by Lori Ryan
“I need you to do this, Sam. Please.”
She nodded, but he saw she was fighting back tears.
“I’m fine, Sam,” he said despite the fact he was anything but. He was so far from okay, he didn’t think there was any coming back this time. Not now. “I’m fine.”
He said it again as the federal agents now lifted him from where he’d been sitting and began to escort him from the room. Logan knew how this would go. When you’re taken away by these guys, you don’t go down to the local precinct. You’re taken to an “undisclosed location.”
He heard Sam call out one more time to him. “I’ll call Jack and have him get you a lawyer, Logan.”
He nodded even though she couldn’t see him any longer. A lawyer would be good.
Chapter 16
“Oh, shit,” Peter said, looking up from his computer.
Diya had been raging around the house, becoming more and more ticked off. There had been no contact from the men Yoshi had hired to bring Samantha Page to her.
For two days they’d been waiting. They couldn’t risk trying to contact them in case the police had caught them and had the burner phones they’d been using.
So she’d been stewing and waiting for word. She was about ready to send Yoshi to New Haven.
She turned to Peter, raising a brow with a look that should tell him to blurt out whatever it was he’d found, instead of just swearing at her.
“Oh, I uh … sorry. It’s just that I saw a live news feed. Apparently the men you sent were, uh, well it looks like they were taken out by a guy.”
“A guy?” Diya asked, her tone sharpening as Yoshi entered the room, standing beside her.
Peter squirmed in his chair. She valued him for his hacking skills, but his weak temperament grated on her nerves.
“Just say whatever it is, Peter. I don’t need to play guessing games with you.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s uh, the state’s attorney or something. Eric Westbrook, the news says. He’s holding a press conference. He’s calling Logan Stone a vigilante. Said he killed three men instead of calling the police or simply disabling the men. Apparently, the Feds took over the case and they let Stone go once they discovered who the guys were. The Feds said the men presented a clear and present danger to Ms. Page and they saw no grounds to hold Logan. Westbrook is up in arms about states’ rights and the federal government making decisions that should be made on a state level. Um, he says the Feds let that man go up in New Hampshire recently and he—”
He stopped talking when Diya threw her glass across the room.
“Damn it!”
Peter cleared his throat again, but didn’t say anything.
Diya had something to say, though. “She’s probably crawling with body guards now. No way for us to get to her now that those idiots screwed this up.”
Yoshi spoke from beside her. “It’s Stone again. Always—”
“No!” Diya cut him off and then raised a hand to her forehead and pressed shaking fingers against it, taking a deep breath.
Her father had given her so much. He’d done everything to make sure she had a good life. Her mother surrounded her with love her whole life. They’d tried to do the same for her younger brothers, but Logan Stone cut their lives short in a brutally cruel fashion. She couldn’t allow Logan Stone to continue to live his life without a care, while her family would never take a breath again.
“No,” she said more calmly, getting herself under control. “It was those men. They weren’t good enough. That much is obvious if Stone was able to take them down single-handedly. Now they’ve screwed up our shot to get to her. Stone won’t let anyone near her for a long time.”
She sat in the chair at her desk and tapped her nails on the surface. “We need to do better. We need to take care of this ourselves, Yoshi,” she said, turning to her cousin. His dark eyes met hers and he nodded. “We’re going to head to New Haven so we’re ready as soon as they let their guard down.”
“Peter,” she said, turning once again to the man sitting, as always, in front of a laptop. “Tell me what you’ve found on Samantha Page. Is she that hacker you thought she might be?”
“I don’t have any solid proof, but I did manage to connect a few dots. Hackers all leave a certain signature in their style. It’s possible BillieBurke and blu33y3dphr3nd are the same person. Their styles aren’t the same, but it’s possible she was purposely trying to throw people off with the blu33y3dphr3nd identity. If she’s as good as they say she is, she’d be careful to make sure the signatures are distinct.”
Diya nodded and he continued.
“I talked to a friend of mine who’s hacked into some of the files the FBI has on work BillieBurke has done. They don’t name her identity, or even confirm if she’s a man or woman, but I got a list of the jobs she’s done.”
He stopped and glanced up to see if Diya was listening. She made a gesturing motion with her hand to get him to continue. For a smart man, he could be an idiot sometimes.
“Oh, so, anyway,” he said, ducking his head and looking back at the computer screen, “it turns out BillieBurke was involved in bringing down this guy, Lazarus Alonzo. Well, she didn’t actually bring him down. She shut down large portions of his human trafficking ring and helped release a lot of the women. When the FBI couldn’t actually track him down, people say she managed to drain a huge portion of his money from his accounts. Rumor has it she pretty much crippled him and sent him on the run. He’s still out there, but he hasn’t been able to rebuild his empire.”
He stopped talking again and Diya rolled her eyes. “Tell me why I care about any of this.”
“Well, because Samantha Page works for Jack Sutton and Jack Sutton’s wife was one of the women kidnapped by Alonzo’s ring. Can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
He couldn’t have just said this to begin with?
Diya shook her head, slowly. “No, it can’t be, but we need to figure out if that knowledge helps us at all. Yoshi, that name—Alonzo—that’s familiar to me. Why do I know it?”
Yoshi shrugged and shook his head.
“I thought so, too.” Peter smiled smugly and began his incessant tap-tapping on his keyboard, before popping his head up again. “He’s in your dad’s database. Well, your database, but what I mean is, he was in your dad’s journals. He’s got all kinds of info on him. They did business from time to time.”
Diya stared off into the distance. Peter jiggled his foot back and forth, tapping the leg of the table he sat at, over and over. Diya stopped her thinking to glare at him. His leg stilled. She returned to her thoughts. It was moments later that it dawned on her. They could play the Alonzo connection to their advantage.
“Do you think it’s possible to track down Alonzo?”
“Yeah, sure,” Peter said with a nod. “There are code words here he and your dad used to get in touch. Post something in one or two chat rooms of a certain nature with those words, and he should get in touch.”
“What are you thinking, cousin?” Yoshi asked.
“If we can lure Alonzo somewhere and set it up so the trail of this last attack points to him, Logan will either kill him or capture him. I don’t really care which one it is. If Peter can make it look like those men were sent by Alonzo, Logan will relax his security, and we can go after Samantha ourselves this time.”
Yoshi looked at Peter. “Can you do that?”
“Sure, that’s easy. Some emails and phone calls. Maybe some money transfers from Alonzo to one of the mercenaries, and we’ll be set. I already erased all evidence of any connection that could lead them back to us. Setting it up to look like him is simple, really.”
Diya nodded. “Get started on it.”
Yoshi shook his head, though. “I don’t understand how you’ll get Alonzo to go after her?”
Diya smiled. “I don’t even need to have him go after her. I just need him in the vicinity. The man is on the run with no money. I’ll simply reach out to him and let him know we ha
ve a mutual enemy and I want to pay to have her taken out. He’ll do it for the vengeance and the cash, I’m sure. Peter, reach out to him online but include the word “daughter” with the code words so he realizes it’s me and not someone trying to impersonate my father. Most likely, he knows my father was murdered and might not answer if he has reason to be suspicious.”
Peter nodded but didn’t look up from the keyboard as he typed. He seemed to be in the zone now that she’d let him loose.
Diya just hoped it worked. They needed to find a way to get to Samantha Page if she was going to get the revenge her family deserved.
Chapter 17
Logan looked down at the caller ID and refused the call again. Ernie had been trying to reach him for the last two days. He knew Ernie wanted to help, but Logan was beyond help now. He needed to see Sam safely through whatever the hell was going on and then he had to take himself far away from her. Her and everyone else.
He hadn’t quite figured out where he would go, but he was leaning toward a cabin deep in the mountains somewhere, at this point. Some place where it was just him and a case of Jack Daniels. Somewhere isolated where he couldn’t do any more damage. Because now he knew he was a danger to everyone around him. He didn’t care that the ATF had let him go after they realized the men he’d killed were hired guns, wanted in several countries.
Logan knew the truth. The minute he’d heard the alarm and known Sam was in trouble, he hadn’t given any thought to taking those guys out without deadly force. He hadn’t entertained a thought in the world for securing them until the police arrived.
He’d gone flat out to protect what was his, by any means necessary. The result had left three men dead. Sure, they weren’t good men by any stretch of the imagination, but that wasn’t what mattered.
Jack hired a lawyer to handle things for him. Monique Cain had been waiting with Jack and Sam at Logan’s house when the ATF released him. Apparently, when the Feds take you to an undisclosed location, they really mean undisclosed. Monique had been trying to pull strings and locate him when he pulled up.
Jack introduced the tougher-than-nails-looking woman in a no-nonsense suit. Logan had thanked her, but told her the Feds decided not to pursue charges, given the firepower the men were handling, the all-out attack on Samantha, and the men’s identities as wanted mercenaries.
Monique smiled just as politely and outlined the actions Eric Westbrook—a man with a political agenda a mile long, according to her—was taking.
Sure enough, the man had called a press conference today saying he was “looking into” bringing charges against Logan. Apparently, Westbrook planned to run for governor and he wanted to run on a campaign of states’ rights. When the FBI released a man in New Hampshire recently, over objections from state law enforcement, the man had gone on to kill three women before being caught. Westbrook was playing on that tragedy to form the cornerstone of his campaign.
Monique was sure the man’s tactic would backfire, since he was now going after a veteran of the armed forces, but Logan didn’t care about any of that. They could do whatever they wanted to him. Just as long as he could keep Sam safe. That’s all he cared about now.
So Logan sat in his car two rows down from Samantha’s place in her town house community. It was as close as he was willing to put himself to her, but also as far away as he was willing to go.
Despite that her family had been with her until this morning, and Chad and Zach were inside with her 24/7 right now, Logan needed eyes on her—or at least her house—himself. He watched as reporters stood outside, waiting to catch sight of her and hound her again.
The alert on his phone sounded, indicating Ernie had left him a message. Again.
Logan ignored it. Again.
What the hell?
Logan sat up and watched as the front door to Sam’s place opened and she came out, flanked on either side by Chad and Zach. The men scanned the area, as did Logan before letting his eyes come back to Sam. She raised a hand and said something to the reporters before handing them each what appeared to be some papers. Then she turned and walked straight for him.
Oh, what the hell are you doing, Sam?
Logan wanted to start the car and drive away. He needed to keep his distance from Sam, but hell if he could actually bring himself to turn the key and go. Chad and Zach stayed with her step-for-step, keeping the reporters mostly in check as they called out questions to her. To Sam’s credit, she looked straight ahead and kept moving. Apparently, she’d made her statement and she was finished.
Logan gripped the steering wheel as she opened the passenger door and slipped inside. Chad and Zach stood on either side of the car, keeping the press away from the doors, but cameras went off outside the windows, and Logan felt he had no choice but to start the car and pull away.
“What the hell are you doing, Sam?” He didn’t look at her and the words sounded strained, as though shoved through clenched teeth. He tried to loosen his jaw, to no avail. He was wired too tight right now. “What did you just give them?”
“Photos of my injuries and a statement about the attack,” she said so calmly he wanted to scream. She went on before he could respond. “I need you to come inside with me, Logan,” she said, looking back at her town house as he pulled out of the lot.
“That’s not gonna happen.” Logan glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that a few of the reporters were following. Others pulled out and went in the opposite direction, perhaps to act on whatever Sam had just given them.
“Why not?”
“I’m not coming in, Sam. Chad and Zach are perfectly capable of taking care of you. Although, I’m sure they’d prefer it if you didn’t run them all over town,” he said with a pointed look in the rearview mirror to where the two men were slipping in and out of traffic on the Merritt Parkway to get around the press and stay with Sam.
“I love Chad and Zach, and having them at the house helps, but I need you there.”
Logan glanced her way but brought his eyes back around to the road quickly.
“No, you don’t, Sam. I’m gonna circle back and you’re going to wait for Zach and Chad to get in place and then head back inside with them. Until we figure out who this is that’s coming after you, you’re going to stay inside with them.”
“Not going to happen, Logan.”
He struck the edge of the steering wheel with a hell of a lot more force than he intended to and probably put more bite in his words than he should. “Damn it, Sam! Stop fucking around. This isn’t a joke. Whoever sent those men, they mean business. Those guys weren’t carrying water guns and they sure as hell weren’t going to ask you nicely to come along with them.”
She flinched, but collected herself again quickly. “I’m not going back inside without you, Logan.”
There was a force behind her words. A strength he hadn’t expected, but that he respected the hell out of. It didn’t mean he’d let her convince him to stay. He wasn’t what she needed in her life. He wasn’t what any of them needed.
It had been an amazing thing for Jack to do. Giving him a job when he needed it. Getting him a lawyer. All of it had been more than he had a right to ask of anyone. But he couldn’t stay here now that he knew how dangerous he was. He’d settle this for Sam and then he needed to get the hell out of here.
“I can’t sleep, Logan,” she said quietly.
So quietly, he had to stay completely still and focused to hear her next words.
“I need you in there with me. I need to know you’re watching so I can sleep.”
Hell.
He didn’t say anything. What could he say? Or do, for that matter? She was wrong. That was clear. She was wrong if she thought being around him was safe.
“Besides,” she said with a little more force, “I know who was behind the attack.”
“Excuse me?” Logan bit out as he gripped the wheel to keep the car from swerving. That one had taken him off guard.
She turned in her seat to face him more f
ully, drawing one leg up under her. “I know who it was who hired those men. If you come inside, if you stay with me, I’ll tell you, so you can end this.”
Damn.
Logan took a few deep breaths, and then turned the wheel to head back toward her town house.
“Chad and Zach stay with us.” He needed to know he’d have backup and, more importantly, two people who could keep him from going over the edge. Chad and Zach could do that.
“Fine,” she said, nodding.
Chapter 18
Samantha watched as Logan, Chad, and Zach checked the house again after getting her past the reporters. The pictures and statement she’d given the reporters should have given them something to work on for a while, but a few of them had followed her and Logan.
They tried to ask her more questions before the guys got her back in the house, but she didn’t have anything more to say.
After seeing Westbrook’s press conference earlier in the day, Samantha had made up her mind to speak up. The man had some nerve painting Logan as a crazed vigilante who was making the streets of New Haven unsafe.
Logan had saved her. Of that, she had absolutely no doubt. Those men would have eventually killed her, but she’d seen the look in their eyes. They would have done a lot more to her first.
Though she’d fought, kicking and screaming and lashing out as hard and as fast as she could, she was not even remotely a match for any of them. Let alone all three.
So, she had walked out to the press and handed them photos of her wounds, and of the handprint bruises that marked her neck. She called her parents and siblings first and warned them her injuries were about to be made public.
Her mother had seen the large half-moons carved into the curve of each breast with that sick bastard’s knife, but her father and siblings hadn’t. She had covered herself before they arrived at the hospital and they’d left the room while the doctor had stitched her up.
