Logan
It’s hard to believe a month has already passed. Harder to realize just how happy I’ve been. I never thought of myself as a family man. I certainly never thought I would come to appreciate the kid I’d always assumed I would despise.
And yet, if anything, appreciate is too weak a word to describe the way Aurora has wound herself around my heart.
In a very short time, I’ve come to accept that I’m responsible for her.
Just as responsible for her as her mother is.
More so, really, since I don’t believe my little brat can be responsible for herself, let alone anyone else. And that’s just how I like it.
But what makes me happiest of all is knowing I finally own my little ghost—heart, mind, and body.
I’m feeling particularly thankful about the body part today.
“You’re my good girl,” I murmur, holding her naked body to me after what feels like the tenth time I’ve come inside her. “Too bad you’re not crying. The only thing missing are some tears. Then you’d be absolutely perfect. I really haven’t made you cry half enough today, have I?”
She bites her lower lip. “Well, I think you’re… an asshole.”
I snort. She’s such a bad actress. I can tell she doesn’t mean it at all. She’s only trying to rile me up, but I’m more than happy to play along.
“Do you really think so?” I stroke the side of her face, my cock already twitching again in my briefs. “Get dressed, brat.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh. You don’t want to…?”
I laugh. “Oh, I do want to. Get dressed, and don’t make me ask you again.”
Frowning in confusion, she stands up and hunts for the dress I ripped off of her about two hours ago, pretty much the minute Dolores left to spend the afternoon with Aurora out-of-doors.
Lia grabs her dress, but scowls when she sees the ugly rent in it.
“At this rate, Logan, I won’t have anything left to wear!”
“Good.”
“Pretty sure you don’t want me to go around stark-naked, at least, not in front of other people. Do you, Logan?”
She glares at me, her hands on her hips, but I’m too busy admiring her body to pay attention.
“Uh huh.”
“Logan!” She throws the torn dress at me, and it lands in my face. At once I spring up, grabbing her wrist as she lets out a strangled sound, half laugh, half yelp.
Well, now she did it. I am riled up.
“Get dressed if you want to, brat,” I growl in her ear. “And then… start running.”
“Wh-what?”
“I’ll give you a head start. Three whole minutes. You’re going to run out into the woods, and I’d better not fucking catch you. Got it?”
Her green eyes widen. “Or what?” she breathes.
“Trust me. You don’t want to find out.” I look down at my watch. “Three minutes, starting…”
“Wait, Logan! Hold on!”
“Now.”
She scrambles to the closet, grabbing the first dress she finds, then runs for the dresser, hunting for underwear, before making a dive for her shoes.
It’s the hardest thing in the world not to laugh when I see her terrified expression as she spins frantically around the room before darting out the door.
“One whole minute gone, Lia!” I call out, listening to her footsteps recede. “You better be running!”
As I watch the seconds tick by, I have to resist the urge to rub one out. I’ve already come three times today, and I need to save myself for what I have a feeling is about to be a really good fuck. Or two, or three. Why the hell have we never played in the woods before?
At last, I decide I’ve waited long enough. My cock feels like it’s going to explode by the time I stand up and make my way outside. It’s too bad I let her get dressed. But I guess she’s right. It often feels like we’re entirely alone, but who knows? Someone could be watching.
The thought makes me more than a little nervous.
I realize that there’s no way Carmelo’s just…
given up on getting Lia back. Damien might have some pull, but there isn’t a person on Earth who has that kind of pull.
Still, I haven’t heard from either one of them since we’ve arrived, and so, I push aside the nagging worry, determined to cross that bridge when we get there.
“Hope you found yourself a good hiding spot, Lia!” I chant. “I’m coming! Fuck.”
My cell phone is vibrating in my pocket. Talk of the fucking devil—it’s Damien. Initially, I plan to ignore it. But I realize that if I do, I’ll be torturing myself about it when I get to Lia, and I won’t be able to fully enjoy it.
So, hissing out a string of curse words, I pick up.
“Yeah, man? Can this wait? I’m kind of busy.”
“Hello to you too,” comes the drawling voice of my best friend. “Long time no talk. How about you wait to shove your cock up your girl’s pussy until you’ve heard what I have to say?”
I pause, clenching my teeth. If anyone else were to refer to Lia in such a crude way, I’d kill them without a second of hesitation. With Damien, I’ll let it go, but that doesn’t mean I’m not seething. I punch at the tree beside me, the roughness of the bark bruising my skin and calming me.
“Yeah? What?”
“Nice. Is that really what you were about to do? Say hi to Lia from me. Anyway, shit has hit the fan.”
“What else is new?” I grunt.
“Well, this is new. No, not new. But the cute little mutiny has turned into an all-out war. And Moretti’s debt has an expiration date.”
I tense all over, my now bleeding fist pressing into the tree trunk. “What do you mean, Damien? I’m not giving her back.”
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, and I detect a nervous edge to his voice. “Right, I get that.”
Fuck. Damien never sounds nervous.
I lean back against the trunk, willing my racing heart to calm down. “Where are you going with this, man? Spit it out.”
“So it’s like this.” I hear his breath on the other end of the line as he opens and closes his mouth repeatedly. “It’s like this. I’ve just found out who’s behind the mutiny.”
“You have?” I frown. “But that’s… that’s good news, isn’t it?”
“In a manner of speaking, yeah. I mean, I guess it’s good news. It’s what I set out to find out, and I found it out. So I guess that’s good, yeah.”
“Damien.” I grit my teeth, my fist digging harder into the trunk. “Stop with the games, bro. Just say it. What’s going on?”
“Fine, fine. Well, it’s like this.”
Goddammit, I wish I could reach through the phone and strangle the fucker. If I hear him say those three words once more time…
“It’s like this.”
“DAMIEN!”
“Right. Well, the thing is, I didn’t exactly find it out, if you catch my drift.”
“I fucking don’t!”
“I mean, it’s not a mutiny anymore. And it’s not a secret anymore. Like I said, Logan, it’s war. Over the weekend, shit hit the fan, and it turns out… well, Moretti’s dead.”
I freeze. Damien’s words reach me in slow motion, strangely distorted. “Moretti… Moretti, as in… the don?”
“Yeah.”
“The… the don’s dead?”
“Uh huh.”
“And that favor he owed you…” I swallow hard.
“Yeah, no one owes me that anymore,” he admits slowly. “That died along with him.”
“Okay.” I don’t know why exactly this is bad news, but I just know it is. “Who killed him, Damien? Do you know that?”
“Yeah, that’s the thing.”
“What thing? What fucking thing, Damien?” I’m back to punching my hand into the trunk in frustration.
“That’s why I’m calling you.”
“Aren’t you calling me because the don’s dead?
” I pass a bloodied hand over my eyes. “Stop fucking around, Damien. Just tell me what’s going on.
I’m going crazy right now. What about Carmelo?
” I squeeze the phone to my ear. “Did he die too, Damien? Is he dead?” My heartbeat picks up again, but this time, it’s not nerves. I’m suddenly beginning to hope that—
“No. He’s not dead. Sorry, Logan.”
“Oh.” The hope bursts as suddenly as it had formed. “Alright. So why did you call me? Who killed him? The don, I mean.”
“Believe it or not—it was Coltello.”
I let out a loud snort. “Sure.”
“I’m serious, Logan.”
“Forget about it. The underboss? Moretti’s righthand man? Stop fucking with me, Damien.”
“I’m not.” He clicks his tongue in annoyance. “He did it, and I’m fucked, Logan. Completely and utterly fucked.”
My eyes widen. I’ve never heard him talk like this. If I didn’t know better—I’d imagine that he was about to cry. It’s enough to make me forget, at least for a moment, the girl who’s waiting for me somewhere in this forest, probably wondering what the hell is taking me so long.
“I’m sure it’s not that bad, Damien.”
“It is. I’m fucked, you’re fucked, Everest is fucked, so are Vale and Igor. I know you don’t give a fuck about them, but they did throw in their lot with us. And all five of us are now astoundingly fucked. But no one is more fucked than me.”
“Okay, Damien.” I take a few deep breaths. “Why is that?”
“It’s like this,” he says for what has to be the tenth time in our conversation, but this time, I don’t feel the urge to strangle him.
I wait patiently for him to continue, wishing I could show him just how much he isn’t alone.
I’m on his side. I always have been, I always will be.
“The boss is dead, and the favor he owed me—that’s what was protecting us.
I know I told you I had no leverage anymore, but that favor was still protecting us.
Now everything’s just falling apart. Everyone is biting each other’s head off, everyone’s fighting, even those who are on the same side.
The only thing everyone agrees on is that they want my head.
” He lets out a humorless laugh. “So now I’m stuck in the middle.
Coltello wants me dead, the Idaho Syndicate does too, so does Carmelo.
Oh, and he also wants his wife back. So what the fuck am I supposed to do now? ”
“He wants…” It’s a struggle to choke out the last few words. “...Lia? He wants Lia?”
“Well, yeah, Logan. She is his wife. And now that his dad isn’t around to tell him to take it easy and wait for the mutiny to be over—now that we know it’s nowhere near close to being over, seeing as it’s turned into goddamn war—yeah, he wants her back.”
I clench my jaw. “That’s not going to happen, Damien.”
“Logan.” His voice goes from anxious to pleading—something else I’ve never heard him sound like. “I’m pretty sure I can talk him into not killing her, Logan. Okay? Bring her in. He won’t kill her. He’s given me his word.”
“I’m not going to do that, Damien. You know I’d never—wait a second.” I try and fail to suck in a breath, overcome by a sudden, nauseating suspicion. “What do you mean… he’s given you his word? Does he know where she is? Did you tell him, Damien?”
“No, Logan. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I feel myself grow limp with relief. “Good. You’d better not, Damien. I’m not giving her up. I’d rather kill myself than let her go.”
“Right.” He lets out a dry chuckle. “Would you rather kill me?”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Damien?”
I hear a long sigh on the other end, and then another humorless laugh.
“So, funny story. Guess who’s holding a gun to my temple?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Turns out Carmelo’s kind of pissed about the fact that I helped you and Lia get away. So, uhm, anyway, he’s got a gun, and if I don’t tell him where Lia is… I’m dead.”
The world comes to a standstill. Ice rips through me, followed by bone-deep numbness. I sag to my knees on the soft ground.
“That’s right.” The voice of my best friend, the person I’ve worshiped all my life, the only person I’ve ever been able to count on, cuts me. “It’s a case of Lia or me. So tell me, Logan. Who’s it going to be?”