by Karr, Kim
It had been three days.
Three days too many.
I hated what had happened when she’d called me the other night, but Blanchet had come into Molly’s and I—well, obviously I’d done a shitty job of covering us up.
Besides, I’d vowed to stay away from Elle until Friday.
But now, Friday was only one day away and if things went according to plan, we could soon be together without worry.
Together forever if we wanted.
Did I want that?
My mind was such a fucked-up mess. Still, I knew wanting her wasn’t some fleeting feeling. It was an ache getting worse with each passing moment that I didn’t have her. I felt like I could love this woman that I’d only just met. Was that even possible?
First the old butler bell chimed, which didn’t alert anyone to shit, and then the alarm started to chime, which at least she’d activated. I typed in the code B-L-O-W.
“Elle,” I called.
She didn’t answer.
Her red felt hat sat behind the counter, and seeing it made me smile.
Feeling oddly happy, I took the stairs two at a time as I descended them. Excitement stirred within me. My world had changed. Not only was it upside down but inside out. I wasn’t the same man who walked the streets of Boston alone. I never wanted to be that man again. Tommy would soon be locked away forever and then Elle would be beside me. Where she belonged.
Random, strange, somewhat foreign thoughts entered my head and unknown feelings swirled within me. She’d gotten under my skin, into my bones, and somehow had become a part of my soul. It could only mean one thing. Yes, I did love Elle and I was going to tell her so—right now.
The steps seemed like way too many. We were so close and still way too far apart. I turned the corner and—
My hands grabbed my head.
No!
No!
No!
My world started spinning on an entirely new axis.
There she was, on the floor, with a number of opened and unopened white plastic bags surrounding her.
Fuck!
I froze.
I couldn’t breathe.
I gasped and choked.
No. No. No.
I looked at her again.
Fuck!
Sometimes you know something’s coming.
You feel it. In the air. In your gut.
You don’t sleep at night. The voice in your head is warning you, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
That’s how I’d felt since the day I met Elle.
The problem was—my warning bells were all wrong.
“Elle?” I’m not even sure how I managed to say her name.
Alarmed, she jumped and realizing someone was downstairs, she scurried to close the bags.
“Elle,” I repeated.
Slowly, she turned. “Logan, what are you doing here?”
My heart stopped. My pulse faded. Shock was all I felt. “You knew?” My words came out in stuttered syllables. “You were part of it all along?” My voice held disbelief.
Elle shook her head. “No. It’s not what you think.”
The small bags of cocaine were all around her and the floor was covered in some kind of white crystals.
What did she mean it wasn’t what I thought?
I wasn’t fucking blind.
The cocaine had been transported in an endless amount of some kind of white crystals—into her boutique, and opened by her hands.
She was so fucked.
Suddenly, my head roared with the pain and anger of her deceit. I looked at her, my heart now as hard as steel.
“Shit!” I yelled. “Fuck!” I yelled louder.
“Logan, let me explain.” She was crying, stepping toward me.
I put my hand out. “Don’t come near me.” The pitch of my voice rose with each word.
There was no way I could stand to have her touch me.
Looking frantic, she kept walking. “You have to listen to me.”
Anger ripped through me. I kicked a chair and it sailed across the basement floor.
She came to a halt.
This was all too much.
I walked up the stairs. I walked back down. I walked back up again before settling on the down. Anger and rage and a terrible fear that I couldn’t help her now consumed me.
She was standing there like a deer in headlights.
Did she have any idea what being here right now meant?
I knew she didn’t. She didn’t know that right now, right this moment, she was in jeopardy of being put away for the rest of her life. And sure as shit, she didn’t know I would be the one to do it.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I couldn’t look at her or those green eyes.
Where was the invisible trail of magic?
What were we to her?
Nothing?
In the darkness, every emotion I’d ever felt for Elle settled in the pit of my stomach, and like the sun’s rays, it lit me up from the inside and radiated throughout my entire body.
“Logan, listen to me. Let me explain.”
Disbelief beat in my heart. I couldn’t listen to her. I couldn’t even hear her voice. I couldn’t stand her or myself right now. I had to get out of here.
In a sudden burst, I opened my eyes and ran up the stairs.
“Wait,” she called, chasing after me.
Her voice made me turn but I didn’t stop. I saw the crushed look in her eyes, the one that matched mine, but still I kept going. With a harsh pull, I yanked the door open and flew right out of it. My feet hit the pavement. My ragged breathing was sucking in the cool air. The sky was dark, but I felt darker.
What the fuck had just happened?
Unable to contain my emotions, I screamed into the night, “Fuckkkk!” and thrust my hands toward the boutique window. When my eyes landed on it, she was there—standing in the window, watching me with fear—no, not fear, terror—in her eyes.
My cell started to ring and I pulled it from my pocket. The screen flashed, Blanchet.
This couldn’t be happening.
But it was.
When life gets you by the balls, it really gets you.
Five seconds.
I had a choice to make—my father or Elle.
And I had five seconds to do it.
Now how fucking fair was that?
Our eyes locked.
For an endless moment I thought this wasn’t happening. A shroud of dishonesty didn’t surround her. I hadn’t opened myself up to her only to be crushed. But then her guilt presented itself. Sparked through the window. Burned my skin. Sunk its way into my bones. Corroded everything we’d had.
As if she felt it too, she covered her mouth and her nose with her hands pressed together. I was too far away to see for certain, but I was pretty sure she was trembling.
Neither of us looked away.
My gut twisted into a thousand knots.
She had me.
She had me like no one ever had.
She had me hanging on every word.
She had me jumping through hoops.
She could have had me any way she wanted me.
Did she even know what she was doing to me right now? The way she was breaking me down, making me rethink everything?
In her eyes, I could see the panic, hear the pleading, smell the fear.
My resolve was being held together by a tattered string about ready to snap. Unable to look at her for fear it would, I turned around, and with a sharp intake of breath, I answered the call.
After all, I’d only ever had one choice.
ELLE
My heart.
My racing heart dropped into my stomach.
My heart.
It was here and then it was gone.
I could still see it, though. Slick muscle tissue that pounded faster and faster while held in the palms of his hands.
He had the ability to crush it right here and now.
Crush me.<
br />
Did he even realize that?
My fingers splayed across the window. My eyes pleaded. My body begged. Words were leaving my lips, but I knew he couldn’t hear them.
Still, I spoke them.
“Logan, I love you. I would never hurt you. I didn’t know what Michael had planned. I just found out two days ago. I wanted to tell you. I reached out to you to tell you what Michael asked me to do. But you didn’t want me. Why are you here? Why are you acting like this? Why won’t you listen to me? Why?”
I was babbling.
Spilling everything I could. Begging him to listen with every ounce of my being.
He placed his hands on his lean hips.
Dropped his head.
Lifted his chin.
Looked at me.
Looked away.
I was still babbling.
Then, as if he could hear me through the glass, he tucked his phone in his pocket and took a step toward me. Then another. And another still. He didn’t stop until his hands splayed against the window right where mine were.
Mirror images of each other.
His stare locked on mine and we spoke to each other in a way we never had.
Deep.
Heartfelt.
True.
Not words.
Emotions.
Emotions that seemed to seep out of his eyes and into mine. Emotions that, if I was reading him right, mimicked my own.
Could that be?
After a moment, or two, or maybe three, he slowly removed his hands from the glass and the connection was lost. When he started to walk away, I knew I had read him wrong.
Like a rag doll, I collapsed to the floor on my knees. Burying my face in my hands, I cried for everything in my life I’d lost, for what I was doing, for who I was—the weak, pathetic girl my father had always known me to be.
“I am listening,” he said in that low, husky voice that did something to my insides.
Snapping my gaze, I looked over toward the door, the sound, him. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was standing in the open doorway, the door itself locked in the open position. He looked dauntless.
Had he heard me?
For the first time since we met, he seemed intimidating. Like a powerhouse. Strong. Fearless. Unyielding. Tougher than his beautiful face and body let on. “Talk to me. What was the plan? We don’t have much time.”
On shaky legs, I rose to my feet. “Much time for what?”
Logan stepped inside and pushed against the mechanism that kept the door open. Once it closed, he locked it and looked at me. His eyes were distant, his expression blunted by fear or maybe hatred.
I hoped not hatred.
Something pulsed beneath my skin—despair, sorrow, love, agony? Maybe all of those feelings rolled into one.
With quick strides, he closed the distance between us and I felt like we weren’t lost in this sea of a world where neither of us belonged. Yet, I knew we were. His hands on my shoulders sent that familiar energy zapping through my body and I knew that despite everything, he didn’t hate me. “Elle, I need to know the plan.”
My thoughts were humming inside my brain. “Logan, it’s not what you think. I didn’t know. All I knew up until a couple of days ago was that Michael said he’d handle it. I thought he meant legally, or—no that’s not true, I don’t know what I thought, but it wasn’t this. I had no idea what his actual plan was. If I had, I would have told you.”
“I believe you. I do. Now, please, tell me what he asked you to do.”
My breath was coming fast, but my words came even faster. “He told me that the coke would be delivered tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“From where? From who?” Logan cut in before I could finish.
“I don’t know. He never said and I never asked.”
“Where’s the delivery slip?”
I pointed to the counter.
He darted over to it and picked up the pink piece of paper, and then shook his head. “It was COD?”
I nodded. “Michael told me to pay with one of my company checks.”
He shook his head. “The only portion completed is the ‘ship to’ information. Any idea who sent it?”
Nerves rattled me. “No. The plastic bags were on a pallet and it was wrapped in cellophane. The driver cut open the sealed pallet and carried the bags in.”
Logan’s expression was raw. “What did O’Shea want you to do with them?”
“I was to break the bags down and bring the—” I couldn’t even say the word.
He leaned closer. “Coke,” he said for me.
I nodded. I swallowed. I was finding it hard to breathe. I’d never, ever, done anything like this. “Product home in the Mercedes and park in the garage. He was going to store it in the panic room.”
Logan’s eyes were intense as he stared down at me. “And then what?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Then he’d give it to Patrick and Clementine would be safe from danger, from the kidnapping threats he’d received.”
“Kidnapping threats?” Logan’s brows popped.
“Yes. Michael told me that your father called him a few days ago and threatened that if he didn’t deliver the drugs Lizzy had stolen, there was a very good chance his little girl would be taken and held for ransom.”
That one simple fact brought it all back into perspective. I turned on my heels and headed for the stairs. I had to get the product to Michael.
To keep Clementine safe, I’d do anything.
Logan captured my hands and held my wrists to keep me from walking away. “That’s not true.”
Frowning, I glared at him. “Do you think I’m lying?”
We were both breathing fast. “No, I think O’Shea is. My father would never do anything like that. He’s lying to you, Elle. Don’t you see? He’s been playing you. It was his plan all along to do this, to include you at the end. It had to be.”
I lifted my chin, defiant, determined. Thoughts were churning in my mind and the more I thought about it, the less my bravado held strong. “No, Logan. He’s doing what he has to in order to protect his daughter.”
“Then where’d the coke come from?”
I looked at him. I’d already told him I didn’t know.
“He had to have had it stashed somewhere. Don’t you see—he’s been putting your life and Clementine’s in harm’s way.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Who the fuck knows? Waiting to see what he could get away with.”
I didn’t want to believe it, but where did all the coke come from?
“Listen to me, Elle. I’ve been working with the DEA for more than four months to help bring down the Flannigan family.”
Shock ripped through me. “Working, how? Why?”
“They threatened to arrest my father if I didn’t cooperate, and tonight is the night they are looking to bring it all home. They want the drugs, the location, the people involved, and they want me to furnish it.”
Crippling horror shook my entire body. I stifled my scream. My urgency to run was never greater. How could I take care of Clementine behind bars? How could I leave her? “No, Logan. No,” I cried hysterically.
My wrists were still imprisoned in his grasp, but his grip became loose and his hands spread, searching for my fingers. He was holding my hands. He was leaning his body against mine. He was whispering in my ear. I was an utter mess. Hysterical. Unresponsive. Terrified.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I care about you.”
His words punched the air out of me. They were an echo. They were on repeat. He was saying them over and over until finally I heard him.
My gaze flickered up to his. “You care about me?”
He nodded but didn’t repeat it. “And you have to trust me. I will make this right.”
My world was shattering into a thousand pieces. “How? How can this ever be right?”
He pulled me closer still. His mouth was now hovering over my ear. �
�I’m going to take the cocaine and plant it at a strip club that Tommy and Patrick own. Then I’m going to call the DEA and tell them you overheard Michael talking on the phone and mentioned an exchange at Lucy’s. While I’m moving the coke, you are going to go to O’Shea and tell him you were mistaken and it wasn’t his shipment that arrived. It was something else for the boutique. Tell him you called the company and it had been subbed out to a third party, and that it is scheduled for delivery first thing in the morning. Don’t mention me. Don’t say anything else. I want you out of this. The DEA are watching the house, so if anything happens, look for the unmarked cars on the street.”
“What if Michael doesn’t believe me?”
“Don’t give him the chance to question you. He knows Peyton was hurt, right?”
I nodded.
“Tell him she called you and she didn’t sound good. Tell him you think you should go stay with her for the night and that you’ll be at work first thing in the morning. Then pack your bag and leave.”
“Can’t I just call him?”
He shook his head. “I want the DEA to see you go there so they can confirm you gave me the information after talking to O’Shea. Call me as soon as you talk to O’Shea. Then I’ll know I can call the DEA. Got it?”
My heart was beating so fast. My pulse was racing. This was beyond lying. This was deception. This was a high-stakes game I had no business being involved in. “Yes,” I managed.
He gave me a knowing nod and then released his grip on me. “Clementine isn’t home, right?”
“No, she’s not—she’s at Erin’s.”
Just then, as if it knew we needed a reminder of how we’d started out, that damn cuckoo clock from Germany started to sing.
In the midst of all the madness, he still gave me a grin.
I wanted to kiss him but wasn’t certain that was anything he’d want.
As if reading my mind, Logan kissed me, hesitantly. Lightly.
“Kiss me harder,” I said against his mouth.
He did.
And we kissed and kissed and kissed.
Rough. Teeth clashing. Chins bumping. Lips biting.
Breathless, we both pulled apart.
“What do I do after I pack a bag?” I asked.
Logan yanked out his wallet and opened it, handing me ten crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. “You go to the Mandarin on Boylston Street, at the intersection—”
