Chapter 6
Chapter Six
He’d grown up on the streets of Vegas, so they were a familiar sight as Logan ran through the night. He’d been running these same streets ever since he’d been a teen.
Back then, he’d been sneaking out of his grandmother’s home over and over again—much to her dismay. She couldn’t help the fact that he’d been a long-time pain in the ass.
His grandmother had done a great job of raising him, truly, she had. She’d loved him with her entire heart, and she’d even helped him to track down his former foster sister Simone—sweet Simone had a knack for retrieving, uh, lost items, and Logan had bonded with her during their darkest moments.
They’d both been tossed into the system once upon a time. Fate had put them in the same foster house. But his grandmother had worked until she’d gotten custody of him. She’d fought hard for him. So hard.
When his parents had died, his grandmother had not even realized what had happened. She’d been living far away, and his dad had cut communication. But when the truth had finally reached her, his grandmother had rushed back to Vegas. Back to Logan.
He’d gone to live with her, but that had meant leaving Simone behind.
Logan’s feet rushed harder over the broken concrete in Vegas.
I didn’t leave Simone for long. Because she was the sister of his heart. He’d convinced his grandmother that they had to take Simone in, too. Only…
Hell, his grandmother had barely been scraping by at the time. All of Logan’s father’s money had vanished after his murder. My mom and my dad. Murdered. Ripped away from me.
But he and his grandmother had gotten Simone. Eventually. They’d made a family. A bit of an unorthodox one, but, still family. His grandmother had baked cookies and given them birthday parties and…
He and Simone had raised plenty of hell.
They both had a knack for dealing with darkness. But now Simone was paired up with and in love with a CIA operative of her own. A real dangerous bastard named Ryan Quinn. She was off to live her version of a happily-ever-after, and in return…
Logan raced faster through the darkness.
I’m still chasing demons.
Two guards were behind him. Logan could hear the distant thud of their steps.
The heavy night stretched over the city, but this was Vegas, so, of course, people were still out.
Lurking in corners. Partying near bars. Cars whizzed by on the main strip.
He stayed off that strip, preferring the quiet of the side streets.
The adrenaline in his blood still boiled. Rage seethed just below his surface.
Eventually, he’d have to kill Ares. He understood that fact. He’d planned for that fact. But his timeline might have just been sped up by the actions of that night.
He rounded the corner as he headed back for his hotel. Sweat coated his skin because he’d gone hard. Some nights, he ran because the memories were too strong. Some nights, he ran to quiet the rage inside of him.
This night, though, there was no quieting it.
Charlotte. Ares wanted Charlotte.
How was he this enraged over Ares’s desire for her?
He bounded forward. Took an empty side street that would take him to the rear of his hotel. His feet ate up the distance. Closer, closer he came to his hotel.
Gunfire blasted. A lone, hard crack of sound, and he actually saw a chunk of nearby brick fly off the wall. Light from a streetlamp hit that brick, illuminating it completely, and he saw a section hurtle off at impact. A section that had been way too close to his head.
Some bastard is shooting at me. The realization didn’t frighten him. It just amped up his rage.
In the next beat of time, a body flew against his. Logan felt someone launch at him from behind, and he whirled even as he was hit by—
Charlotte?
Yes, dammit, Charlotte.
She’d thrown her body against his.
“Get down!” she yelled.
They slammed into the pavement.
Another bullet blasted.
When he and Charlotte dropped, Logan made sure to hit the pavement first so that he’d take the impact of the collision, but then he rolled, instantly covering her with his body.
“What are you doing?” Charlotte’s outraged shriek. “I’m protecting you, not the other way around!”
The hell she was.
“Get the shooter!” Logan bellowed to his guards. He dragged Charlotte behind a car parked to the right. A black Dodge Charger. He kept her locked against him.
She heaved in his hold. “Let go! I’ll go find him!”
If anything, his grip tightened. “Not happening.” He pinned her behind the vehicle. “What in the hell are you even doing out here?”
“Saving you! Obviously! I—”
More gunfire. Rapid. Slamming into the side of the vehicle.
“Logan Sterling!” A bellow. A familiar one. “You hiding? Hiding like the coward you are? Come face me!” More shots. Shots that hit the Dodge Charger.
The glass in the Charger’s windows shattered. Some of that glass rained down on Logan.
“I know that damn voice,” he snapped. “Morris.” He’d tried to give the bastard an out. But had he taken it? Had Morris left town like he should have done?
No.
Instead, he’d come gunning for Logan. A choice that would prove to be a fatal mistake.
“You don’t take my business!” Morris shouted. “You don’t take my life!” Another rain of gunfire.
Logan risked a glance around the vehicle and saw that Morris had just fired at Logan’s two guards. One man had taken a hit to the shoulder. The other had ducked for cover.
“You have so many enemies, Logan!” Morris bellowed in the night.
Oh, was that supposed to be shocking? Logan knew there were plenty of people after him in this world. Why on earth was Morris just out there, shouting the obvious?
“We’re lining up! Taking you out!”
Not happening. Logan crouched, waiting for his moment.
Charlotte grabbed the front of his sweaty t-shirt. “What are you planning?” A whisper.
Nothing too dramatic. Just a little self-defense. “I gave him a chance. But he came after me.” There would be no additional chances given. Logan eased a bit to the side of Charlotte in order to survey the scene again as he planned his attack.
“That pretty little PA is with you, isn’t she?” Loud, grating laughter from Morris. “I saw her running toward you. I was actually shooting at her with that second bullet. I’ll get her, I’ll get you both!”
Gunfire rang out. Only it wasn’t from the gun Morris held. Logan saw that the guard who’d ducked for cover had just fired a shot toward Morris. Enraged, Morris ducked, swung his weapon toward the man, and began to fire back at the guard.
Perfect distraction.
Logan leapt from behind the Charger. He flew toward his target, legs pumping, body moving fast, faster, and he was—
Morris whipped the weapon toward him. A wide smile curved his lips. “Got you!”
“Logan!” Charlotte screamed from behind him.
But Morris was wrong. That prick didn’t have him.
I have you.
Because Logan slammed his body into Morris’s. They went down together. A gunshot blasted just as Logan drove his knife into his prey.
The gun clattered to the pavement.
“Logan! Logan!” Charlotte’s frantic voice. Charlotte ran and grabbed Morris’s gun. She picked it up even as… “Logan! Logan, get away from him!”
Morris wasn’t fighting him.
Logan slipped back. Slowly rose.
Morris tried to speak. A gurgle came out of his mouth. The two guards raced forward. There were shouts in the distance. Probably because plenty of people had heard all the shots. Some would be running far from the blasts. Others would be running closer.
That was the way with people.
“Did he shoot you?” Charlotte demanded as she reached for Logan.
The streetlamp hit him. Blood soaked his t-shirt.
“Logan…” Charlotte’s voice trembled.
“It’s his blood.” Flat. Logan took another step back as his guards closed in. “Call the cops,” he ordered them. He pointed to the street cam on the corner. “I’m sure the whole thing was recorded. The cops will see I had no choice. He was shooting at me.”
“He put a bullet in me,” his guard, Dewayne, snarled. “Bastard.” Blood soaked his right shoulder.
“He won’t be firing at anyone else,” Logan assured him.
But…
Charlotte had apparently just realized what he’d done. She’d gone from sweeping her worried stare over Logan to looking down at the shooter.
“Is…is that my knife?” Charlotte choked out.
Yep, it was. Her second favorite knife. The one she’d left upstairs.
He’d brought it with him on his run. It had been a surprisingly compact knife. One that, when the blade wasn’t out, could easily be concealed. But with the press of a button, the blade extended with deadly sharpness.
Now, that knife was lodged in Morris’s chest.
Charlotte dropped to her knees beside the fallen man. Her fingers went to his wound. She tried to stop the blood flow even as the red liquid poured over her fingers. “Logan, help me!”
She wanted him to help her save the bastard who’d admitted to shooting at her? To wanting to kill her? Nah. “He shot at me. At you. At my men. He would have killed us all.”
Frantic, she peered up at him. “Help me.”
He’d known exactly where to put his knife in order to do maximum damage. “There is no help for Morris. It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late! He’s still breathing!”
Breathing. Shuddering. Bleeding out. Dying.
“Logan, dammit, help me! Please!”
She wanted to save the downed man. Because she was the true-blue one. The law-abiding one.
Logan wasn’t.
“I’m begging you!”
He bent next to her. She was trying so hard to save a man who wanted her dead. What was the point of that? Why?
But one thing that really bothered… “Never beg,” he growled. She should never, ever beg him for anything.
“Logan…” Wide eyes. Trembling lips.
Fine. He put his hands over hers.