Chapter 83
-Hailey-
It was so cold.
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The bed, I mean. When I stretched my arm out beside me, I felt empty sheets where Logan should’ve been.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, squinting at my phone screen. 8:18 AM. It was too early for him to be up.
I swung my legs out of bed, flinching when my feet hit the cold floor. Logan’s cane was propped against the nightstand where he’d left it the night before. That was odd.
I padded into the living room, half–expecting to find him passed out on the couch, but it was empty too.
Murmuring voices filtered in from the hallway outside the apartment. Men, talking in hushed tones. My heart did a clumsy thump against my ribs.
I crept closer, pressing my ear to the door. I couldn’t make out the words, just the low rumble of compliance. It wasn’t the normal easy banter of club brothers. This was different. Official. Guarded.
–
A shiver ran through me. I turned and hurried back to the bedroom, pulling on the first things I found — a pair of Logan’s sweatpants that I had to roll at the waist, and one of my own sweaters.
I slipped my sneakers on and ran my fingers through my tangled hair, giving up almost immediately. Pulling it up into a messy bun, I took a deep breath before heading back to the door.
The click of the latch sounded extra loud in the quiet. I pulled the door open and blinked.
Leo and another prospect were standing on either side of the doorway. They straightened up instantly and snapped to attention.
Leo’s eyes, usually kind of dopey and relaxed, were sharp as he scanned the hallway.
‘Morning, Hailey,” he said, his voice carefully neutral.
“Morning,” I managed. I looked from him to the other kid, whose name I couldn’t remember. “What’s going on? Where’s Logan?”
Leo’s hand went to a comms device tucked in his ear. He murmured into it, his words too low for me to catch. Something that sounded like “Hades, Persephone is mobile.” He listened for a second, then looked back at me. “He’s in the garage. Gym area.”
Hades and Persephone. Really, Logan?
And of course he was in the gym. Probably punishing his injured leg. Trying to beat the demons out of his
system.
I nodded and pulled the door shut, turning to head down the hallway toward the stairs.
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I’d taken two steps when I heard their boots fall in behind me. I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. They stopped too. What was this, a Laurel and Hardy film?
“You guys need something?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual. It didn’t work.
Leo shifted his weight. The younger prospect looked at the floor. “Uh,” Leo said, not quite meeting my eyes. “We’re supposed to shadow you. Logan’s orders.”
The words sounded so ridiculous. *Shadow you*. I looked at them, these two kids tasked with being my keepers, and felt a hot flush of anger warring with a cold trickle of fear.
This was what I’d chosen. I’d stood my ground, and now I was an asset to be protected. A liability to be managed.
I shot them a look. “Shadow me? To the bathroom, too? You gonna hold my hand?”
The younger prospect actually blushed. Leo just looked uncomfortable. “Just… wherever you go inside the clubhouse. Until Logan says different.”
I huffed and continued down the hall. The sound of their footsteps followed me. A constant, unsettling reminder that my declaration of independence had somehow built an invisible cage around me.
Downstairs, the common room felt the same as it had last night. Heavy and hushed. The women were sipping coffee, clustered around two tables pushed together. A fortress of their own creation.
I made a beeline for my sister. “Abby,” I said, my voice low. “We need to talk. You seriously need to go home.”
It was a feeble effort, and we both knew it. Her eyes flickered with a mix of fear and defiance. Probably looked like the hazel version of my own. “There’s nothing to talk about, Hailey. I’m not leaving.”
“Abs, be reasonable. Your life, your job… it’s not here. This isn’t your mess.” I was gesturing vaguely at the room, at the armed guards, at the whole suffocating situation.
“It became my mess the second I walked through that door with you,” she shot back. “And it definitely became my mess last night.” She didn’t elaborate, but I watched a blush creep up her neck.
River. It was all about River. I brought her to the edge of this sea of chaos, and she’d waded right into it. Pussy–deep.
And I’d been too wrapped up in my own shit to notice. What a great, shining example of a big sister I was.
I was formulating what probably would’ve been a weak response, when Kayla spoke.
“We could have all been drinking coffee next to the ocean by now, Hailey.”
Her voice was quiet, but it cut through me like a shard of glass. She wasn’t even looking at me, she was staring into her mug. “We could’ve been safe. Now we’re just… sitting ducks.”
I stared at her. She was usually so gentle, so empathetic. Fear had whittled her down to a sharp point.
“It wasn’t just about you,” she continued, finally lifting her eyes. “It was a solution for all of us. A way to get
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Chapter 83
…
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the… the soft targets out of the line of fire. Now we’re all stuck here because you decided to play soldier.”
The accusation, the phrase “soft targets,” made me flinch. It was what Logan saw when he looked at me. What the Russians saw. It was the truth, and I hated it.
“I’m not playing anything,” I said, my voice tight. “They know my name, Kayla. Running away wouldn’t have made that disappear. It would’ve given them a moving target. But you ladies are welcome to leave without
me.”
A chair scraped back. Ruby stood up, cigarette dangling from her lips. “Christ, Kayla, give it a rest.” She blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, then fixed her eyes on me. A slow grin spread across her face.
“Personally, I think you’re such a fuckin‘ badass,” she said. She walked over and slung an arm around my shoulders. “It’s hard to even picture the girl you were when you first got here, hiding that big purple bruise around your throat.”
She reached out and tapped a finger against my neck, where Matt’s handprint had been when she met me. “And look at you now! Telling Prez and Talon to go fuck themselves? I wanna be you when I grow up.”
Her words were ridiculous, but they were a shield. She was reframing my stubbornness as strength. Drawing a line in the sand and standing on my side of it.
The bruised girl hiding in the bathroom felt a lot closer to the surface than any aspiring assassin. But under the weight of Ruby’s chaotic loyalty, I sort of did feel like a badass.
The gym area of the garage was crowded, full of shirtless club members. It smelled like gasoline and sweat.
A rhythmic thud echoed from the far corner, and I saw Logan before he saw me.
A shirtless silhouette against the grimy windows, hammering his fists and his bad leg into a heavy bag that swung on its chain like a hanged man.
A study in controlled rage.
Every movement was sharp and brutal. His injured leg was heavily wrapped, but I still cringed when he threw kicks with it. His face contorted in a grimace of pain that he seemed to feed on.
I stood twenty feet away, with Leo and his partner lingering behind me like awkward shadows. I willed them to stay back, and after a hesitant glance at each other, they did.
Even when I stepped closer, it took him a full minute to notice me. And he didn’t stop when he did.
His
eyes flicked toward me, then past me, scanning the doorway where the prospects stood, then roving over the other garage entrances – the main bay door, the side exit.
Only after that did his gaze settle back on me. He didn’t smile. He gave a short, sharp nod and delivered one final blow to the bag that made the chain shriek.
It swayed violently. He caught it with his body, his arms wrapping around it, his chest heaving.
He kept his eyes on me the whole time. “Ace,” he grunted. I barely heard it over the sight of his perfectly
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sculpted chest.
He reached for a towel, wiping the sweat from his face. And as he did that, he moved,
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He didn’t come to me. Instead, he moved past me, placing himself between me and the main door. It was subtle, instinctual. A predator guarding its mate.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked, walking slowly toward him.
“Didn’t try,” he muttered, his voice rough. His eyes were never still. They kept moving, checking the shadows in the corners, the windows high up on the walls. “Needed to think. Needed to hit somethin“”
I stopped a few feet from him, close enough to feel the heat rolling off his body. But the space between us felt huge.
He was here, but he was miles away, dragging the dead weight of duty and fear. He wasn’t pushing me away with words anymore. He was doing it with his entire being.
“The prospects outside the door were a nice touch… Hades,” I said, trying to inject some humor into my voice. It fell flat.
His jaw flexed. “Necessary.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder again, checking on Leo. “Until we know their next move. Until I know you’re secure.”
“I feel real secure,” I murmured. The words tasted like ash.
He looked at me, and for a split second, the operational focus cracked. I saw the raw worry beneath it, the depth of his fear for me. It was a black ocean.
“Good,” he rasped. “That’s the point.”
He finally reached out, but not to pull me close.
His hand, still wrapped in training wrap, came up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His touch was gentle, but his eyes were still looking over my shoulder.
It was the most intimate gesture he’d offered all morning, and it was performed with the distracted attention of a soldier on watch.
And that’s when it really sunk in. The true cost of my choice last night. I’d won the argument. I had refused to
be sent away.
But by winning, I’d fundamentally changed the terms of our relationship.
Chapter 84
Chapter 84
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.
