Saving Jade: Stormborn Security Services

by Ava Bloom

  When he continued staring at me, confused, I sighed and explained. “I fired you because you made me mad, but I never exactly explained that to my father.”

  “So, I’m still getting paid?” he asked, wincing. “For this.”

  I rolled over and buried my face in my hands, trying to escape the awkwardness of realizing Logan was basically a prostitute selected for me by my father. “Not this exactly, but yeah, you are still an employee of my father’s.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  I jerked my head up, looking at him like he was crazy. “How?”

  He leaned towards me and pressed a kiss to my lips. “You liked me too much to tell your father to fire me. You knew you’d forgive me.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes and disagree, but I couldn’t. As soon as I told my father he needed to fire Logan, I knew it would be over. It would ruin my father’s good opinion of him, and make apologizing to him even more difficult. So, I’d put it off, hoping we would work things out. And we had. Though, maybe we’d worked them out a little more intensely than I’d planned. I hadn’t expected us to transition immediately from a fight into fucking.

  “I should probably quit, though.” Logan rolled onto his back and folded his hands behind his head. Unable to resist, I curled into his side and laid my head on his chest.

  “You think so?”

  I felt him nod. “If this is going to be something, then I can’t work for you or be paid by your father. It makes things complicated.”

  “Is this going to be something?” I asked, too nervous to look up at him.

  He was quiet for a few seconds, and I wanted to melt into the mattress. Finally, he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “That is up to you. I want it to be something. Specifically, I want it to be a relationship. But that obviously requires consent from both parties, and—”

  “You’re rambling,” I said, unable to hide my amusement. “You never ramble.”

  He groaned. “I don’t normally pour my heart out, either. You should feel very lucky.”

  I looked up at him, at his grass green eyes looking down at me, and I lose control. I slid my knee across his legs, straddling him. “Oh I feel, very lucky.”

  Instantly, Logan’s hands went to my hips. “So do I,” he breathed.

  I’d never actually been with a man who was capable of a round two, but based on what I felt against my leg, he was more than capable. He was ready.

  I had just wrapped my hand around his length when my phone began to buzz on the night stand. Logan groaned as I reached for it.

  “Sorry.” And I truly was. “No one calls me this late. I have to at least see if it is—”

  It was Faith.

  “Hello?” My heart was in my throat, and the word came out strained. “Are you okay?”

  Logan sat up, brows pulled together. He glanced towards where his pants were laying on the floor, and I knew he was thinking about his gun.

  “Am I okay?” she asked, half-hysterical. “Are you okay? There is a board over your window and glass all over the sidewalk. Where are you?”

  I had a sigh of relief and laid a hand on his chest, nodding that everything was okay. He sagged back into the bed. We both deserved a good night of sleep. After we finished what we were doing before the call, of course.

  “I should have called you,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m safe. I’m at home.”

  “What happened?” Faith sounded on the verge of tears.

  “I’m not exactly sure. Someone broke in, but Logan chased them away.”

  “Logan? I thought you fired him.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said, fighting giggles as Logan tickled a finger over my hip and down between my legs.

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “No.” It was the only answer I was capable of as Logan brushed a finger around my center. “I actually have to go, I’m kind of—"

  “Jade.” Faith’s voice was harsh and serious. “Are you sure you didn’t catch a glimpse of who it was?”

  I reached down and stilled Logan’s hand. I needed my full faculties about me. He pouted until he saw my face, and then he sat up, once again alert at the drop of a hat.

  “I’m sure. Why are you asking?”

  “Oh, um,” Faith stumbled. “I’m just wondering if it could be the same men who attacked you, you know. Or the men who robbed me.”

  “It might be,” I admitted. “But I didn’t get a good look.”

  “You should be careful,” she said. “Maybe avoid the studio for a few days and lock your doors.”

  “I have Logan with me, I’ll be fine,” I said, realizing only after I’d said it what it implied. Faith would know we were sleeping together. Or, at the very least, that we were spending time alone together very late at night.

  “Good. Keep him around,” Faith said, not pausing to tease me about my admission. “I just had to call and make sure you were safe.”

  “That is nice of you. Thank you.” I was glad Faith called, even though she’d interrupted me in the middle of something I was very much looking forward to. It felt good to know I had friends who cared. Except, something about Faith’s called was nagging at me. She sounded strange. Tense.

  My imagination roared to life, imagining Faith captured by my attackers and being held hostage, forced to call me and figure out where I was and who I was with. I knew it was absurd, but the image stuck in my brain and refused to leave.

  “Are you okay?” I asked again, repeating the first thing I’d said upon answering the phone. “You sound strange.”

  “I’m fine. Just worried about you.”

  “Okay,” I said, not completely convinced. “You are a good friend.”

  This time, the pause on the other end of the line was deafening. Something was wrong.

  “Tell me,” I said, sitting up and grabbing the sheet to wrap around my body. “Whatever is wrong, tell me.”

  I could hear Faith crying on the other end of the phone, and I reached out and wrapped my hand around Logan’s wrist. Whatever she was about to say, I knew I would need him there to help me through it. If my being so flippant about my attackers had in any way caused Faith harm, I would never forgive myself. Ever. I knew I should have called the police after her store was robbed. Even if she didn’t want to talk to the officers, I should have forced her to file a report. I don’t know what good it would have done, but maybe it would have kept her safe.

  “Faith, tell me,” I pleaded.

  Finally, she began to speak, her voice little more than a rasp. “I’m a terrible friend, Jade. I’m not a friend at all.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker. Logan stared into my eyes as Jade continued.

  “I never meant for you to get hurt or for things to get so out of control,” she said through sobs. “I thought the first attack would do the trick, and you’d leave. But you seemed so fine afterwards, almost like nothing had happened. I just wanted them to scare you.”

  Logan’s eyes were icy and wide, and I felt like the entire room was disappearing. Like I was no longer rooted to the Earth. Like someone had turned off the gravity, and if I didn’t keep hold of Logan, I was going to float away.

  “What do you mean?” I said between clenched teeth.

  Faith sobbed, and I no longer felt pity for her. She had done something terrible, and I knew she deserved to be crying.

  “I hired your attackers,” she finally said. “I hired them to scare you.”

  “Why?” I barked. My blood had been replaced with fire.

  “To get your studio space.” Faith sobbed. “It sounds so stupid now. But I wanted to expand the shop, and I didn’t have the money to find a new location, but I could afford to expand. If your studio space opened up, I could have knocked down the wall and used it as a kitchen and dining space. I was going to have a bigger menu and more tables. It would be huge for the shop.”

  “So, you were going to have me killed?” It was good we were doing this over the phone becaus
e if Faith had been standing in front of me, I would have hauled off and punched her in the nose.

  “No,” she said quickly. “No. But I thought if you got scared. If you thought you weren’t safe, you’d leave the studio space. Your father has more than enough money to buy you a new one, so I didn’t think your studio would mean more to you than your own safety.”

  “My father didn’t buy me that space,” I snapped, looking up at Logan and realizing immediately where he’d heard that particular rumor. Was Faith my friend at all? I’d thought we were close, but apparently she was running around telling men I liked that my daddy paid my way in life and was hiring other men to almost rape me in alleys.

  “I didn’t know,” she cried. “I thought you’d get scared off, and I could buy the space. But when it didn’t work, I sent the note.”

  “And when that didn’t work, you decided to have them attack me again.” I was shaking, my entire body trembling.

  “No, that’s why I’m calling,” Faith said. “I didn’t ask them to attack you again. After the note, I told them to leave you alone. I called it off.”

  I looked at Logan, and for the first time, he looked worried. He grabbed the phone. “So, you didn’t ask someone to break into her studio tonight?”

  “No, I swear. Please believe me. I’ve been calling them for the last hour, and they won’t answer.” Faith sounded like she was trembling too, the words coming out shaky and stuttered. “I’m trying to figure out what is going on, but I don’t think they are talking to me anymore. I think they’ve gone rogue.”

  “Who are they?” I asked, ready to at least solve that mystery.

  Faith let out a shaky sigh. “I don’t know. I never knew their names. I connected with them through the friend of a friend, and I paid them in cash.”

  “You fucking idiot,” Logan snarled. “She could have been raped. She could have been killed.”

  “I know,” Faith said, dissolving into more sobs.

  I couldn’t listen to this anymore. I wrapped the sheet around myself and paced across the floor, trying to work the nervous energy out of my limbs.

  “They stole her wallet,” Logan said. “They know where she lives, you selfish bitch.”

  Faith was a wreck, and I didn’t care. But I also didn’t particularly want to listen to it. “Is there anything important you need to say?”

  She took a shuddering breath. “Just that I’m sorry and—”

  I grabbed the phone and hung up on her. “She can shove her apology. I don’t want to hear it.”

  Logan shook his head and grabbed his boxers from the floor. “I should have seen this coming.”

  “You did.” I ran a hand through my tangled hair. “You knew she was acting strangely, and I refused to see it.”

  He crossed the room quickly, wrapping his arms around me, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I had suspicions that she knew something, but I never suspected it went this far.”

  I let my cheek fall against his chest, sinking into the steady drum of his heart. “What now?”

  “We have to call the police,” he said, smoothing a comforting hand down my spine. “We have to turn Faith in.”

  I sighed. “I know. But can it wait until morning?”

  Logan twisted his lips to one side, biting them, deep in thought. I knew he wanted to drive me to the police station immediately. He probably would have put me in a panic room if I’d had one. But I needed sleep. I needed to rest on this information for just one night before I did anything with it. When Logan finally unhitches his breath and moves to respond, a thud from the other room made us both freeze.

  Before I can ask, Logan dragged me to the back corner of the room and pressed me against the wall. “Get dressed,” he hissed, sliding into his pants and grabbing the gun from his waistband. “And call the police.”

  He crouched down and stalked towards the door. “Where are you going?”

  He pressed a finger to his lips, winked at me, and slipped silently into the hallway.

  12

  LOGAN

  AS I MOVED down the hallway, all I could think about was what would have happened if I hadn’t been keeping a watch over Jade. On one hand, it felt like I was justifying my creepy behavior. On the other hand, she might have been kidnapped or hurt or killed in her studio. And even if she’d made it out of her studio, they were coming for her at her apartment now. Whoever these assholes were, they had no intention of stopping until they got what they wanted. And unfortunately for them, I had no intention of stopping until they were dead.

  The apartment was dark—Jade and I hadn’t bothered with lights when we’d arrived—so I was taking slow, careful steps to avoid stumbling around and revealing my location. Her apartment wasn’t large by any means, so I needed every advantage I could get to avoid being attacked, especially if there were two attackers.

  As I moved forward, gun at the ready, I strained my ear behind me to try and see if I could hear Jade on the phone with the police. I couldn’t hear anything, but she was probably talking quietly for the same reason I was tiptoeing down the hallway.

  When I reached the end of the hallway, I leaned to the left to see that the kitchen was clear, but as I swung my gun around the corner towards the living room, an arm swung out from the other side of the wall. An elbow connected with my forearm, and even if I’d had a solid aim, I wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger. Nerves tingled up and down my arm from the blow, and my fingers felt like they were electrified, stiff and tingling. The gun hit the floor and slid towards the couch.

  The arm struck out again, but I ducked this time, looking up just in time to see the glint of a blade in the hand. Before my attacker could strike again, I rolled over my left shoulder, somersaulting to my feet, and raised my hands in a fighter’s stance.

  I’d expected a large, burly attacker in panty hose or a ski mask to be standing behind the wall, but it was a scrawny man with a bald patch on the back of his head. Aside from the faded calligraphy tattoo on the side of his neck, he looked like the guy who did my taxes. He looked ordinary.

  “Who are you?” I barked, taking a step back as he advanced towards me, knife held over his shoulder. “What do you want?”

  The small man’s face was a cold mask of rage. He looked like a dog on the scent, focused and undeterred by anything I was going to say.

  My gun was too far away to get to. Jade had knives in the kitchen, no doubt, but I didn’t know where. And even though this man was small, he had a knife, and I had nothing except my fists and no shirt on. Even with my military training, the odds were annoyingly stacked in his favor. And he knew it.

  He moved towards me, eyes bright with adrenaline, and as soon as he was within arm’s reach, he slashed out at me. I dodged to the left, and he tore a slash down Jade’s curtains. While he rebalanced himself, I ran around to the front of the sofa, giving myself a barrier.

  The man took up position on the other side, only a couple feet away. Every step I took, he matched.

  “The police are coming,” I said, hoping he would be scared away like any common criminal. “And Jade isn’t even here.”

  “Yes, she is,” he said, the words a kind of greasy purr. “I saw her.”

  Saw her? Had he been watching us when we arrived? Or had he seen us through the windows? I was ashamed to admit that I was far too busy enjoying Jade’s body to pay any attention to the windows. Had they been open, allowing everyone in the apartments across the street a front row view to our love making? Even if they had, this creep didn’t live across the street—I didn’t think—so he wouldn’t have been able to see anything. I would know. I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking into Jade’s windows from the street below. The most I ever saw was the top of her head when she walked from the living room to the kitchen.

  “You aren’t going to touch her,” I hiss, looking around for something, anything I can use to fight back with. Aside from a television remote and a clay pot, I’m out of luck.

  “
That’s not why I’m here, anyway.”

  He placed a strange emphasis on his words. That’s now why I’m here, anyway. Strange enough that it gave me pause. I studied him for a moment, and almost subconsciously, his eyes flicked towards the hallway. Towards Jade’s room.

  That was when it hit me.

  There were two attackers the night Jade was assaulted in the alley. This skinny man wasn’t alone. He was a distraction.

  “Where is he?” I growled, rage making my hands shake. I lunged to the right, but the man followed my movement, knife ready, a smile on his face.

  “They are probably already gone. It’s just you and me.”

  Gone? It didn’t make sense until I remembered the rickety fire escape. I’d noticed it the first time I saw Jade’s apartment. I thought about telling her to be careful with the stairs passing right by her window, but I didn’t want to sound like a stalker. Now, I wished I’d ripped the old staircase from her bed.

  “Is that what you meant?” I asked. “You ‘saw her’ from the fire escape?”

  His smile was answer enough.

  “Sick fuck.” I was going to kill him. Absolutely murder him. And his partner. For looking at Jade. For thinking about her. For scaring her and keeping her up at night.

  The man was still smiling at me when I ran straight for him, kicking out hard at the back of the couch as I jumped over it. The sofa leaned back, and though it only took a second, it felt like it teetered there forever. Finally, the couch tipped back and scraped down the man’s shins. He cried out and stumbled back, but during the fall, whether it was just luck or great aim, he slashed the knife across my side.

  Warmth spilled down my ribs and hip as I pinned his small frame to the floor with my knees and wrestled the knife from him. When I pressed it to his throat, he whimpered. “Please. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Funny way of showing it,” I said between clenched teeth. I dug the blade further into his neck. A bit of blood oozing from the wound.

  “I’m just here for the money,” he said quickly. “I just needed the cash.”