Chapter 127
-Logan-
My grip on Hailey’s hand was for my sake more than hers.
Es 50 vouchers
I pulled her through the main room. Every familiar face we passed was a potential threat. Every shadow was a hiding place.
The VP patch on my cut was dragging me through the mud of my own fucking failure.
I didn’t stop until we were back at the bar. I finally let go of her hand.
“Stay,” I growled. It wasn’t a request.
Her eyes were wide and a little scared. They flicked from my face to the room behind me. She nodded and wrapped her arms around herself.
Good. She’d listen this time.
I turned and found my father’s gaze already locked on me from across the room. He was standing outside his office speaking to Viktor, but he was watching me.
Viktor’s men were already here, and they stood out like sore thumbs.
Three of them were in Ledger’s tech nest. They weren’t in suits, but their cargo pants and tactical vests might as well have been.
Their movements were all precision. No wasted motion. No bullshitting. Their eyes were constantly moving. Cataloging exits, assessing threats, measuring the distance between points Aand B.
One of them, a guy with a neck thicker than my thigh, was handing Ledger a black leather case. Ledger took it from him like it was a holy relic,
These were his people, I supposed. Speakers of the same nonsense digital language.
Others were already integrating. Talking quietly with Monty and a few of the old heads.
It was weird having them here. It should’ve felt like an invasion. But it felt like relief.
I gave my mother and Trina a pointed look to assure they wouldn’t let Hailey out of their sight this time. Then I grabbed a ladder out of the supply closet and headed for the back alley.
The graffiti was still there. Obviously. Taunting the fuck out of me.
*ROUND AND ROUND IN CIRCLES.*
I set the ladder up directly under the camera mount. I didn’t have time for scaling walls right now.
I climbed, thinking hard about the arrogant little shit I was five years ago. I could almost taste the cheap beer. Feel the rebel itch that made me do it. A big fuck you to the constant surveillance.
I could’ve gotten my old lady killed.
The camera housing was rusty. I twisted it back with a grunt of effort. Eliminated the blind spot.
When I climbed down, my hands were shaking. I wiped them on my jeans. The guilt was eating at me. I’d pretty much handed Anatoly the key to our back door.
12:08 Tue, Feb 10 GTO
Chapter 127
And he probably didn’t even know about the blind spot. He just didn’t care.
I barked orders the rest of the afternoon. Paired prospects with embers, Sent teams out on overlapping routes, staggered departure times, varied return routes.
I wasn’t taking any chances.
Viktor’s men fell in seamlessly. I sent one of them up to the roof with Dex to map potential sightlines.
Between everything, my eyes kept finding her.
Hailey.
She was still at the bar, right where I left her, glued to the stool. She was talking to my mother, and she was… smiling.
It was a good performance. She looked engaged. But I saw the cracks. The smile was fake as hell. Her eyes kept darting to the doors, the windows, the ceiling.
She would laugh at something my mother said, but the sound would hit the air a beat too late. Like she had to remember how to do it.
She was trying so damn hard to look normal, but there was something going on with her.
I heard it rip through her last night. I felt the aftershocks. That terror didn’t just vanish. It festered.
–
And her trying to hide it from me — to protect me, or whatever the hell she thought she was doing — was driving me insane. She was keeping something locked down tight.
I wanted to shake her. I wanted to grab her and demand to know what was wrong. Tear down the wall she was building between us brick by fucking brick.
But I was the Vice President now. I had too much shit on my plate. I had a war to run.
So I watched her. I let the suspicion rot while I coordinated patrols and looked in on Ledger’s tech updates. The two most important things in my world were the club and her, and I was failing at protecting both.
The enemy was inside the walls, and my old lady was smiling like nothing was wrong. I couldn’t decide if it was more terrifying or infuriating.
After a while, I finally managed to get her upstairs. Away from the prying eyes. But the tension just followed us in and sat its ass down on the couch between us.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching her. She was straightening a stack of bike magazines on the coffee table like it fuckin mattered.
“You seem… good,” I said.
She didn’t look up. “Trying to be.”
“Yeah. You’re tryin‘ real hard, Ace.” I pushed off the counter and took a step into her orbit. “It’s a great performance. You had my mother convinced. Trina, too, I think.”
That got her to look up. “It’s not a performance. I’m just… dealing with it.”
“Dealin‘ with it.” I let out a short, harsh laugh. “You’re actin‘ fuckin weird, Hailey. What’s going on with you?”
She sat up straighter. “What do you want from me, Logan? You want me to curl up in a ball and sob? Would that make you feel better? Would it make you feel like you’re doing your job?”
9/4
66%
Chapter 127
“I want you to be fuckin‘ real with me!” The shout came out of me before I could stop it. “I want you to stop actin‘ like everything’s fine when it’s so goddamn far from fine I can’t even see fine from here,”
“I am being real!” she shot back.
She stood up to square off with me. “You’re the one who’s not being real. You and Talon and Ledger… you all know something you’re not telling me. Something bad. I can see it on our face. So don’t you dare stand there and accuse me of hiding things.”
She was right. She was so fucking right it made my teeth hurt.
“It’s club business,” I muttered. The weak, default defense of every Warrior who didn’t want to scare his woman.
“Bullshit!” The word cracked out of her. “I am club business, Logan! My face is probably on a poster in Anatoly’s office! My sister’s name is in a file somewhere! So don’t you dare ‘club business‘ me. What did
you
find out?”
Fuck. That made me sick to my
stomach.
The fight drained out of me. She was right. Again. I couldn’t keep her out of it… not all of it. She deserved that much.
I ran my hands through my hair and started to pace. Back and forth across the living room.
“Alright. Fine. You wanna know?” I stopped and looked at her, my chest heaving. “We saw them. Two of them. No faces. They hopped the fence like it was nothing and walked right into our blind spot. My blind spot.”
I started pacing again. “They were in it for two minutes and fourteen seconds. Two minutes, Hailey. While we were sleeping. Then they just… walked away. Like takin‘ a Sunday stroll.”
I stopped and faced her again, lowering my voice. “The window was locked. I checked it myself this morning. So they
probably didn’t get in here. But I don’t know what they did. I don’t kno, if they planted a bomb. If they poisoned the water
supply. If they just stood there and fucking laughed at us.
“All we got was that stupid fucking message on the wall. And it’s drivin‘ me insane. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I feel like I’m losin‘ my goddamn mind. And then I’ve got you over here sneakin‘ upstairs with your girlfriends and doing who the fuck knows what, lying to me, putting on a show for everyone…”
There it was. I laid it all out in front of her. I showed her the wound. I waited for her to recoil. To finally show the terror that was eating at her.
She didn’t panic though. She didn’t cry. She just… sat.
Slowly, like her legs wouldn’t support her anymore. She sank back onto the couch, and her hands came up to cover her face. But there was that delay again. The half–second where her brain had obviously processed my words and formulated a response. She was still playing me.
“Oh my god, Logan,” she breathed. The words were muffled by her hands. “That’s… that’s…”
“I know what it is,” I said.
She dropped her hands. “If the window was locked… if they didn’t come in here… maybe they anyone… did anyone check the roof yet?”
went up?
On the roof? Did
The question was so reasonable. So logical. And that’s why it felt like a lie.
“Course we checked the roof,” I said, a fresh wave of frustration making my temples throb. “Dex and one of Viktor’s guys were up there for hours this morning.”
“But… you should look again,” she insisted. “Yourself. You have the best eyes. Maybe they missed something. A loose tile. A
D0%
Chapter 127
wire. Something”
She was ushering me toward the door. The thought broke through my frustration. She wanted me out of here.
“Yeah.” I said slowly, my eyes narrowing on her. “Maybe I should I took a step toward her and held out my hand. “C’mon. You’re comin‘ with me. I’m not leavin‘ you here alone.”
She sighed. Grabbed my hand.
And then I heard a low, muffled buzz. We both did.
It didn’t come from my pocket. It came from hers.
Every ounce of color drained from her face. Her body went rigid Her eyes, which had been fixed on mine, glassed over for a second, staring at nothing.
She didn’t move. She didn’t even twitch toward the phone. She just stood there, frozen solid.
With a silent, screaming terror in her eyes that she was
trying desperately to cover up.
I dropped her hand.
She knew. She knew exactly what that was.
The two minutes on the tape. The cryptic message on the wall. Her forced calm. Her desperate suggestion to get me out of
this room.
It all clicked into place with a heavy thud.
He wasn’t just in our alley. He was in her fucking pocket.
AD
Comment
Send gift
No Ads
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.
