28
Lia
Istare down at the plane tickets, then back up at Logan.
“Are you sure about this? I remembered the black holes talking about Paris. How do you know she went to the States?”
He hesitates and I swallow nervously, getting the eerie feeling that he’s concealing something from me.
“She’s alive,” he says at last.
“Okay.” I frown. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I don’t know. Of course she is. Never mind.
” He pulls me into an embrace, pressing his lips to mine.
“I told you I would fix you, didn’t I, baby?
And I did. And now, I’m telling you we’ll find Jane.
We’ll find Jane, and get back to Piper. She’s waiting for us in Oregon.
Soon, we’ll be a family again. A bigger, happier family than we’ve ever been. Okay?”
I nestle my face in his chest, breathing in his warmth. “Okay, Logan.”
“And I’m going to take care of you.” He repeats his oft-spoken promise. “We have a whole life ahead of us. What’s nineteen years when we’re talking about a lifetime?”
I nod, an old, familiar lump rising in my throat.
“A lifetime to chain you up and use your body and punish your ass. I can’t wait.” He pulls me down on his lap, and I hide my flaming face in his chest again. “I love you, ghost girl.”
“I love you, Logan,” I breathe.
_
I trust Logan—a normal person probably wouldn’t, given how he’s made no secret of wanting to kill me on several occasions. But I’m not normal, clearly, and I do trust him. Still, I can’t help the rising sense of foreboding that burns my chest as I follow him onto a private plane.
“Damien isn’t here,” Logan says, settling down on one of the roomy couches and pulling me onto his lap as usual. “He had to finish up some work in Paris. The plane is asshole-free. Well, except for me.”
“I don’t mind Damien so much,” I answer, absent-mindedly playing with the buttons on his shirt.
“Yeah, compared to me, I guess he isn’t so bad.” Logan accepts the two glasses of champagne the stewardess offers us. “Not for you, baby,” he adds when I reach a hand out. “No alcohol, or drugs, or mind-altering shit ever again. I’m not going to risk losing even an inch of you.”
I bite down on a sharp retort and nod instead. I can’t really fault him for that. I can fault him for a lot, but not that.
He downs one glass, then the other one. “No cage. See? I’m not that much of an asshole.”
I edge back, crossing my arms. “Yeah, that was fucked up. I know I was violent, but you didn’t need to lock me in a literal cage. You could’ve just handcuffed me.”
“Yeah, clearly, that wasn’t working out so well. Besides, you looked so sexy in that cage.” He grins. “I asked my human cage guy to build another one in Devil Tower.”
“Logan!” I bolt up so fast I nearly knock over the table of raw oysters topped with caviar the stewardess just rolled out.
“Relax and have an oyster,” he drawls.
“No. Ugh! No. That’s disgusting. And you are not locking me in a cage in Astley.”
“How can you know it’s disgusting if you don’t try?”
I gag. “I can’t believe you of all people eat that rich person shit.”
“Well, I’m rich.” He stands up slowly, a smirk playing on his lips as he corners me against the opposite wall. “I’m very fucking rich, Lia. You’re going to find that out pretty soon.”
“Really?” I let him wrap his arms around me and pull me back down so I’m sitting once more on his lap. “How did that happen? When did that happen?”
“I mean, I always did well for myself, didn’t I? I was already pretty important back when...”
“When you kidnapped me,” I finish, the memory as always bittersweet. But I choose to look at it positively now. And that’s definitely how he remembers it, given the stupid grin on his face.
“Maybe, but you weren’t a big businessman in a suit. When did you get so stuffy, huh?”
His grin deepens. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself stuffy, but I guess my guns have been collecting cobwebs. Though I’ve been giving them a good workout lately.”
“Hmm.” I ignore the subtext, or maybe I just don’t mind it so much. “So how much money exactly do you have? The kind that would buy me a fancy designer bag?”
He trails a finger over my jawline. “I guess my money could do that, if I wanted it to.”
“And the nicest place in Oakley, too?”
“My, my, look how spoiled my baby is.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “No more Oakley for you, baby. I’ll be keeping you in the nicest place in Astley instead.”
“Astley?” I gape at him. “That’s where you live now? The most bougie town in the state?”
He chuckles. “I own a private plane, Lia. What did you think?”
“I didn’t... well... I didn’t know this was your plane. I thought it was like in the old days, when Carmelo...” I bite down on the name that makes a whole lot of dark memories surge forward. “When people lent you stuff,” I say instead.
“No one lends me anything anymore. I’m my own boss. I’m your boss, too.”
“Uh huh.” I roll my eyes. “So, boss, how exactly are you planning to take care of me? Gonna take me shopping? Buy me stuff at all the luxury boutiques?” I wrinkle my nose, but it doesn’t sound so bad. Years of being my father’s prisoner haven’t made me forget how he used to spoil me as a child.
“Fuck no,” he grins. “No luxury shit for you. Unless you count the luxury cage I’ll be keeping you in, in the nicest place in Astley.”
“Stop that.” I huff out an exasperated breath, but his words make me nervous. I have no idea if he’s in jest. I do trust him—I trust him enough to tell me the truth. Even when it’s the kind of truth I don’t want to hear.
“It won’t be all the time,” he murmurs, stroking my hair.
“I know I told you I’d try my best not to lock you in a cage anymore, but I just don’t see my way around it.
It’ll only be when I can’t be there to look after you, though.
I do have to deal with business shit, every so often.
I travel a lot, and it’s not always convenient to take you with me. ”
A panicky knot forms in my stomach. “No, Logan. No, I don’t want that.”
“It won’t be very often,” he promises. “Just a few days a month, maybe. The days when I can’t look after you, I mean. The rest of the time, it’ll just be because you look so damn fine behind bars, baby.”
I shake my head and stand up, trying to escape him, but he pins me to the wall again, his arms on either side of me. I close my eyes, letting him kiss me but not returning his affection.
“Red.”
He pauses. “Red now?”
“No.” I gulp down a rising sob. “Red in Astley. Red for the cage.”
“No.” He echoes my answer. “No, you don’t get to say red to that. Not when I’m doing it to protect you.”
He clasps my wrist, drawing me back to the couch, and this time, when I land on his lap, I’m trapped there by his hands.
“You said you wouldn’t force me, Logan.”
“No. I said I would try my hardest not to.” His voice is harsh, but I can hear the emotion behind it.
“And I don’t want to force you, but what else can I do if you won’t give in to me?
I know it wasn’t your fault, baby. None of it is your fault.
But I’m not a rational man. And I won’t let you forget again that I own you.
I will spend the rest of my life reminding you, and I’ll lock you in my cage if I want to, and I’ll feed you these disgusting raw oysters if I want to, and there isn’t a fucking thing you can do about it, because I own you, Lia.
” Then his harshness gives way to pure tenderness, and I get whiplash from the way he’s turned right back into the boy who was once so hopelessly devoted to me.
“I love you, Lia Colt. I will always love you. Now lie against my chest again, and let me feed you those oysters, and be a good girl, and submit.”
“I don’t want to, Logan,” I sob.
“Yeah, well… I don’t care.”