Chapter 124
Chapter 124
-Logan-
Viktor’s low, rumbling voice broke the silence, dragging me out of my personal spiraling hell.
“This place is compromised. The scent of the enemy is on the wind here. You cannot keep your women here.
I opened my eyes.
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He was still by the window, but now he was looking at Talon. “My compound is a fortress. High walls. Proper surveillance. Professional protection. You are all welcome. It is neutral ground He would not expect it.”
The offer was a lifeline. A retreat. It tasted like defeat.
Before Talon could respond, Ledger chimed in. Full of a techie’s possessiveness. “We’ve got our own compound, Viktor. You know that. Out past the county line. Isolated. Fully prepped for a situation like this.”
He looked from Viktor to Talon to me. His loyalty to the club’s infrastructure was obviously warring with the logic of Viktor’s offer. “It’s our turf. We know the land.”
Talon finally spoke. “Moving people is a risk. A big one. If he’s got eyes everywhere like we think, a convoy of vehicles leaving town? That’s a target. We’d be exposed. It’d be like herding sheep straight into a wolf’s mouth.”
He shook his head. “I’m not rolling the dice with my family’s lives on
the open
road.”
The logic was right. It was the same fear crawling around in my own gut.
The image of Hailey in a car, windows down, with a sniper’s crosshair centered on her temple.
But then the thought of staying here… feeling like rats in a trap.
“So we dig in,” I said, sinking back into my chair. “We fortify this place until it’s a goddamn bunker.”
Viktor
gave me a slow nod. “A middle ground. I can provide men Experienced men. To augment your patrols. To watch the watchers.”
His icy eyes shifted to Ledger. “And I have technicians. They can help you enhance the systems. Patch the holes.”
I saw the conflict on Ledger’s face. He didn’t like the idea of outsiders, especially Russians, putting their grubby hands on his meticulously built network. It was his baby.
But he was a pragmatist at heart. He swallowed hard. “He’s right. We’re stretched thin. And if they’re as good as he says… we could use the help. We could set up a secondary monitoring station. Redundancies.”
Talon considered this as his eyes swept over the three of us. The new president weighing his options.
The cowardly retreat. The dangerous stand. Or the fortified defense with the help of an old, dangerous friend. The muscles in his jaw worked.
“Alright,” he said finally. “We stay. Viktor, I accept your offer of men. Ledger, you’ll coordinate with his people. I want this place locked down so tight a fuckin‘ mouse can’t fart without us knowing about it. Like I thought it already was.”
His eyes
landed on me, hard and sharp. “Logan. You’re joining me on the patrol rotations. We double the shifts. Only a few people sleeping at a time.”
It was a plan. A direction. It should’ve felt like progress.
09:58 Mon, Feb 9
Chapter 124
But as I nodded my agreement, all I could think was that we were still just reacting. Playing defense. We were building higher walls, but the enemy was already inside them.
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Leaving the office felt like breaking the surface after being underwater too long. I took a deep breath, and my eyes scanned the room immediately, automatically. Looking for the one shape that could quell the rage in me.
The bar was there, Trina, Laura, Becky, and Kayla were clustered there. But the other stools were empty.
No Hailey. No Scarlett. No Ruby, Abby, or Stella.
Whatever calm I was building shattered. The storm in my head come roaring back twice as loud. My pulse kicked up.
I crossed the room in a few long strides, my feet hitting the floor too hard. The few brothers scattered around looked up when they sensed the shift in my energy.
I stopped in front of the bar, gripping the edge of it to keep myself from putting a fist through it. I tried to keep my voice level, but it came out strained. “Where are they?”
My mother looked up at me with concern. Trina’s sharp eyes assessed me, reading the tension in my shoulders, the white- knuckled grip on the bar.
“Who, honey?” Laura asked, like she didn’t know.
“Hailey. And the others. I left her with you, Mother.” I gestured wildly at the empty space around them.
Trina answered too calmly. Fuckin nonchalant. “They went upstairs. Said they needed to get something. We figured it would be alright, since she wasn’t going alone.”
A cold dread – icier than anything I felt in the office window that looked out on the violated alley.
“When?” I barked.
crept over me. Upstairs. To the apartment. To the room with the
“Just a few minutes ago,” Laura said. There was a hint of worry in her voice now. “Logan, what’s wrong?” Everything. Everything was wrong. I left her for twenty minutes and she walked straight back into the lion’s den.
My brain conjured images of those hooded figures waiting in the hallway. A door being kicked in. A silenced shot.
Anatoly’s game wasn’t only about taunting me… it was about misdirection. Get me focused on cameras and blind spots while his people moved in.
To take everything from me.
I forced myself to unclench my hands from the bar. Take a breath that didn’t feel like it contained enough oxygen.
Yelling at my mother and my aunt wouldn’t help. They hadn’t seen the footage. They didn’t know the level of violation we were dealing with.
“Nothing,” I lied. “It’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine. Nowhere was fine.
I turned away from their worried faces without another word and headed for the stairs. Took them two at a time, despite the throbbing in my leg.
09:58 Mon, Feb 9
Chapter 125
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.
