Chapter 24
Logan searched through hundreds of lines of code, looking for a back door into the ship’s computer system. He was so angry he could spit. It was one thing for him to be on the ship risking his life, but his sister had no business being here.
All because she went behind his back and did something she knew full well he wouldn't appreciate.
“Are you going to talk to me?” she asked. “Or do you need me to be quiet so you can work?”
He could do what he was doing now in his sleep. Until he managed to find a way in, this was nothing more than the tedious work of a hacker. “Why did you do it?”
She was quiet, and the tap of his fingers on the keys was harder than it needed to be, each movement a staccato peck of frustration.
“I'm sorry, Logan.”
“I asked you why.”
“I can't explain it to you. You wouldn't understand what it's been like for me lately.”
He shot her a look before turning back to his computer screen. “I wouldn't understand? Who's been by your side since Rick walked out of your life? Who's been trying to make it better?”
“It isn't your problem to fix. It’s mine.” She took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, resigned to the need for this conversation. “Being married to him did something to me, Logan. It made me think I was less than.”
“Less than what?”
“Less than everything. I wasn't good enough anymore. I wasn't pretty enough. I wasn't funny. He didn't want to be around me. Our friends were his friends, not mine, and they made it clear they didn't really like me. Sometimes they even made it clear my husband didn't, either.”
“Then why did you stay with that son of a bitch? You could have left him any time, but you didn't.”
“That's the problem. When I was there, living like that, I didn't understand it was him. I really thought it was me, that everything I believed before was the lie. That's what abuse does to you.”
Logan stared at her again. “Did he hit you?”
“No. But this was just as bad.”
“What does any of this have to do with Cowboy?”
“He’s a good guy, and he likes me.” She looked at her hands. “I guess I just needed a good man to like me.”
It made a strange kind of sense, and Logan felt some of his anger begin to dissipate. But he knew too much about Cowboy and his teammate’s relationships with women to feel that his sister's fragile heart was safe with that man. “He dates a lot of women, Charlotte.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to be one of them.”
“Is that enough for you?”
“It's a little late to be worried about that now.”
There was just enough sadness in her voice that Logan knew his biggest fear for his sister in dating Cowboy had already been realized. She was falling for him, and Logan had the sudden desire to punch Cowboy squarely in the jaw.
“I know you worry about me, Logan. But I'm not a little kid.”
“You just said yourself you made a bad decision by marrying Rick. That he treated you like crap. How can you expect me not to worry?”
She nodded. “You're right. Go ahead and worry. But I still get to decide my own fate.”
He copied and pasted a line of code to a login screen. “I'm in,” he said. The row of security monitors changed from blank screens to live feeds.
Charlotte looked at them, eerily dark images from a ship that had lost its main power. “I think we are in one of the only rooms that has full power right now.”
“It makes sense. It’s not a luxury to have power in the security room. It’s a necessity. I can see in the control settings where they turned off the main power. There is clearly no problem with the system itself. It's just a ruse. I wonder what they’re hoping to accomplish.”
One of the monitors glowed much brighter than the others, and Charlotte moved toward it, her eyes trying to make sense of what she saw. There was a man on the ground, windows along one whole wall, and what seemed to be a long console. Was that the ship’s bridge? “Logan, come here for a minute.”
He stood and joined her at the screen. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s the captain.” He picked up his walkie-talkie and called for Cowboy. “The captain has been injured. He’s on the bridge. He may even be dead.”