs two at a time. “Serena!”
Struggling with Kelly to gain control of the gun, I’m failing. She is much taller than me and stronger, and clearly more determined.
“You little bitch!” she hisses when I stamp on her toe, and she hobbles around with me clinging to her with one hand clamped around her wrist and one around the barrel of the gun.
“Serena, let go,” Logan says, slowing down and approaching with caution at the gun waving all over the place.
But I’m lost in the struggle. I have to get this gun away from Kelly, or I’ve failed again to protect myself and now Logan as well.
Ducking, I let go of Kelly’s wrist, throwing her off-balance. She backs up to the edge of the top step. In her heeled boots, she is off-center, and I can see only one way out of this.
As Logan lunges for her, panting, I let go of the gun, and lift my sneakered foot, kicking her in the stomach.
She scrabbles as she loses her footing, her arms going up, the gun firing at the ceiling, nearly breaking my eardrums.
I shriek, clapping my hands over my ears as I watch in horror as Kelly crashes down the stairs, her body distorted, her limbs snapping in the wrong direction.
“Logan!” I cry, my actions catching up with me as she hits the bottom of the stairs.
Silence descends as he reaches for me, pulling me to him as we stare down at the misshapen body of Kelly. Her neck is twisted, and blood is pooling under her head. She is quiet. Her eyes are open and glazed over.
“Is she dead?” I rasp.
“Fuck,” Logan says, turning me into him. “Don’t look. Stay here, where you should have been all along, and I’ll deal with this. Serena…” He runs his hand desperately through his hair.
“I—I was getting some coffee.”
His frantic gaze lands on mine, and his expression softens.
“I know, baby girl. I know.” He takes me in his arms again and strokes my hair as I stand stock still, not able to move save for breathing, and even that’s a struggle.
My shallow pants are loud in my ears which are still ringing from the sound of the gunshot.
Looking up, I see the bullet embedded in the ceiling.
“Is she dead?”
“Stay here,” he demands, and lets go of me to run down the stairs to check on the lifeless woman at the bottom that I know I just killed.