19
Logan
“Hey, stupid.”
“Goddammit.”
This whole waking up somewhere with new injuries thing is getting really old.
I try to squeeze my eyes shut then reopen them, hoping to still be on the curb I’d sat down on outside the apartment, but no: I’m in a very comfortable bed with white sheets and paintings of flowers on the wall, and Damien is sitting on a chair beside me.
“Where the hell am I?”
“Nice to see you too.” He stretches then goes back to typing on his phone.
“Damien. What is this place? What happened?”
“This place is a room. And what happened is you passed out like a pussy, and my guys had to carry your ass here.” He glances up, and I notice the flicker of concern in his eyes.
“The doctor said he had no idea how you managed to walk around for as long as you did, given your injuries. A concussion and a few glass shards still stuck in your scalp, a bullet wound, a stab wound that cut off I don’t know how many nerve endings, half the skin on your side gone, and I don’t even remember what else. What the fuck, man?”
“Hey, well, at least no broken bones, huh?” I manage to joke feebly.
He scowls at me.
“I did see a doctor, though,” I add. “It’s not like I’ve been walking around untreated.”
“Yeah, well, not much of a doctor, was he? You had four glass shards sticking out the side of your head!”
“Alright, fine. Whatever.” I close my eyes, letting out a heavy sigh. “Where’s Lia?”
“And after all this, you’re still talking about her.” Damien stands up, pushing back his chair. “You gotta get your shit together, man.”
It’s my turn to scowl, my hands fisting by my side. “Damien, where is she?”
“You know, I wish I had kept what happened that night a secret, all those years ago. I should’ve intervened earlier when I realized you were stalking her. You promised to move on, and look at you. In a hospital bed with barely an inch of non-injured skin.”
I try to sit up, but it hurts too much. He’s right; it’s fucked. But that doesn’t matter. I meant it very literally when I said I’d rather my body be riddled with stab wounds and bullets than lose her.
“Where’s Lia?”
“You sound like a broken record, man.” But at last he relents, sitting back heavily in his chair. “No fucking clue.”
“Okay. I have to get up.” I try again to move, but it’s useless, and Damien doesn’t help me. On the contrary, he looks on, mild amusement marking his features. “Where are we?”
“In an apartment.”
“Yeah, okay, I figured as much. Where? In Belfast?”
“No.”
“Where, then? In Dublin? In…” I pause, trying to remember my geography.
“No; not in Ireland.”
“Not in… Ireland? Damien!” This time, I do manage to sit up, even though it hurts like hell. “Don’t fuck with me, man. We can’t have left Ireland. Lia is…”
“We’re in Paris,” he says, “and you’re waiting for a flight back to New York. Everest tried to get a private jet, but you might just have to go commercial.” He wrinkles his nose. “I guess it’s better for the environment, though.”
“Damien,” I interrupt him. “We can’t leave. I need to find Lia. Are you insane? We can’t just leave her behind.”
“I’m not leaving, but you are.” He glares at me. “I won’t have my best friend killed by some girl…”
“She’s not some girl,” I lash out, “and what will kill me is if I have to leave her again.”
“You’re right, she’s not some girl. She’s a drugged-up Frankenstein creature, and you need to get far away from her.
Remember your daughter? Piper’s back in Oregon, waiting for you.
Her psychopath boyfriend is pissed off, but he’ll let it go as long as Lia’s no longer in the picture.
Don’t lose Piper to some illusion, Logan. Doesn’t she mean anything to you?”
I pause, because if there’s any argument that could possibly work, it’s that one.
But it’s just too hard. “I can’t lose either of them,” I say at last. “Don’t ask me to make an impossible choice. I need to find some way to trace Lia. I can’t…”
“Fine,” he sighs. “I guess, if it really means that much to you, you can stick around with me.”
“That’s the worst possible choice,” I grumble, “staying with you.”
“Right back at you.” He grins. “I have some business in Paris, so I’ll be here a while. I’ll allow you to stay with me if you behave. I’m going to have to hire a team of bodyguards, though, to keep you out of trouble.”
I roll my eyes, before answering seriously, “I can’t stay here in Paris. I need to go back to Ireland to hunt her.”
“It’s a good thing I’m your friend, or you’d never find her.
She’s not in Ireland; she’s right here in Paris.
Which is why I’m pissed as fuck our jet had to get its right engine replaced, and Everest is a hopeless idiot who couldn’t get you a flight until tonight.
So I guess I have to cancel that shit, if you’re sure.
” He looks at me quizzically, but I ignore everything he’s said but the first part.
“She’s in Paris? How do you know?”
He grins again. “Well, turns out, it’s not all that easy to hide with a bazooka.”
I try to sit up, but pain keeps me helpless. “Someone saw her? Where is she? I need to go get her...”
“Easy now,” he says, patting my knee. “One of my guys spotted her. I don’t know where she’s hiding out now, but I’m sure we’ll hear about it if she steps out with that monstrous thing again.”
“I need to get up,” I say again, wincing.
“Logan.” Seraphina walks in timidly, holding a glass of water. “How are you?”
“He’s fine. Come here, pet.” Damien pulls Seraphina down on his lap, upsetting the glass of water in the process, and kisses her.
I have to look away, the lump in my throat making my eyes burn.
It’s not fair.
I know he hasn’t had an easy time with her, but it’s nothing compared to the way I’ve suffered. And while I’ve always supported their relationship—after those first few months when I wasn’t sure I could trust her—now, it makes my own pain pretty fucking unbearable.
I try to hide that, though, because I realize how selfish it makes me.
“Are you guys hungry?” asks Seraphina in her usual quiet voice. “I can make something.”
“I’d trust you with a bazooka before I trusted you with a skillet,” teases Damien, cuddling her to him. “It’s fine, I’ll get us takeout. Do people eat anything in this godforsaken place other than frog legs and snails?”
“Don’t be ignorant, Damien. Paris has the best fine dining in—”
“Okay, fine. I’ll get pizza.”
He orders on his phone then throws it aside. “I have a very interesting day planned for tomorrow,” he says, playing with a strand of Seraphina’s hair.
“Oh yeah? Where are we going?” I ask, wincing as I try once more to struggle into a sitting position. This time, I manage it.
“Not we. Me.”
“Fuck you. I’m not spending my time in bed. I need to look for her, and you need to help me.”
“We’ll see.” He yawns. “But what about Seraphina?” He kisses her cheek, and she lets her head fall against his chest.
“I’ll come with you too,” she says.
“Fuck that. I’ll get you a babysitter, pet.”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe you could’ve left her in Devil Tower, then, if you were too scared to have her out and about.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving her for a day, let alone however long we’re going to be here. Especially with the baby due soon.”
“I want to go out with you,” she insists in a firmer voice, but he merely pats her on the back patronizingly.
“How long are you planning on staying in Paris anyway?” I ask.
He shrugs. “However long it takes.”
“Do you think it’ll take a long time to find her?”
He stares at me for a beat before his brow clears.
“No, no. I’m not looking for Lia. I’m looking for the Prices, those fucking bastards.
Remember I told you they were dealing Memoril?
Well, their headquarters were in Paris. I’m hunting down everyone involved in their double-crossing shit and giving them the gift of slow, painful deaths.
You know, just everyday Devil business.”
“I don’t believe it for a second,” snaps Seraphina. “You’d never have come to Paris just for everyday business. I don’t know why you’re getting your hands dirty with the Prices when you could just send some of your minions over...”
He yawns. “I mean, involving myself directly feels like the least I could do. After all, I did kill the Price heiress.”
His words sit in the room for a minute before their meaning sinks in.
“Wait, Damien... you don’t mean you killed Anna Price all those years ago?”
He grins. “How’s that for a fun fact, huh?”
“You were just fifteen, Damien,” I tell him. “That’s crazy. How the hell did you get in Moretti’s good graces after... oh.” I shake my head in disbelief as everything clicks. “So that’s how we got in good with the family, huh? Moretti is the one who asked you to kill his wife. You fucker.”
His lips curl into a satisfied grin. “So, yeah. I figured putting a stop to the Prices’ double-crossing shit was kind of a personal thing.”
I’m about to answer when Seraphina insists, “No, that’s not why we’re here. We’re here because of Jane, aren’t we?”
I bolt up, but Damien’s annoyed glare tells me Seraphina got it wrong.
“You sure have gotten mouthy, lately, haven’t you, pet? What happened to my submissive girl? And no, it has nothing to do with Jane. I’m very sorry you’re going through all this, Logan, but Seraphina, you need to stop harping about it.”
“I just think...”
“I don’t care what you think. I understand you’re a woman, with womanly feelings, but...”
“Shut up!”
She claps a hand over her mouth as my eyes widen. I’ve never heard her lash out like that. And by the looks of it, neither has Damien.
“What I mean,” she says hastily, taking advantage of Damien’s shocked silence, “is that I can’t understand how you’re giving up without being completely sure that the baby you found under Devil College is really Logan’s daughter.
” She blinks back tears. “When I think about that child being ripped away from her mother...”
“Ah, so that’s what it is,” grins Damien, looking relieved at finding an explanation for her outburst. “It’s the pregnancy hormones, isn’t it?”
“If the pregnancy hormones are to blame, it’s only because they’re showing me exactly how stupid you are!” A moment later, she’s pressed her hand to her mouth again, and the words, “I’m sorry, Damien,” come out muffled from under it.
But he doesn’t look angry or surprised anymore. “Pregnancy brain,” he tells me. “That’s all it is. As soon as the kid is born,” he adds, running his hand over her round stomach, “she’ll go right back to being my sweet, submissive, knife-wielding pet.”
“Seraphina has a point,” I say wearily. “I don’t see how the corpse they found couldn’t be my daughter. But if there’s even a chance, then maybe... What state were her bones in?” It feels horribly strange to speak that way about the baby. “Do you think a DNA test could be possible?”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out. I’ll talk to Everest about it. But Logan,” he adds, a flicker of concern in his eyes, “I think you’re setting yourself up for more pain.”
“Yeah, probably. Well, you know how it is... twenty-seven bones and all.” I grunt as I try hopelessly to stand. “I really need to start looking for Lia.”
He shrugs. “No need to look all that hard. Just keep the TV on, and the very first time you hear about a bazooka attack, you’ll know it’s her.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to find her before that happens,” I growl.
“Why?”
“Why?”
“I mean, what’s a few dead bodies?” He shrugs. “Let her have some fun, you know? A little bit of freedom before…”
He lets his sentence hang in the air, and I decide to finish it for him, to prevent him from speaking the threat I know is on his mind.
“Before I lock her up. Right.”
His lips twist into another smirk as Seraphina gasps. “What do you mean, lock her up?”
“Well, I’m not going to let her pose a risk to you,” I tell her. “I don’t care about Damien, but I don’t want Lia to hurt you. I’m going to lock her up.”
“What? In… in jail?”
I crack my knuckles. “I guess I could lock her behind bars. Damien, know of any good cage-makers?”
He chuckles, but Seraphina grows pale. “You can’t possibly mean that. Damien, you can’t…”
“Didn’t Damien lock you in an apartment for months?” I ask her. “Do you really think he’d intervene?”
“He didn’t keep me in a cage.”
“He locked you in the cell.” I pause, thinking of how Lia was so terrified of the cell back on Moretti’s property.
The first thing we did when we built Devil Tower was to install one just like it.
It’s always been the perfect deterrent for our enemies, but I hadn’t expected Damien to lock up a girl there. Especially one he was so obsessed over.
He’s always been a sadistic bastard, though. Like me, I guess.
“Yes.” Seraphina sighs, pain flickering in her features, but Damien merely kisses the top of her head with a satisfied smirk. “I guess so. It was very hard, even though it was only a few days. How long are you going to keep Lia in the cage?”
“If you find her,” adds Damien, though he looks like he regrets his words the moment he speaks them.
“I am going to find her, and I’ll keep her in it until she’s fixed.”
“Logan…”
“And if I can’t fix her, I’ll just keep her in there forever.
Maybe I will even if she is fixed. She deserves it.
” I allow my anger to rise, directing it at the girl I know doesn’t deserve it.
“I’m going to make it a nice cage. I’ll paint the bars gold.
I’ll put some pillows on the floor. But I’ll make damn sure she remembers it’s a cage.
I’m gonna have it built right now.” I grab my phone, my sudden resolution easing the feeling of helplessness that throbs in my chest. “I’m sure Igor knows a guy, the sadist.”
“Yeah, if anyone knows a cage-maker for nutty women, it’s him,” chuckles Damien.
“This is a joke, Damien, right?” asks Seraphina.
“Sure.” Damien pats her on the butt this time, and I avert my eyes.
“It doesn’t sound like a joke,” she insists. “But you’re not that much of an asshole, are you?”
The pat turns into a loud smack. “Careful, pet, or I’ll have them make a second cage.”
I can’t help the laugh that leaves my lips when I take in Seraphina’s shocked expression.
Then the doorbell rings, and Damien stands up. “Alright, kids. Let’s continue the cage talk later. Pizza’s here.”