Chapter 22 #2
How long would those reinforcements take? He sent off a reply. Put eyes on C. She’s heading out. Do NOT be fucking obvious! Because an obvious tail might get her killed.
Then…
The creak of a door opening.
The door to his suite.
Logan had figured this would happen. After all, the bastard jerking all the strings in this show would want to make sure that he was dead. Not like Logan’s fate could be left to chance.
He put down the phone and reached for the gun that he kept hidden under the bed.
When he’d moved into the suite, he’d had a gun safe installed in the framework of the bed.
Why? Because he was a paranoid asshole, and he’d wanted the safe for extra security.
Not like he’d wanted one of the maids to find his backup gun on accident.
He unlocked the safe. His fingers curled around the gun even as the soft tread of approaching footsteps grew louder and louder and—
“He’s still on the floor,” he heard a familiar voice say.
“I’m cutting the feed on the camera now.
Gonna remove the whole thing. Then, yeah, I’ll damn well make sure he’s dead.
When they find him, the cops can say it’s some crime of passion bullshit.
He’s just wearing a towel. No, no, he’s not moving. She really shot him.”
More steps. Rustles. A few clicks.
“Camera is unconnected,” that traitorous voice said. “You need to deposit that hundred grand into my account immediately, understand me? I want my payment and all previous debts cancelled. Hello? Hello? Dammit, are you there? You had better not have hung up on—”
Logan rolled, and he came up with his gun aimed at his target. “Don’t worry, I’m still here. Even if he hung up on your sorry ass.”
And Evans McCall, his VP of Security, gaped at him, a small, black device—a camera?— clutched in his left hand and his phone held in the right.
Logan nodded. “Figured the jackass had gotten assistance from someone who worked for me. After all, not like it’s easy to get past my security in order to put a video surveillance camera in my bedroom.
” He stood to his full height. Amazingly, the towel stayed in place.
“Unless, of course, you’re basically in charge of my security.
Then it would be easy to hide a camera, wouldn’t it? ”
“I just—he just—” Evans broke off. “Sir, I got in a lot of debt. I bet too heavily on the matches that Morris ran. I-I was in deep. All he wanted…it was just a camera in here. Not like it was a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me. Because, see, I was supposed to die.”
Evans wet his lips. “You…you can put the gun down.” A weak smile. “I’m not armed. Just holding my phone.” The smile turned into a grimace. “And a camera.”
“Evans…” Logan sighed out his name. “You know me. Do you think I give a shit about you being armed or not?”
The light from the lamp fell heavily on Evans, and Logan knew the fool was going to reach for a hidden weapon even before Evans dropped his phone to the floor and grabbed under his suit coat for a—
Logan fired.
Boom.
A shot that hit Evans in his reaching hand. His right hand. Evans screamed. He also dropped the camera. It shattered when it hit the floor. His now free left hand tried to grab for this still holstered weapon.
Sighing, Logan shot him in that hand, too.
Evans howled with pain. He also fell to his knees.
Logan closed in. “There are still plenty of places left for me to shoot,” he noted. “How fortunate because I’m in the mood for a bit of torture. I get that way when people try to kill me. A personality quirk, I suppose.”
Evans whimpered.
“I always worried you didn’t have enough field experience for this job.” True story. He had worried about that very thing. “But you were good with tech, so I let you stay. That came back to bite me in the ass, didn’t it? Note to self, never ignore your instincts again.”
“Please…please…I was just in too deep! Morris—Morris wasn’t in charge of the matches! Someone else was. Morris worked for him. I-I had to tell Morris about your late-night runs. I had to set you up that night…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Logan’s jaw locked. “Now you’ve confessing that you tried to kill me then, too? You and Morris? Honestly, Evans, you’re just making me want to hurt you all the more.”
“It wasn’t my choice! He said if I didn’t pay my debt, I’d be dead! Then…then…he told me…if I gave him enough intel, if I put the camera in here…the debt would be gone. He’d pay me more and—”
Logan placed his gun against his VP’s chest.
Evan’s stopped talking.
“Who moved Harper’s body?” Time to cut to the chase. He had places to be. A wife to follow.
“I—”
“I want to pull the trigger.” He wanted it so very badly. “You cooperating is the only thing stopping me from doing it.”
His prey’s breath shuddered in and out. His hands kept bleeding.
“You know who did it, don’t you?” Logan pushed. “You’re involved in this mess all the way up to your debt-ridden eyeballs.”
“The man who—who wheeled out Harper…He was just…just one of Morris’s thugs! He’s already dead! You don’t have to worry about him any longer.” Fast, frantic words. “Paid him…paid him to move her, and then got rid of him!”
“Back up. You killed him?”
A jerky nod. “Couldn’t have loose ends.” Miserable.
“My, my, but you are the busy VP of Security, aren’t you?
Know what? You’re fired. I’ll be letting my wife take over your position going forward.
” Speaking of the woman who owned his soul…
“I have to go after my wife.” Luckily, he knew exactly where to go.
Before he left, though, he had to get a vital piece of intel.
“I want you to give me a name. Tell me exactly who it is that has been giving all the orders to you. Who was really Morris’s boss? Who has been behind everything?”
Evans stared him straight in the eyes. “Ares.”
Logan didn’t blink. “Huh. Really?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed before Evans hissed, “Yes.”
Logan slammed his gun into the traitor’s temple. Evans flopped back, and his head hit the floor.
Logan threw on clothing. Tucked his gun in the waistband of his pants. He grabbed the phone he’d left under the bed and saw the line of texts.
Jamar found.
Stabbed three times.
Help incoming.
“But what about the fucking eyes on my wife?” Logan snarled as he raced through the suite. Then he stopped, glancing around. Were there more cameras? Or had the one in the bedroom been it? Because if he was being watched now…
Screw it. Too late. He shoved the phone into his pocket. Yanked open the suite’s door. Rushed into the hallway.
Only he wasn’t alone in that hallway. Because Sebastian Shay had just erupted out of the elevator and the marshal barreled toward him, gun drawn.
In a flash, Logan pointed his own weapon at the bastard.
Sebastian froze.
“Gonna need you to get the hell out of my way,” Logan thundered.
“I’m here to help you,” Sebastian snapped right back. “You crazy asshole, I’m your cavalry! Jezebel sent me!”
“I don’t need a cavalry. Get the fuck out of the way.”
“You’re going after Charlotte.”
Of course, he was.
“I’m coming with you. I’m helping you.” Sebastian stepped to the side. “I have to get Harper back!”
Did the marshal even realize how much emotion had just slipped out with that fierce declaration? Logan shouldered past him, climbed into the elevator, and hit the button for the lobby.
Sebastian was right beside him. All up in his damn space.
As the elevator lowered…“You’ve been undercover a while, haven’t you?” Logan guessed.
Sebastian grunted.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’m thinking you’ve worked quite a few cases with your undercover persona. Devil-may-care Sebastian, the playboy with all the money who hailed from Atlanta.”
Another grunt.
“A word of warning, be more careful about revealing your weaknesses to others. Your enemies will use them against you.”
“What weaknesses?” Sebastian gritted out.
“How about the very obvious weakness named Harper Channing?”
No response. No more grunts.
They had almost reached the lobby. “By the way, I was just attacked in my room by my VP of Security, Evans McCall. The bastard told me that he was following orders given by Ares.”
“Ares.”
“That’s what I said. Evans stared me straight in the eyes when he made that confession.”
“Ares took Harper? He’s been hurting her?”
The elevator dinged. The doors opened. Logan and Sebastian both burst out and into the lobby. Though they had each tucked their guns out of sight. The better to not scare any tourists. But those damn tourists shouldn’t be up at four a.m.
This is Vegas. Plenty of people are up at four a.m.
Logan and Sebastian rushed forward and…
“Logan!” A bellow.
Logan stopped dead in his tracks.
Ares strode toward him. Ares, right there, in his hotel. When Jamar had been attacked. When Evans had been sent to kill Logan.
Right. There.
“Logan, we have to talk, now.” Ares reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of brass knuckles. Logan’s brass knuckles. The ones that had been taken from him when he’d gone to the damn party at Ares’s place.
“I’ve got the knife, too,” Ares revealed as he kept advancing. “But we have to talk—”
Sebastian didn’t wait to talk. He launched his body at the Greek, and they both slammed into the hard tile of the lobby’s floor.