21
Logan
“She’s not here, Damien.” I turn around, the movement making me grit my teeth in pain, but the Advil I took earlier helps. “We’re too late.”
I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old or because my wounds are slowing me down, but by the time I got here, she was gone.
At least it means she’s still alive. The police haven’t gotten to her, and neither have the masked bikers.
Damien shrugs. “Well, she was here. Look at this place.”
A gaping hole has been left in the ground floor of an Haussmannian building near the Luxembourg Garden.
He yawns. “The bazooka strikes again.”
“She won’t have it very much longer,” I say. “I don’t think there was more than a rocket or two in the bag she took.”
Damien nods. “It’s a race between us and the bazooka. But look on the bright side…”
“She’s still alive,” I say, speaking the words that I tell myself repeatedly. “Alive and free.”
“Yeah. It’s a good thing she’s getting all that freedom out of her system before you lock her up in that cage of yours, you sick bastard.”
I can’t help the smirk that twists at my features. My cage guy promised it would be finished by tomorrow, and it’s going to be a real beauty. I paid extra to have it gold-plated, and now I’m already texting him to request that he add a second, much bigger door for myself.
I hadn’t ordered it at first because I didn’t want to break the rule I’d made for myself and use her body if she couldn’t remember my name.
But this fresh disappointment has got the best of my resolve. I’m going to claim her no matter what.
“That wasn’t the bright side I was referring to though,” continues Damien, and I stuff my phone back into my pocket.
“You know, there is some significance to this place. Those bastard Prices were dealing the Memoril from an apartment in this building. Emilio Cabello made regular trips here to buy it so he could use it on his daughter. And we know the Puicin Gang were clients, too. This can’t have been a random attack. ”
“Yes.” I nod, feeling hope swell in my chest. “Yes, that means she’s retained some form of memory, hasn’t she?”
“But don’t get your hopes up,” warns Damien. “We’re still dealing with a Frankenlia. Not a real Lia.”
“Fucking hell, Damien—”
My phone vibrates, interrupting my angry retort, and I pull it back out.
“No fucking way.”
“Hmm?”
“Vincent found something.” I lean against a tree, my heart racing. “He found something connected to... my daughter.”
Damien reaches over for my phone, his eyebrows arching. “Well, I guess my assistant isn’t useless after all, is he? Look at that. The Puicin Gang took Jane to a hospital in Paris before they took the flight to the United States.”
“Do you think...?” I end up answering my own question. “Yes. Maybe it’s just possible that Lia somehow knows about the hospital. After all, she knew about this building. I bet she’s going to the hospital next. Maybe she didn’t lose her memory at all.”
“In that case, she must really hate your guts,” says Damien, “given how hard she’s trying to hide.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care if she hates me, just as long as I get her back.
I deserve her hatred. I deserve all of it and more for what I did to her...
for what I’m going to do.” I pause as images of the cage flash before my eyes, and my chest grows tight.
“But I’m going to do it all the same, because I’m a sick motherfucking bastard. ”
“That you are, man.”
“And I’m going to find her and force her to be mine. Even if her memory’s gone—I don’t give a fuck. I’ll make sure she never forgets who owns her, even if I have to keep reminding her of it every second with my handprint on her ass.”
“Very romantic,” comments Damien dryly. “Now let’s go find our Frankenlia before we lose her again.”
Biting down on a sharp retort, I turn to follow him, when something black on the pavement catches my eye.
It’s a black mask, so black that its features are barely distinguishable. A Puicin mask. Lia’s right—it looks exactly like a black hole.
Somehow, the police must have overlooked it, probably because it’s been blown quite a distance from the rubble.
I pick it up and turn it over in my hands. It’s a lot heavier than I would have thought, made of thick metal molded into the features of a face.
“They were here.” Damien states the obvious as he stares at the mask. “That mask must have been blown out of the building from the force of the explosion. I guess we’re not the only ones smart enough to know how to trace a bazooka-wielding girl.”
“Damien.” I grit my teeth in exasperation at his unseriousness, before fear takes hold of me. “Do you think it means… they got to her first?”
“No.” He shakes his head with certainty, and even though I have no idea how he reached that conclusion, I let it reassure me. “If they had, they wouldn’t have abandoned this mask. They may have found her, but they’re dead. They’re among the bodies the police transported out of the building.”
“Yeah.” I stare at the police still milling around the building.
“What are you going to do with that?” questions Damien, glancing down at my hands.
I look down too, at the mask I’m still holding firmly in my hands.
“Well…” I hesitate. “I’m not entirely sure.”
_
“I don’t know about this, Logan. It strikes me as kind of a stupid idea.”
“Well, fuck it. I think I look good.”
“Yeah, I didn’t say you didn’t, but… damn, don’t look at me, man. You’re creeping me out.”
“I just don’t want her to recognize me. If she does, she’ll go running in the opposite direction or shoot me with that motherfucking bazooka of hers. Which I wouldn’t mind, but it means I won’t be able to stick her in my cage.”
“I gotta say, man, that cage is really doing wonders for you. It’s like Prozac or something. I haven’t seen you looking so cheerful in a while.”
“The mask helps too.” I drum my fingers against the object I’ve just removed from my face and stuffed into the front of my pants, because it’s far too bulky to fit in one of my pockets.
Oh, well. It’ll have the smell of my cock on it.
Maybe that’ll jog her memory and remind her of exactly what kind of man she’s trying to run from.
“Yeah, about that mask,” says Damien. “Lia won’t recognize you, you idiot, because she’s lost her memory.
If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be on the run, shooting up places with her rocket launcher.
But since she’s hunting for Jane, that means she remembers her, which means she remembers them.
The masked bikers. She’s going to freak out. ”
“Good. I want her to be scared. I want her to be helpless. I want her to be mine.”
Damien shakes his head. “You know, sometimes it scares me how well I understand you... shit!”
A siren wails out, and the sound of scurrying footsteps tells me that once more, we’re too late.
Not because Lia’s escaped again. But because the police have gotten to her first.