25
Logan
“Lia. Lia.”
She remains resolutely turned away from me, huddled against the window.
I’ve spent much of the drive glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, growing increasingly nervous.
I’d been dead set on showing her just what kind of a man she’d fucked with. I’d walked into that diner full of rage. And the entire time she’d been on my lap, I’d been drinking in the sight of her tears, of my power over her.
But now, as she leans her head against the window, I get the feeling she’s not just ignoring me.
She’s in pain.
Real pain. The kind that makes my own heart hurt.
I’m aware she was suffering before she escaped.
At the time, that knowledge satisfied some dark part of me.
But something changed during the month she was away from me.
Something clicked, and now, it’s just too hard seeing her looking so hopeless.
So I take the plunge, giving in to what I’ve been struggling against since the moment I laid eyes on her. I reassure her. Or, at least, I try to.
“Lia,” I murmur, hunting for her hand. I clasp it in mine. It’s cold and limp. “You know… You know I didn’t mean any of it.”
That gets a reaction out of her. She lets out a dry laugh.
“You know that, don’t you?” I insist.
She slowly turns to me, her glittery green-blue eyes out of focus.
“So you didn’t mean to sell me,” she says slowly.
“You didn’t mean to kill me last month either, I guess.
You never even meant to kidnap me in the first place.
Or bring me to Carmelo. Stupid me. Thinking any of the things that come out of your mouth are true. ”
“Sell her? Kill her? What the fuck, man?” I hear Everest’s dumfounded voice in the backseat, and I curse at the fact that I’m busy driving, because I’d really love to punch the fucker.
“Get back to babysitting,” I snarl.
“She’s sleeping,” Everest snarls right back. “I knew you were fucked, man, but I didn’t realize you were this fucked. Why the hell are you treating her so bad? You’ve been in love with her since you were six!”
“Fuck off,” I bark. “I’m not in love with her, so shut the fuck up!”
The glint of something that had appeared in Lia’s eyes dies down just as quickly at my words, and she turns back to the window.
I can actually see her shut me out in slow motion. Just like in high school. Only I can’t understand why I care this time. I own her.
Back then, I was just a weak idiot, desperate for her to let me in.
Now, I’ve just outsmarted the underboss.
I had that girl on my lap while I outsmarted him.
She may not have wanted to be there, but it hadn’t mattered.
I had power, I was on top. Yet now, I’ve been reduced to a pile of helplessness as I watch her sink into herself.
“Lia,” I start again, hating myself for trying to get to her now just as much as I hate myself for what I did to her before.
But she deserved it. She deserved it!
She doesn’t say a word, and gloomy silence settles over us.
“So when are we getting there?” she asks dully, breaking it at last.
“Where?”
“To your hotel room. The one with the decent coffee.” She lets out another laugh, just as colorless as the one before.
“We’re not heading there, obviously,” I say, swerving onto another lane. “We’ve very obviously not going there. You know that, don’t you?”
“Right.” She sits up just a bit. “Right. You’re not selling me. I keep forgetting that.”
My jaw clenches as I rip my eyes away from the road to look at her again.
She’s not turned to the window anymore, but her face is as white as a ghost. I squeeze the hand I’ve kept in mine, and even though she’s never tried to withdraw it from my grasp, she doesn’t squeeze me back.
She blinks passively, staring straight in front of her.
“I was never gonna sell you. That was just talk.”
“Right,” she says again. “Talk. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Exactly.”
“Talk. Just to hurt me. I should’ve known.”
“No—yes.” I click my tongue in impatience, because I guess it’s true, in a way. I entered the bar with the intention of hurting her. But by the time I’d come up with the selling thing, the only thing on my mind was getting away from Coltello.
Still, I don’t want her to think of me as the kind of guy who needs to use his tongue to overpower another guy, rather than his fists. “You fucking drugged me, Lia. You can’t blame me for being a little pissed off.”
She nods slowly, and starts to turn back to the window.
“Wait. Wait, Lia.”
She pauses, and my brain kicks into high gear, trying to figure out what to say to break through her shell. Trying to figure out why I care so much.
I could just force her. Shove her into my lap again, kiss her, claim her. Who cares if her heart is switched off to me, as long as her body’s mine?
But it feels wrong.
“Are you in pain?” I ask at last.
She shrugs. “It’s fine.”
“As soon as we’re far away enough, we’ll stop and I’ll hunt up some antiseptic. You took a nasty punch.”
“I said, it’s fine,” she insists, her voice hard.
The image of her thrusting her hands up to shield herself after she’d insulted me suddenly worms its way into my mind. “You know I’d never do that to you, right? I’d never punch you.”
Her lips twist into a tiny smirk. “Sure. You’d never hit me.
Never sell me. Never take me back to my husband.
Of course you wouldn’t. I’m such an idiot for believing the words that come out your mouth.
Of course you’re fucking with me. Logan.
” She looks at me for the first time. “I told you, it doesn’t matter.
You can hit me if it makes you feel special. I’m used to much worse.”
“I’d never hit you,” I say, my voice strained. “The only time I… did, we used a safe word. And it wasn’t… that kind of hitting. Was it?”
I can’t believe I’m asking her that, in a tone that sounds far too much like begging. Why the hell can’t I just fucking take? Why do I let her have so much power over me?
Then my stomach lurches when I suddenly wrap my head around the other thing she said. “What do you mean, much worse?” The image of her shielding herself twists back into my mind. “What do you mean, Lia?”
Again, she looks at me, but this time her expression isn’t neutral. I guess I really do have it in me to scare her, because she suddenly looks worried.
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Nothing. Forget about it.”
My jaw is clenching so hard I wonder if it will snap. “No, tell me. You said before Carmelo sometimes hits you. But I didn’t think that meant… actual beatings?”
A third laugh, this one tinged with sarcasm. But it’s also more high-pitched than usual, and from the way her hands have fisted into balls in her lap, I can tell she’s nervous.
“What do you think, Logan? Has it really never occurred to you that the man who’s planning to kill me is violent? Why the hell do you think I’ve been running in the first place? Damien told you he was going to kill me. You’re bringing me back to him anyway.”
“I’m not bringing you back to him,” I hiss.
This time, she throws her head back and lets out a real, long laugh. “Fuck, that’s good. Coltello is right. You are hilarious.”
“Stop, Lia,” I growl. “Stop that right now, do you hear me? Stop!”
She grows sober again, but her eyes are mocking.
“Yes, master. Sorry, master,” she taunts me. She pauses a beat, then adds, “Only, maybe you could have told me you weren’t planning to send me to my death before you tied me up and tortured me with that knife.”
In the back seat, Everest lets out a strangled sound.
“You didn’t use the safe word,” I tell her, my own voice choked. “You could have put a stop to it.”
“Yeah.” She leans back against the seat. “I guess I could’ve stopped the part where you were fucking me with the handle.”
A weird hybrid between a cough and a laugh reaches me from the back.
“But I didn’t realize I could use the safe word to keep from dying.”
“I wasn’t going to kill you,” I breathe, doing my best to focus on the road, because I don’t want to add an accident to the list of shit I’m dealing with right now. “You should’ve known that, Lia. I wouldn’t have killed you.”
“Okay, Logan,” she says wearily.
Despite everything, Everest must feel bad for me, because he leans forward and says, “You know, Lia, he had twenty-seven broken bones.”
“Shut up,” I snap.
She glances up at me, her neutral mask cracking once again, and pain flickering in her eyes.
“Twenty-seven. And a bad concussion. He spent weeks lying helplessly on a bed in Vale’s apartment. It’s a miracle he even survived.”
“Shut up, Everest!”
Lia’s eyes widen, and she sits up straight in her seat, the harsh glint in her eyes gone. “I’m… I’m sorry, Logan.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.” I let go of her hand and turn my full attention to the road. I don’t want her to look at me like that. Like I’m the one to be pitied.
“I never… I never meant for that to happen,” she says after an uncomfortable silence. “I never thought that would happen, when I… when I…”
“When you asked for it to happen,” I finish in a mocking tone. “It’s fine, Lia.”
She shakes her head. “I realize I deserve all of this.” Another long pause, as she chews on her lower lip.
“You seem so convinced that I should just know you’re not serious.
Maybe I would’ve known, if I hadn’t hurt you like I did.
But now, I have no trouble believing you’re going to kill me.
Or bring me back to my husband and watch him kill me.
You know why? Because I deserve it.” She speaks the last words in a strangled voice. “I deserve it, Logan. I know I do.”
“Enough, Lia,” I mutter.
“I deserve a whole lot worse,” she insists. “I can’t honestly blame you for any of it.” She takes a deep breath. “Stupid. Selfish. manipulative. A bad mother. I know I’m all of that.”
Each of the words she’s calling herself twists at my heart. But I can’t deny them. After all, haven’t I called her all of them myself?
“You’re not a bad mother,” I settle on at last.
She shakes her head sadly.
“The twenty-seven broken bones were nothing,” I continue. “I would’ve broken every single bone in my body if it meant protecting you. I still would, Lia.”
She looks at me in disbelief.
“I never blamed you for that. The only thing I blamed you for—the only thing I do blame you for—is fucking and then marrying the first guy that wasn’t me.”
She keeps her eyes glued to me, her lips parted, an emotion I can’t understand distorting her features.
“Is… is that what you blame me for?” she asks softly.
“Yes.” I look away from the road again to try to make sense of her face. “Of course it is. Why?”
She hesitates. “It’s just… I didn’t really have a choice about that, Logan.”
I’m the one laughing now, a sad sound with no humor in it. “We always have choices, Lia. I guess you know, now, that yours was a bad one. But it’s a little late for that. You made your choice.”
She opens her mouth, trying and failing to speak.
“No one forced you to walk into that bar.” I grit my teeth, trying to keep the old anger under control.
“No one forced you to go over to Carmelo and talk to him, or do any of the other things that led to you having a kid at sixteen and marrying an abusive fuck. You have no right to expect anything from me.”
“I don’t,” she murmurs, her voice quivering. “I don’t, Logan.”
“Good.”
She goes back to staring out the window as I clench my hands so hard around the steering wheel the knuckles turn white. At last, I lash out, “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill the bastard for laying a hand on you.”
Her eyes widen as she whips her head back to me. “You’re… you’re not going to kill Carmelo, Logan,” she gasps. “Are you?”
I stay silent, my eyes on the road.
“Logan. Please. That’s dangerous. He’s so much more powerful than you are. That’s… that’s asking for death. Please promise me, Logan. Please promise you won’t try to do anything as stupid as that.”
I don’t answer. The truth is, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Anyone who lays a hand—even a finger—on her should by rights be dead.
Anyone other than him and Coltello would be.
But I also know that trying to get at either of them would be akin to unleashing an all-out war.
One that I couldn’t possibly hope to win.
That war might be unleashed already, with the way I’ve just escaped with Lia. The only way I can possibly hope to protect her is to stay the fuck away from the guy who abused her.
Sometimes, it feels like utter weakness to choose my battles.
“I don’t know, Lia,” I say at last. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”