13. Riley
Nobody speaksduring the drive back to the Reapers’ house. As soon as we left, Maddoc had a contact of his put a trace on the phone, trying to find out a general location of where she might’ve called based on the cell tower pings, but nothing has come back yet. I keep my eyes on the passing scenery, unrealistically hoping that if I scan every street, I might somehow see my sister.
I don’t of course, and the tension in the car feels thick enough to choke as Logan navigates through some of the seedier parts of Halston. Or maybe that choking feeling is thanks to all the worries that flood my mind as I go over the phone call Chloe made to Frank.
Even though she didn’t speak, I know it wasn’t an accident. She decided to reach out to him, which means she’s just as desperate and alone out there as I’ve suspected. But she’s also smart enough that she didn’t actually trust him enough to make real contact. Thank god. No matter how dire her circumstances are, I trust Frank about as far as I can throw him. He already sold her out once. If he got his hands on her again, I’ve got no doubt at all that he’d find another way to use her for his own selfish ends.
Still, knowing that Chloe has my phone and hopefully still has the money I gave her reassures me a bit. It means that she might be okay until we find her. As long as she keeps her head down, at least. It doesn’t make it any easier to find her, since I really am out of ideas that Maddoc hasn’t already had his people check, but I’m still proud of her for staying safe.
And maybe Logan really will be able to figure something out from the voicemail she left—either from the cell tower pings or from the ambient sounds. I can’t imagine how, since it just sounded like a recording of random traffic noise for a minute or so, but if anyone can pull something out of that, it will be him.
When did I start feeling like I could count on him?
I know exactly when.
I glance over at him, trying to sort out how I feel about his rage at Frank and the violence he unleashed like a fucking tsunami back there.
Good. I feel good about it. And if that makes me a shitty person, I honestly don’t give a fuck.
We make it all the way back to the house without anyone saying a word, and the whole time, Logan looks tense as hell. Shoulders stiff and grip tight on the steering wheel as he stares straight ahead with that laser-like focus he seems to bring to everything, a storm brewing in his normally emotionless pale eyes.
I can’t shake the sight of it as we all file into the house. Logan immediately heads up the stairs, and Maddoc takes a call that has him scowling and stomping off to his office as he rips into whoever’s on the other end of it.
“You doing okay, princess?” Dante asks, hovering near me in the entryway.
I pull my gaze off the stairs Logan just disappeared up and give Dante a cynical look. “Okay? Not even close. All of our leads are shaky at best, and Chloe’s not safe.”
He huffs out a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “Fair enough. It was a bad question. You know we’re gonna find her though, right?”
“Of course we are.”
He grins. “Good. Just making sure you don’t forget that. I’ve got some work I’ve gotta go take care of—”
“Then go,” I cut in, my voice harsher than he probably deserves. But dammit, his obvious concern shouldn’t be so appealing, not after everything that’s gone down between us.
There’s no denying that it feels good though, and that almost makes me feel like I’m the one betraying Chloe.
Dante, of course, isn’t fazed by the way I snap at him. “You sure you don’t need anything before I head back out?”
“Yeah,” I say, trying not to smile as I make a little shooing motion. “I don’t need a damn babysitter, so unless you’re planning on locking me back up, I’m sure I can manage to keep myself busy until Maddoc comes up with some other way I can be useful.”
His eyes flare for a moment, and it’s far too easy to imagine all the dirty comebacks he could make to the way I phrased that. Maybe I even want him to. But in the end, he just nods and heads back out the door without going there, and I give in to the impulse I had when we walked in, and follow Logan up the stairs, trying to convince myself I’m not taking my life in my hands when I knock lightly on his bedroom door.
To my surprise, it’s not fully shut, and when I rap on it with my knuckles it swings open.
Logan’s head jerks up, his eyes narrowing as he shifts to block off whatever he was looking at in the small box I can see open on the dresser behind him.
“Sorry,” I rush to say. “I’m not trying to intrude, but I just…”
I shrug, intensely uncomfortable and a little confused over how I’m supposed to end that sentence when I’m not even sure what I’m doing here. And of course Logan doesn’t help. He just stares at me until I finally untangle my emotions a little.
“I wanted to thank you. For, you know, what you did with Frank.”
His face shutters. “You shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I did the same thing to you once,” he says, his gaze flitting down to my throat for a moment.
I instinctively touch it.
“You did,” I acknowledge, running my fingers over the skin there. “But it was different.”
It truly was. He has so much control, so much precision, that he gripped my throat tightly but never with enough pressure to cut off my air or even leave bruises. That’s completely different from the way he slammed my father against the wall, squeezing so tightly that Frank’s face turned purple.
He meant to hurt Frank, which only drives home the fact that he chose not to hurt me that night, in spite of his anger.
Because if he’d wanted to, he could have. Easily.
A shiver runs through me at the reminder of how much raw power Logan has at his fingertips, but it’s not exactly a shiver of fear. I drop my hand from my throat and lift my chin.
“Maybe it makes me a monster for being glad you did that to my father,” I say. “But I am.”
Logan stares at me, and the moment stretches out with the same unbearable tension I felt on the car ride home. Just before it snaps, he looks away, his fingers brushing the contents of the small box behind him. “You’re not a monster.”
My breath hitches. This man is so damn hard to read, like he operates on a different level than the rest of us, so it’s probably insane to feel like I’m starting to understand him.
But I do.
He put the faintest emphasis on “you’re,” and I’d bet my life on the fact that he thinks he’s the one who’s the monster here.
I clench my hands to keep from touching my throat again. A few weeks ago, I would have agreed in a heartbeat, but now I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling him that he’s not.
My reaction is pure instinct. For some reason, I want to comfort him the way I felt comforted and supported by his rage back at Frank’s house. But I also don’t want to lie, and if I’m honest with myself, I’m not entirely sure whether I do still think he’s a monster or not.
I’m also not sure whether I care.
“Can you tell me why you did it?” I ask instead of going there. “Why did you get so mad?”
He jerks his head up, looking away from whatever he’s fucking with in his box to stare at me with eyes that blaze with cold fire. “That man doesn’t fucking deserve you.”
My eyes go wide, and his immediately shutter again.
He looks away. “I have things to do.”
It’s obvious he wants me to leave, but even though my heart races and the surge of adrenaline that hits me practically screams it’s a bad idea, I step into his room instead. “I appreciate that you…”
I almost say “care,” but that feels too raw. Or maybe I just don’t want to hear him deny it.
So instead, I clear my throat and go with, “I appreciate what you did. That’s all I wanted to say.”
I fully expect him to rage at me or coldly kick me out, but instead, he turns away. Closing up the little box he’s been fucking with, with stiff, precise movements as he haltingly says, “I didn’t like seeing your father dismiss you like that. He hurt you. Hurt your sister. And he doesn’t care. It’s not okay.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “No, it’s not.”
“Parents who don’t love and protect their children are lower than shit,” Logan says in a violent whisper, still not meeting my eyes. “They don’t deserve to live.”
I nod, even though he’s not looking at me. The ragged emotion in his voice speaks to a hurt that’s lived inside me, buried deep, for as long as I can remember. One he clearly understands too.
I want to…I’m not sure what.
Ask him about it? Find out more about his past? Share something with him, reach out to him? Connect, maybe?
I have no idea if Logan would attack me for trying or keep opening up to me, and I don’t get the chance to find out. Rapid footsteps sound on the stairs, then Dante bursts into the room.
“West Point knows we set up the shootout at the Capside drop,” he says without preamble.
Logan goes still, whatever vulnerability he had on display gone in a heartbeat. “Who reported it?”
Dante’s lips tighten. “Ruiz from the 17th.”
“Fuck,” Logan says sharply.
I frantically look back and forth between the two of them. “What does that mean?”
“It means the intel is good,” Logan says after exchanging a long look with Dante. “McKenna knows Chloe is alive, and it won’t be long until he finds out why.”
Dante nods grimly. “And tears the fucking city apart to get her back once he does.”
My heart stops. Logan is right.
Fuck.