Chapter 81
-Hailey-
Around 1:30, the coffee maker in Logan’s apartment gurgled its last breath.
X.8%
255 vouchers
The air was filled with the bitter, comforting smell of cheap grounds. I poured a mug, my third of the day, and carried it into the living room. I had the TV on, some daytime talk show filling the silence with meaningless chatter.
–
I heard him before I saw him. The familiar sound of his uneven gait the solid thump of his good leg, the thunk of the cane hitting the floor. He appeared in the living room, squinting against the light.
He looked wrecked. Dark circles under his eyes, hair and beard sticking out in all directions. He was wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants, and I tried not to stare. Because he was moving like every muscle ached.
But it was his eyes that caught me. That knocked the breath out of me.
He looked at me like I was something precious and fragile he’d found balanced on the edge of a cliff.
There was affection there, yeah, if you could call it that. A raw, aching thing that made my heart stutter. But underneath it, warring with it, was fear.
What the fuck had happened last night?
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual and failing.
He just nodded, his gaze dropping to the floor as he hobbled further into the room. He didn’t come to me. Didn’t reach for me. He lowered himself onto the far end of the couch, letting out a low grunt.
“Coffee’s fresh,” I offered, gesturing with my mug toward the kitchen. “Full pot.”
He nodded again, still not looking at me. “Thanks,” he muttered, the word rough and quiet. He made no move to get up.
The distance between us felt physical, a chasm filled with all the things we weren’t saying. All the things that had happened while I slept.
I could still smell the faint, metallic hint of blood on him, even though he must have showered. It was stuck under his nails, maybe. In the pores of his skin. A permanent stain.
I watched his hands. They were resting on his thighs, but they weren’t relaxed. His right hand was curled into a loose fist, the knuckles scraped raw. His left hand tapped a restless, silent rhythm against his leg.
The TV host laughed at something. Logan’s eyes flicked toward the screen, but I knew he wasn’t seeing it. He was seeing something else entirely. The docks, maybe. Benny. Whatever they did to the guard they captured.
I took a sip of my coffee, trying to fill the pit in my stomach. He was pulling away again. Building the walls back up, brick by brick. I could practically hear the mortar setting.
He thought he was protecting me by shutting me out. He didn’t understand that the silence was its own kind of violence.
His gaze finally lifted and met mine. His eyes were dark. The affection was still there, but it was buried under exhaustion and something that looked an awful lot like guilt.
He looked away first, breaking the connection like it hurt. He ran a hand over his face, down his beard, a gesture so tired it made my own bones ache in sympathy.
“I’m gonna get that coffee,” he said, his voice flat. He pushed himself up using the cane,
1/4
20:47 Sat, Jan 3 =
Chapter 81
I just nodded, watching him limp away from me toward the kitchen. The space between us growing wider.
38% M
55 vouchers.
When he came back a minute later, he just sat in the same spot, staring at the TV and taking the occasional sip of coffee.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. The silence. The distance. I set my mug down on the coffee table and moved closer to him. He didn’t look at me.
I reached out, letting my fingers brush through the messy curls at the nape of his neck. His hair was still damp with sweat. He went stiff under my touch, a quick, involuntary tension that made my heart sink. But he didn’t pull away.
“Your leg hurting bad?” I murmured.
“Manageable,” he grunted. His shoulders were rigid.
I let my hand drift down to his arm, feeling the hard muscle. I could feel the vibration of tension running through him. He was here, but he wasn’t.
He was locked down tighter than the clubhouse.
“Logan,” I said. “What happened last night?”
He was silent for so long I thought he might not answer. He took a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes fixed blankly on the TV screen. “Nothin‘ you need to worry about, Ace.”
The dismissal was like a door slamming shut. Not that I couldn’t have predicted it. The frustration I’d been holding back bubbled up, hot and sharp.
“Don’t do that. Don’t protect from the ugly details. I’m here. I’m in this. Tell me.”
He finally turned his head. “You think knowin‘ the details is gonna help? You think it’s gonna make you sleep better at night? It won’t. It’ll just be nightmare fuel.”
“I’m already having nightmares!” The words burst out of me, louder than I intended. I tried to calm myself down for a second. “At least if I know what I’m up against, they’d be based on something real instead of my own fucking imagination.”
“Drop it, Hailey. Please.”
“No.” I grabbed his hand and pulled it into my lap. “I won’t drop it. You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t handle, Logan. Look at you. You’re a mess trying to carry this all on your own.”
He stood up and walked toward the hallway. Then he threw his cane across the room, the sound cracking like a gunshot as it hit the raven on the wall.
I flinched, but not because I was afraid of him.
“God damnit, Hailey! This isn’t about what you can handle! This is about what I can handle! I can’t… I can’t sit here and tell you the things I did. The things I’m capable of. I don’t want that shit in your head. I don’t want you lookin‘ at me and seein…”
He trailed off. His back was to me, but I could see his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
“Seeing what?” I pressed, poking the bear. I knew if I let it go, it would destroy him. “A monster? Is that what you think? After everything? You think a few details are gonna scare me off?”
“It should!” he roared, turning to face me. His eyes were wild. “It fucking should! You should be running in the other direction! Not sitting here askin‘ for a front–row seat!”
“Maybe I would!” I shot back, tears stinging my eyes. “If I heard from someone else! If I had to piece it together from whispers and half–truths! But if it comes from you… if you trust the enough to tell me… then I can handle it.”
20:47 Sat, Jan 3
Chapter 81
8%
50 vouchers
The fight seemed to drain out of him all at once. His shoulders sumped, and he leaned heavily on the wall beside him. He looked exhausted. Defeated.
“They’ll tell you,” he said quietly. “River, Scarlett. Fuckin Ruby and her loud mouth. Someone will. They’ll think they’re bein‘ helpful. Or they’ll just be talkin‘ shit, not carin‘ that you’re listening.”
“I know,” I murmured. “So tell me. Please. Before I hear a version that’s worse than the truth.”
He was silent for a long time. The only sound was the hum of the talk show and the frantic thumping of my own heart. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and flat, stripped of all motion.
“We took a guard. Brought him back to our place. The compound.” He took a shaky breath. “He had a comms piece. A live one. They heard… they heard everything. They know my name. They know who we are.”
The air left my lungs. The black sedan. It made sense now. They hadn’t just been watching. They’d been confirming.
“He told us about a warehouse they’re using. In Burnsville. Before…” Logan swallowed hard. “Before we took him back to the docks.”
He didn’t elaborate on what “took him back” meant. He didn’t describe how they came about that information. He didn’t tell me how the guard died. But he didn’t have to.
The grim set of his jaw, the raw scrapes on his knuckles, the hollow look in his eyes, the remnants of blood I smelled – they finished the story for him.
The story of a line crossed.
But a big part of Logan lived on the other side of that line. I knew that.
“We buried Benny before we came home this morning,” he added, the words barely a whisper. “Out at the compound. In the woods.”
The grief in those few words was a physical thing. It filled the space between us, heavy and suffocating. But I could tell it wasn’t only for Benny. It was for me. He was afraid he’d have to bury me too.
He was looking at me and seeing a target. A vulnerability. Something to lose.
I moved toward him then, slowly, giving him time to pull away. He didn’t. I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against his chest. I felt him tense, then slowly, slowly relax into the touch.
His hands came up to the back of my head, holding me close.
We stood like that for a long time, silent. The anger was gone, burned away, leaving behind something raw and tender and unbearably sad.
He hadn’t given me the gruesome details. He’d spared me that. But he’d given me enough. Enough to understand the weight he was carrying. Enough to understand why he looked at me like he was memorizing my face.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said into his chest.
His chin dropped to the top of my head. “I know,” he said. “It fucking terrifies me.”
There it was. Fear. The crushing weight of caring about someone in a world where care was a weapon your enemies could use against you.
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
