Chapter 120
Logan-
The sun felt like an interrogation lamp. It beat down on my back while a fake smile itched at the corners of my mouth.
I was a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing a gray sweatshirt with the hood up, a baseball cap with the brim pulled low, and a pair of dark sunglasses. My effort to blend into the crowd was probably making me look like a fucking kiddie toucher.
But I wasn’t about to bring anyone here with me. Especially not Bailey.
I leaned back on the metal bench I was sitting on and tried to scan the crowd, I was wearing an earpiece. A direct line to the five ghosts Viktor had sent.
They were better at this than I was. Blending. Becoming part of the scenery.
One of them pushed a wide broom across the paved path twenty yards away. He wore the same drab green uniform as the others. A matching bucket hat. His shoulders were too massive for the role. The fabric of his shirt was pulled tight across his back.
He wasn’t really sweeping… he was scanning. Cataloging every person on the benches, every parent pushing a stroller.
Another one was methodically emptying trash cans into a big bin on wheels.
A third one was on his knees next to an empty bench, scraping gum off the bottom of it with a putty knife.
It was absurd. These men could kill a guy, dismantle the body in minutes and make it disappear without a trace.
And they were pretending to give a fuck about municipal cleanliness.
“North quadrant clear. No visual.” A heavy, accented voice in my ear. It belonged to the gum–scraper. Static crackled softly.
“West perimeter negative.” The sweeper. His voice was colder.
They reported in a rotating cadence. Every minute or two, another voice would come through with a nothing update.
Every ‘negative‘ was picking at my already frayed patience. This was stupid. Anatoly was probably miles away, laughing his ass off in some air–conditioned office. Watching this bullshit on a live feed.
A toddler wobbled past me, chasing a ball. His mother shot me a quick, assessing glance and clearly didn’t like what she saw.
I forced my shoulders to slump, tried to look bored and harmless. It felt like a disloyalty to my entire existence. I was a Glock sitting in a toy box.
The carousel music started up again. A metallic, looping melody that felt like it was drilling into my skull. Round and round it went. The painted horses galloped in circles. Their smiles were mocking me.
“South side nothing.”
“East gate all quiet.”
Ledger’s voice cut through, a little clearer, from wherever his tech nest was set up. “Signal’s still strong, boys. It’s there. Hasn’t moved an inch. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Eyes are fuckin‘ peeled,” I muttered under my breath. The words got lost in the general noise of the park.
My eyes were dry from staring. Trying to see the threat in every smiling face, the hidden weapon in every diaper bag. This wasn’t a battlefield I understood. There were too many variables too many innocent pieces on the board.
This was Anatoly’s genius. His cruelty at work.
I watched a father in his lule girl onto one of the carousel horses. She squealed with delight. How the hell had my life led me here? I was the Vice President of the Warriors MC, and my domain had been reduced to this patch of manicured hell.
The reports kept coming. Wearing the hell out of my patience. I was about to tell them all to pack it in, that this was a goddamn waste of time, when a tiny glare caught the edge of my peripheral.
It was there and gone. Something circling on the carousel.
I blinked. A reflection off a watch? A piece of jewelry? It was too sharp. The carousel spun, full of laughing children. I tracked it, waiting for that particular horse to come back around and trying not to look like I was watching the kids.
There. Again. A quick silver flash, like a wink, from the neck of a white horse. It was there for a fraction of a second as it passed through a beam of sunlight.
All the fake relaxation drained away. The frustration was gone, replaced by razor–sharp focus. The world narrowed to that horse.
“Talk to me, Ledger,” I murmured. My hand came up to pretend to scratch my chin, covering my mouth. “Does the signal…. move with the carousel?”
I heard the click of keys. “Shit. Yeah. Yeah, it does. A circular pattern. Faint, but it’s there. I thought it was just signal bounce…”
It wasn’t bounce. It was on the fucking ride.
It felt like the music was getting louder. The white horse was directly opposite me now. I had to wait for it to come back around. I held my breath, counting the seconds.
This was it. He’d left it right out in the open, in the last place we think to look for a smoking gun. A place we’d be reluctant
to storm.
The horse came back into the sliver of sun, and there it was. Taped to the outside of the horse’s neck, just under the reins. A phone.
The sun hit the edge of the screen, creating that flare. Taunting me.
The carousel started to slow down. The music wound down with a dying wheeze. The ride was ending. This was my
A fresh wave of self, ess hit me.
A grown man walking toward a kid’s ride as it empties.
a
window.
I shoved it down and started walking. A dad heading to collect his kid. I weaved through the crowd of parents. My focus was locked on that white horse.
A girl was still sitting on it, laughing as her mother tried to unbuckle the safety belt. “Time to go, sweetie,” the woman was saying.
I forced myself to stop a few feet away, shoving my hands back in my pockets, trying to look like I was waiting my turn.
The second the little girl’s feet touched the ground, I closed the distance. The phone was attached to the horse with a piece of duct tape. I scratched at an edge with my thumb nail.
I could feel the eyes of the carousel operator on me. A bored–looking teenager. The tape ripped off and it felt obscenely loud.
I turned my back to the crowd and thumbed the power button.
The screen flickered to life. Twelve percent battery.
There was no lock screen… it went straight to the home page. And the wallpaper photo sucked all the air out of me,
It was our wall. The red brick of the clubhouse, in the back alley beneath the fire escape.
My fire escape. The one outside the window of my apartment.
%
It was a violation. A cold knife sliding between my ribs. He had been there. Or he sent someone. And they stood in that alley and looked up at where Hailey and I slept.
But it was the graffiti that stopped my heart. Spray–painted on the brick in a black scrawl.
ROUND AND ROUND IN CIRCLES.
My vision started to go staticky. I needed to put my fist through something. I needed to get back to the clubhouse. To Hailey.
The taunt was a masterpiece of cruelty. The carousel. The phone going round and round.
Me, running in circles, chasing my tail. While he was already planted right at the heart of everything I was supposed to protect.
He wasn’t just telling me he’d been there… evaded our patrols. He was laughing at me for not noticing.
Cheerful screams from the playground behind me. The sound of my own failure. I had a vision of Anatoly himself holding the can of spray paint. Expensive shoes crunching on the cracked pavement, eyes full of amusement.
It took everything in me not to smash the phone against the sidewalk.
My thumb found the button again and killed the screen. The image disappeared, but it was burned onto the back of my
eyes.
I turned, scanning the park, but now I wasn’t looking for a target. I was looking for eyes that might be watching me see it. Every face seemed suspicious.
My voice was low. “Got it. It’s done.”
A beat of dead air, then Viktor’s voice came through. “Was there a message?”
“OH yeah.” I started walking, cutting across the grass. Putting distance between myself and the carousel, the families, the illusion of safety. “Pull everyone out. We’re done here.”
The game had changed. The enemy was already inside our walls,
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.
