“That’s enough, Logan. That’s enough.” A woman comes out of the house—older, short, with more gray than black in her long, dark hair. Behind her a few more people spill out, but there’s one girl in particular who catches my attention.
She’s thin, maybe in her thirties, with the same dark hair, but her face . . . she looks strikingly like Logan.
And that’s when I know—these people are his family. The one he almost never talks about. The guy still pinned to the hood of the car looks like Logan too—probably a cousin, maybe a brother.
Logan kicks away the knife on the ground, then takes his phone out of his back pocket.
“What are you doing?” the younger woman asks. They all stand around him, just outside the car.
“I’m callin’ the cops to come get him.”
“You can’t do that,” the older woman says. “He’s already out on bail—they’ll lock him up for good.”
“Good.”
The woman jabs her finger at her chest. “He’s my son.”
Logan points at the house. “He went after his cousin with a knife—”
The younger woman moves in then. “You’ve been gone too long, Logan. Ian’s the best earner we have.”
There are rumbles of agreement from the crowd.
“What the hell are me and Mum supposed to do if he’s locked up?”
“Get a job, for Christ’s sake! An honest one. Go to school, make a life for yourself!”
“This is our life!”
Logan shakes his head, looking disgusted.
And his sister sneers.
“You think you’re so high and mighty? Saint fucking Logan, rubbing arses with the royals. Well fuck you—you’re no better than the rest of us.”
“Oh yeah, I am,” Logan swears.
And she slaps him, hard and loud and right across the face. I see his head snap to the side. My mind goes blank. White, with righteous fucking rage.
When the bitch goes to slap Logan again, I climb out of the car, point the gun to the sky and pull the motherfucking trigger.
BOOM!
For a little gun, it’s got one hell of a blast.
I have their attention now. And the rules go right out the window.
I wave the gun at Logan’s sister. “You call him for help, he drops everything and comes here, then you fucking slap him? I. Don’t. Think. So.”
They don’t get to treat him like this. Not while I’m here.
“Ellie . . .” Logan says sharply.
“You will not hit him again. Ever again! Got that?”
“Ellie,” Logan says, softer—because I’m screaming now. And my hand is shaking just a little.
“I want you to apologize to him—right fucking now.”
She clenches her jaw shut and murders me with her eyes.
I lower my arm, aiming at her foot. And I’ll do it, I swear—it won’t kill her but I bet it’ll hurt like a bitch.
“And make me believe you mean it or you lose a motherfucking toe.”
“Ellie!” Logan barks.
But I ignore him.
The douchebag brother laughs and the mother seems interested in personally ripping my head off just as soon as she possibly can. But my gaze stays pinned to the sister.
Slowly, she turns to Logan, her voice just a little less hateful. “I’m sorry, Logan.”
With that, my anger dissipates. Leaving me drained . . . and sad. Because it shouldn’t have been like this for him—he should’ve been loved and supported and admired. Not this—not these awful people.
I shake my head at them.
“You don’t deserve him. Not any of you.”
And I lower the gun.
“Can we please go home now, Logan?”
He backs off from where he still has his brother pinned to the car, and his brother slinks into the house, cradling his hand. Then Logan turns toward his mother, quiet and firm. “Don’t call me again, Mum. I won’t come.”
When we’re both in the car, I hand him the gun, barrel down. He takes it without comment, clicks the safety and puts it back under the seat.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m good.”
Logan pulls away from the curb, down the street and onto the highway. Away from this sad place.
I breathe out a long breath. “So that’s your family.”
“That’s them.”
I watch him as he drives. Because I can; because I like being this close to him. “You should be so proud.”
“Proud?” he scoffs, disbelieving.
“Proud that you are who you are. Of what you’ve made of yourself . . . if that’s where you started out.”
“Thanks,” he says a minute later. “And, I’m grateful for what you said back there. You, sticking up for me like that . . . it was cute.”
“Cute?” I say it like it’s a dirty word.
“Very cute?” Logan tries.
“I was hardcore. I was scary—threatening. Grrrr.”
And the bastard laughs at me. If he didn’t look so gorgeous doing it, I’d be pissed. Except not really.
“You promised you’d stay in the car,” he reminds me.
“Yeah, well since me getting out of the car prevented you from getting slapped again,” I put an accent on my words, imitating Logan. “I’m gonna put this one down as a win.”
He laughs again.
After flashing his ID at the security checkpoint, Logan drives through the rear gate of the palace. He pulls around to the west-side courtyard, to the exterior entrance of Nicholas and Olivia’s apartments. There’s a uniformed guard outside the door, but we’re parked far enough away, under a tree, that it feels private. Intimate. The air in the car is close and I inhale his scent—wood, and crisp air and man. I watch the pulse in his neck thrum, slow and steady, and I want to lean over and kiss him softly right in that spot.
And this is it. It’s go-time. Do or die. Now . . . or never.
“I have to tell you something, Logan.”
“It’s late, Elle. You should—”
“But—”
“You should go in, now.”
The words come easier than I thought they would. Simpler. Because they’re just the truth.
“I like you, Logan.”
His eyes slide closed, but he’s not shocked. “Ellie—”
“I always have. It’s always been you. Always.”
“You don’t want to—”
“And more than that . . .”
“Don’t—”
“I want you. I want you so much, some nights it feels like my skin is on fire. My bones burn with it.”
“Fucking hell—”
“I can’t think, I can’t eat . . . When I sleep, you’re all I see.” I rub my neck, and everything inside is needy and tight. “When I touch myself . . .”
“Christ, Ellie—” He sounds like he’s drowning.
“. . . you’re all I feel. You, Logan.”
And then he stops talking. But I know he hears me.
“Do you want me, Logan? Do you feel it too?”
His throat ripples when he swallows and I want to lick him there. Suck on him with my lips—right in the center of his throat, that thick, manly Adam’s apple.
When he speaks, his teeth are gritted.
“No, I don’t want that. That’s . . . not what this is for me.”
His words are crushing. My ribs squeeze and my chest tightens too hard to take a breath. And it hurts . . . it hurts so damn much. I’d hoped and I wanted . . . and I thought I sensed something from Logan tonight, something I felt, that he felt for me . . .
But then, I don’t just draw a breath—I gasp.
Because I’m looking at him—really looking at him—maybe for the very first time. With new, open eyes. I’m looking into the face of the man who showed me how to spot a liar.