Chapter 38
Nuala
Istep further into the container, the metal floor slick under my trainers. My arm vibrates from the tension of holding the heavy gun, but I don’t lower it.
“You think you’re untouchable,” I spit, stepping over a coil of damp rope. “You sit there in your uniform, playing god, while I scraped by on nothing. You knew. You watched.”
Brennan sneers, looking down his nose at me like I’m a stain on his shoe. “I didn’t watch you. You were a mistake that should’ve been gotten rid of. A mistake I paid your mother to get rid of, and was told you were gone, and yet here you are.”
“What?” I stammer, caught completely off-guard.
Lisa’s mouth has dropped open in horror. Logan hisses next to me.
The coldness that I felt before turns to ice so hard that nothing will crack it.
“You wanted to abort me? Is that it? You fucking piece of shit!” I raise the gun and pull the trigger.
I have no idea where I’m aiming, and I haven’t given anyone any warning.
The kickback jars my arm up. The boom deafens me in the enclosed space.
A spark flies off the corrugated steel inches from Brennan’s head.
He flinches, dropping to a crouch, his composure shattering.
“Fuck!” he yells. Logan moves instantly.
He shoves me sideways, putting his massive body between the man on the floor and me.
He doesn’t give anyone a chance to breathe.
He pulls the trigger. Once. Twice.
Down. I see Cathal’s body hit the floor, a hole in his chest, and one between his eyes.
“Jesus!” Lisa snaps. “This went sideways. Fast.”
“Yes,” Logan says, lowering the weapon. “But no one hurts her.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. “I’m sorry… I lost it…”
Logan grips my upper arm. His fingers dig into the fabric of my hoodie. “Don’t apologize.”
I stare at the body. Cathal Brennan lies on the rusted metal floor. Blood pools under his head, dark and spreading fast across the corrugated steel.
Lisa stands over him. She kicks his boot with her own. “He’s gone.”
My hands shake so hard the gun rattles against my leg. “I missed.”
“You didn’t need to hit him.” Logan turns me away from the corpse. He cups my face, forcing me to look at him. His blue eyes burn with intensity. “I told you. I handle it.”
I look back at the dead man one last time. My father. The man who paid to have me killed before I took my first breath. I wait for the grief. It doesn’t come. Just a hollow, cold shock. I guess my mother loved me after all.
I snort back a sob at the absurdity of this situation, the real-world implications not even scratching the surface.
“Go,” Lisa says, marching past us. “Dump the guns in the Liffey. You were never here.”
“What about him?” I ask.
“By the time he is found, his corruption will be all over the news. The CSB will be called in. It’s no great loss to Dublin,” Lisa calls back over her shoulder. “Move.”
“So we just leave him?” I mumble as Logan drags me out of the container.
“Yep,” he says, hurrying me along, taking the gun from me. We reach the SUV and climb in. Logan guns the engine and practically flies out of the shipping yard. “We’ll stop fifteen minutes down the river with the weapons. Wipe yours clean.”
The streetlights slash through the darkness like tracer fire.
I stare at my hands, expecting to see blood, but there’s only the diamond catching the passing glare.
It feels heavy, like a shackle I never want to break.
I rub the gun between the folds of my hoodie, absently wondering if the safety is on.
“Breathe,” Logan commands, his hand finding my knee. His grip is tight, grounding.
“I’m breathing.” I am, but the air feels too thin. “He paid her. He paid her to get rid of me.”
“And she took the money and kept you anyway,” he says, taking a sharp turn toward the river. “She played him. She won.”
My mum. The woman who complained about every cent I cost her, who cursed my existence daily, actually saved me. The realization hits harder than the recoil of the gun.
Logan pulls the SUV onto the darkened embankment. The River Liffey is a black gash in the night, churning under the rain. He kills the lights but leaves the engine running.
“Stay here.”
He snaps on a glove from under the seat and takes the gun from me. He climbs out and moves to the edge of the stone wall and hurls the gun to opposite sides of the dark water. No splash. Just gone. Swallowed by the river.
He slides back into the driver’s seat, bringing the cold and damp with him. He doesn’t drive off immediately. He turns to me, cupping my jaw with a rough hand. His eyes search mine, looking for cracks.
“It’s done,” he says, his voice low. “He can’t touch you. No one can.”
“I tried to kill him, Logan.”
“But I finished it.” He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone. “That’s how this works. You aim. I fire. We survive.”
I nod, the trembling in my limbs finally easing into a dull ache. “Take me home. To our apartment. If the windows are fixed.”
He chuckles. “They are. Connor took care of it, and it’s no longer an active crime scene.”
“Must be nice to have that kind of power,” I muse.
“It definitely helps when you are running a criminal empire.”
“Do I even want to know the specifics?”
“Probably not.”
“But he will call on you to do a job, and you could get hurt.”
He breathes out, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t give me a platitude, but his silence speaks volumes.
“I won’t ask you to stop,” I whisper. “Just that you be careful.”
He shifts gears, the engine revving low. His hand leaves my knee to grip the wheel. “I’m hard to kill,” he says, his voice flat but certain. “Especially now I have something real to live for.”
He looks dangerous, but he belongs to me.
That thought settles in my chest, heavy and real.
We drive in silence. The rain hits the roof.
The apartment building looms ahead. It looks normal.
No police tape. No shattered glass on the pavement.
Connor’s money fixes everything. Logan parks in the underground garage and kills the engine.
He gets out and circles the car before I can move.
He opens my door and pulls me out, keeping his body against mine.
We move as one to the elevator and wait for it to ding open. Once inside, we wrap around each other, and the shakes start. “I should call my mum,” I mutter.
“You don’t have to thank her for not aborting you,” he says with a frown.
“I know that, but I guess there is something that needs to be said. I don’t know what. Even an acknowledgment of what she did. Or didn’t do.”
“Leave it,” Logan says, his voice rough. The elevator doors slide open. He guides me across the hall, his arm a heavy weight around my waist. “Call her tomorrow. Tonight, you survive.”
He unlocks the door. The white, pristine apartment greets us with silence. Connor’s people worked fast. The window glass is whole. The floor is clean. No sign that bullets tore through here days ago. It looks normal. It feels false.
I step inside, and the adrenaline crash hits my knees. I stumble. Logan catches me before I hit the floor. He scoops me up, carrying me toward the bathroom like I weigh nothing.
“I can walk,” I protest weakly.
“You don’t have to.” He sets me down on the cold tiles. His hands move fast, stripping the hoodie, the leggings. He tosses the running shoes into the corner. “We burn it all.”
“That’s a fire hazard,” I mutter.
“Well, we bag it up and throw it down the garbage chute with a biohazard sticker on it.”
I giggle at his humor. He’s not wrong. The dumpster is too good for these clothes.
He turns the tap. Steam fills the room. He strips his own clothes, revealing the ink on his skin. The Celtic cross on his back moves as he flexes. He steps into the spray and pulls me in with him.
The water burns. It’s good. It shocks the numbness out of my system. Logan grabs the soap. He scrubs my hands first. Hard. Like he can erase the fact that I pulled a trigger tonight.
“Look at me,” he commands. Water streams down his face. “You’re here. You’re safe.”
I press my forehead against his wet chest. “I’m here.”
“You’re mine, and I keep what’s mine. Always.”
I nod and let him wash me, but I can’t get the phone call out of my head. I have to call her. Even if it’s just to say, ‘I know’.
“Logan…”
“Use my phone. I said I’d buy you a new one, and I didn’t. Yet.” He turns off the water and pulls a towel from the rail.
He dries me with rough, efficient strokes before wrapping the white cotton around my body. I step onto the bathmat, water dripping from my hair onto the tiles. Logan secures a towel around his hips and grabs his phone from the vanity. He unlocks it and places it in my damp hand.
My fingers hesitate over the keypad. I punch in the number I haven’t dialed in months. It rings four times.
“Who’s this?” Her voice scrapes through the speaker, raspy and tired.
“It’s me.”
“Nuala.”
“I’m just calling to say I know. I know everything.”
Silence.
I don’t give her the chance to say anything. I simply hang up and hand the phone back to Logan. My hand trembles. He takes the device and tosses it onto the vanity without looking at it.
“Done,” he states.
“Done.”
He lifts me into his arms again. I wrap my legs around his waist, burying my face in the curve of his neck. He carries me out of the humid bathroom and into the bedroom. The air here is cool.
He drops me onto the mattress. The towel falls away. I don’t reach for it. I don’t cover myself. I lay there, exposed, while he stands at the edge of the bed and looks at me. His gaze travels over my skin, claiming every inch.
“Get under the covers,” he orders.
I crawl beneath the duvet. The sheets feel crisp against my skin. Logan drops his towel and joins me. His body heat radiates against my back as he pulls me against him. His arm bands around my waist, holding me in place.
I stare at the diamond on my finger. It catches the dim light from the hallway. It looks heavy. Permanent.
“Go to sleep, Nuala,” he murmurs against my ear.
“I don’t think I can.”
“You can. I’m watching the door.”
The promise settles my pulse. He watches the door. He kills the threats. He keeps me safe.
I close my eyes. The image of Cathal Brennan on the floor fades, replaced by the weight of Logan’s arm and the ring on my finger.
“We won,” I whisper.
“We did,” he replies. “Now sleep.”