Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It wasn’t as if he could just walk the hell away without a final confrontation.
Nah. Just not his style.
So he got Detective Meredith Reece to take him to see the prisoner.
To take him and Charlotte because they were a package deal.
As he stared through the jail bars at Freya, she no longer appeared as her usual, glamorous self.
Instead, she wore a garish orange jumpsuit.
All of her careful makeup was gone, and the lines on her face appeared deeper than ever before.
When she saw him, she bounded off the cot and toward the bars. Her hands curled around them. “Logan.”
“Hello, Freya.”
Her stare bounced to a silent Charlotte, then back to him. “Logan, get me out of here! I know you have pull in Vegas. You practically control this town.”
“I don’t control the PD. Detective Reece is a stickler for the rules.”
“I didn’t do this! They’re saying—look, forget what they are saying, just get me out!”
“They’re saying you murdered my mother and my father. They’re saying it because it’s true.”
She shook her head. Hard. “No, no, I didn’t! Listen to me!”
He stepped closer, far too aware of Charlotte’s stare on him. “Listen to me.” Low. Calm. Interesting that the words could come out so calmly when he wanted to roar with his fury and pain. “I know what you did. I had planned to kill you.”
Her hands flew away from the bars. “Logan?” She scampered back two steps. “Kill…me?”
“It was something Nana said that tipped me off. Something about you and your secrets.”
“She’s crazy!” A near shout. “You can’t believe her!”
“Don’t fucking talk about my grandmother that way.” Lethal. Ice cold.
Freya backed up three more steps. “Logan, I am your friend.”
“I keep my friends close,” he assured her. “But my enemies? Ah, I prefer for them to be even closer.”
“You—you—”
“I’d been compiling evidence of my own against you. Not like I wanted to kill an innocent woman.” He made sure to keep his hands loose at his sides. “My father was your security chief back in the day, wasn’t he? You even gave him the brass knuckles he always carried.”
“This is ridiculous—”
“I brought them to the game at Ares’s because I wanted to see your reaction to them. But they were taken before I got upstairs. Thought you’d see them when I retrieved them on my way out, only my exit plans changed dramatically, didn’t they?”
She didn’t speak. Just appeared dazed.
“I told you I was compiling evidence. Certainly didn’t have enough to get any sort of conviction, not on my own.
” Not like the proof the CIA and Jezebel had been able to access.
Future note—the CIA had some serious reach.
“But I did learn that my father found out you were involved in a drug trade. A big distribution to the southern states. He didn’t like that, did he? He wanted out. Wanted away from you.”
“Logan, Logan, stop this.”
“My mother never worked for you. Honestly, I don’t think she ever liked you.” He could remember how his mother would tense whenever Freya came around. “What were my parents going to do? Were they threatening to go to the police?”
“I’m not telling you a word!” Freya snapped.
He nodded. Because she’d just confirmed the truth.
“Instead of having your world crumble, you decided to destroy them. To make my world explode.” Something he would never forgive.
I loved my parents. “Guess what, Freya? Your world is crumbling. You’re losing everything, and I have it on very good authority that you will spend the rest of your life behind bars.
Hope you enjoy the new lifestyle. It’s going to be quite different from what you’re used to. ”
Rage twisted her features.
But he was done. The past—over. Time to follow the advice he’d been given and focus on the future. He turned to Charlotte. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”
“Absolutely.” She took his hand and they walked away.
They were just about to exit the holding area when Charlotte snapped her fingers. “Oh, no. I think I forgot my bag.”
Logan frowned at her.
“Wait here, will you?” Charlotte flashed him a bright smile. “I’ll be right back.”
She hadn’t forgotten her bag. Not like a bag could be taken into holding. But Charlotte zipped away from him. She waved to the guards. To the cops. She made her way back to Freya’s holding cell.
The other woman was slumped on the cot.
“A final word, if you don’t mind,” Charlotte said, voice polite.
Freya’s head whipped up. “You.”
“Yes, it’s me.” Not so polite. “You killed his parents.”
“I’m not making some confession! This is preposterous! I’ll get out, I’ll—”
“We have proof. Your first husband provided authorities with the murder weapon.” Something she’d learned on the way over for the meeting with Freya.
“Not very smart to keep it. Except, I don’t think you even knew he had it, did you?
You thought he’d gotten rid of it, but really, he hid it from you.
Kept it as insurance. Sometimes, people do that.
When they believe that, one day, they’ll have to save their own asses. ”
Freya paled. “What do you want from me?”
“You took away people who mattered very much to Logan.”
“He’s fine. Grew up fine. I won’t cry for him—”
“I don’t think you cry for anyone. That’s probably part of your problem. But I’m not here to talk to you about tears. I’m here so that you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I will have eyes on you in the prison that will eventually become your home. I will make sure you are always watched. You will never get out. You will pay for what you did.”
“Why do you even care?” Spittle flew from Freya’s mouth. “You were just pretend! Some FBI agent or some undercover cop! You don’t care about him! Nothing was real with you!”
“You don’t know me. And as far as why, it’s simple. Nothing that involves me and Logan is pretend. He is mine. No one hurts what is mine.”
She heard the scrape of a shoe behind her. Charlotte whirled.
Logan stood there. Head tilted to the right. Eyes on her.
“Did you find your bag?” he asked her. All courteous.
Her tongue swiped over her lower lip. “I think it’s in the limo.”
He nodded. And he lifted his hand toward her. Extended it, palm open.
With no hesitation, she took it. Her fingers curled with his. They didn’t look back as they left. Even when Freya began screaming. Shouting that she wanted to make a deal. That she could provide evidence on so many people, that she’d had no choice. That she had to kill Adam and Patricia.
Logan tensed.
But he didn’t look back.
They kept going forward.
And left the past behind.