“We did it. Come here,” his arms are around me, pressing me closer as he gives me a deeper kiss. He scoops me up, his lips never leaving mine as the crowd rises to their feet and roars their approval.
Logan carries me through a shower of rose petals—shot from a cannon manned by Armand himself. We end up in the reception tent where there’s a huge white throne for me to sit on to receive guests. The Ubelis are first in line.
“I feel like a queen,” I whisper to Cora Ubeli.
“Queen for a day. You look beautiful.” She bends and kisses my cheek. “Congratulations.”
The next few hours are a blur. I greet guests and shake hands until I feel like my hand is going to fall off.
Then a five course dinner—which I can barely eat because every other second people clink their glasses and Logan and I have to kiss. Not that I mind.
After the last course, before the cake cutting, a band called The Muses strikes up their top hits. And I have enough energy to rise and walk on my own to the elevated dance floor—which is a glass case filled with a carpet of ferns and roses, exactly as Armand described.
I squeal as Logan lifts me into the air and whirls me around. But he doesn’t let me back down to the ground. He keeps me in his arms as we sway to the music.
“I’m walking better now,” I whisper in his ear, my arms around his neck. “You don’t have to carry me everywhere.”
He just nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck. “Now that you’re Mrs. Logan Wulfe, you’re nuts if you think I’m ever letting you go, even for a single damn minute.”
I don’t expect the absolute explosion of joy in my chest, and not expecting it makes it all the sharper. This was never supposed to be my life. I’m not the girl who gets the fairytale ending.
But being surrounded by our friends and loved ones, at the wedding straight out of my dreams, being held by a man who loves me with his whole heart, what else can you call it?
Does he feel it? Does Logan feel the perfection he’s given me? That I was cracked and broken before he found me, but he was the only medicine I ever needed. The balm to my broken heart after I lost my mother and my father’s rejection.
And, feeling all his heart muscles beneath my soft body, I know he’s so much more than that. He’s the igniter of passions, the storm that shook up my staid, colorless world, and he’s been my hope and strength at times these past few months when I couldn’t manage any on my own.
He’s the love of my life. My partner on this journey. The other half of my soul.
I tip my head back to look at him and see everything I’m feeling reflected in his dark eyes.
I can’t help drawing his head down to mine. He’s still careful, but I’ve been more desperately physical lately than ever. I think both of us need it. To prove to ourselves that we are real and still here together.
And when his lips touch mine—
Heaven.
There’s a tent full of people watching us but that doesn’t stop Logan. He teases at the seam of my lips with his tongue and when I open to him, I only barely manage to stifle my moan, even though we’re in the middle of the dance floor. But I’ve never been able to manage restraint when it comes to Logan.
He’s just started to deepen the kiss when there’s a shrill whistle. Like someone blowing on an actual whistle. What on earth—?
I pull back from Logan lips in confusion. Is this some kind of gag before Armand gives his toast?
Whatever I expect to see, it’s not a brigade of serious-faced policemen, along with some men in scrubs behind them, barging into the wedding. It’s not hard to see where they’re headed.
Straight for Logan and me.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Armand demands, trying to step in front of the most senior-looking policeman.
“Are you the groom?” the hard-faced policeman asks.
Armand’s face registers confusion but he doesn’t answer. Apparently he doesn’t need to.
Because rounding the corner is Adam Archer.
“No,” Adam stands arrogantly and points to Logan. “That’s him. That’s the man you’re here to arrest.”
Sixteen
Daphne
“What?” I screech just as Logan finally drops me to the ground and steps in front of me, shielding me from Adam.
“What’s this about, Archer? You here to finally have it out with me like a man?” Logan sneers, looking around at the huge posse Adam brought with him. “Or like always, are you getting others to do your bullying for you. Can’t damage that manicure, can you?”
Adam’s face goes red and the hand he has pointed at Logan starts to shake a little, but he just repeats, “There he is. Arrest him.”
“On what grounds?” Armand demands, trying to get in front of the policeman again.
“We have a warrant for his arrest,” Adam crows.
“On. What. Grounds?” Armand repeats, looking like he’s barely keeping his temper, even though during every interaction I’ve ever had with him, he seemed like the most even-tempered man, almost lackadaisical in his approach to serious life.
“On the grounds that he’s a dangerous psycho,” Adam says. “He’s attacked me and is a mentally unstable public threat. He walks around in a serial killer mask, for gods’ sake. He’s already violated one restraining order and I have multiple witnesses who heard him threaten my life. The fact that he’s gone this long unpunished only highlights the corruption in the underbelly of this city.”
The way he’s going on, it’s like he’s trying out a run for mayor. But he’s not nearly finished. “So it is the opinion of the great city of New Olympus that he be remanded into the custody of the state for a period of observation for criminal psychosis.”
And that’s when the camera flashes start to go off.
Son of a— He brought the media, because of course he did.
I should have known he was grandstanding for an audience. And certainly not for our wedding party, all of whom obviously side with us. No, he’s speechifying for a much bigger crowd. Maybe even using this as his launching point for a political bid, going on about corruption at a wedding where the Ubelis are present, when everyone knows that they are the King and Queen of all Underworld activity on the East Coast.
Destroying Logan’s reputation in the meantime by using him as a scapegoat? Now I know this is classic Adam. This is how he works. Who he is.
I feel Logan tense in front of me and my arm shoots out to restrain him. “He’s baiting you,” I hiss. “If you beat his face in like you want, you’ll just be giving him everything he wants. Please, babe.”
I intertwine my fingers with his. “Not today. We won’t give him what he wants today.”
Logan swallows hard, really hard, but he gives me an almost imperceptible nod.
And he manages it, too.
The policeman and medical staff get to us and begin reaching for Logan.
“I’ll come quietly,” Logan says, keeping his voice measured and calm. “There’s no need for a scene.”
But it’s as if he didn’t even say a word. I’m just about to let go of his hand when I’m suddenly grabbed by my left arm and yanked sharply away. My arm is wrenched in such a way that I can’t help crying out in pain.
And that, apparently, is Logan’s breaking point.
His head snaps my direction. “Leave her be.”
But the asshole cop, who I now realize must be working in cahoots with Adam, just chuckles in Logan’s face and then spits at his feet, at the perfect angle so the cameras can’t catch it.
“Boy, where you’re going, you ain’t gonna have no say about what happens to Little Miss here back home. Cuff ‘im, men.”
Two other men approach with cuffs and that’s when all hell breaks loose.
Logan lets out a roar and, standing almost a foot taller than all the other men around him, he starts to fight. At least that’s what it looks like from outside the circle that starts to grow around him.
“Logan!” I
scream, but I don’t know if he can hear anything above the uproar.
Men in uniform start to fly backwards but almost immediately another takes their place.
I start forward but I’m grabbed on both sides. “Let me go,” I shout but Armand at my left and Cora at my right refuse to let me go. And then it’s the Ubeli’s men in black dragging me backwards away from the fray.
“Logan wouldn’t want you anywhere near that,” Armand shouts in my ear and that’s the only thing that makes me back away. Which unfortunately only gives me a better view of what’s happening to Logan because we head a little ways up the hill and now I can see down on the unfolding tableau.
There must be twenty men surrounding Logan and he’s swinging and brawling like an enraged animal. He’s past reason. That man threatened me and I know, I know that all Logan could see in that moment was that he wouldn’t be able to protect me if they succeeded in taking him away from my side.
“Stop it, please you have to stop them!” I cry, slumping to my knees, my beautiful wedding dress all but ruined by the wet grass outside the tarped area.
But I can only look on in horror as the cops finally get Logan face down on the ground. Only barely, by the looks of it, and it’s taking several men to restrain him there. And then one of the men in scrubs approaches, something in his hand I can’t make out.
Until he raises it to Logan’s neck and with a sickening realization, I realize exactly what it is.
A syringe.
He presses it to Logan’s neck and within thirty seconds, my big, beautiful, virile brand new husband is passed out, sedated like a large, dangerous animal on the floor. Of his own wedding.
And the news cameras were rolling the whole time, capturing the entire thing.
Seventeen
Daphne
Logan had no chance. Not with the video from the wedding. Not just on all the news stations playing 24/7, but also all over the internet.
It would have gone better for Logan if he wasn’t so damn strong. But he just kept knocking them down. Even I haven’t been able to avoid the videos. I was there and they make it look so much more dramatic, maybe because of the filters and the cinematic music always layered on top—
And the fact that an ambulance had to be called for four of the policeman didn’t help his case—even though I know for a fact that none of those supposed ‘terrible injuries’ actually lead to anyone needing to be taken to the hospital and that it was likely all just more fanfare and showcasing by Adam to win points in the press.
“It’s a mess,” I confess to Armand, face in my hands.
“It’s bullshit is what it is.” Armand stands and paces back and forth in my beautifully restored Thornhill living room. Every day I’m living in the reminder of Logan’s love and every day it pierces all the deeper that he’s not here with me to enjoy it.
We should be on our honeymoon right now, and instead, he’s locked away in some cold, padded cell at Maniae Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Just, what the fuck, world? Why can’t we get a damn break? Incurable cancer wasn’t enough? Separating us for almost a decade? Fighting past misunderstandings and insecurities and finally finding our way to each other, having the wedding of our dreams only for it to be stolen away before we even get to our wedding night?
I officially give up on fairness in the universe.
Armand is feeling less despair and more righteous indignation.
“Cora wants to get involved. She and Marcus have wanted to clean up that corrupt police force for years.”
I just gape at him.
“Oh darling, haven’t you realized that the Ubelis are the real power in this city? Metropolis, too.”
I look around uncertainly, not wanting to gossip about my friends. “But aren’t they sort of…I mean I’ve heard rumors that… Aren’t they sometimes involved in some criminal things… Occasionally, I mean?”
Armand laughs out loud, a full-bodied chuckle. It goes on for several minutes and he’s wiping his eyes by the end.
“Cora would die laughing if she heard that description of their businesses.”
“Oh please don’t tell her. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to malign—”
But Armand just sits beside me on the couch and puts an arm around my shoulders, giving me a squeeze. “I’ll let you in on a family secret. I think you’ve earned it. Cora and Marcus are the criminal underworld, darling. And they aren’t ashamed of it. They’re on the side of the people. On the side of good,” he says earnestly in the way only a true friend can.
“They know that if they are running it, the whole world is a lot safer than if the truly evil fucks had their hands on the pulse.”
Finally, his jovial expression collapses. “Like those dick-faced cunts at the Metro police that Archer has bought out. Nobody likes a sellout, least of all the Ubelis.”
He talks about them like they’re all-powerful. “So can they help Logan?”
His lips tighten into a hard line. “Archer’s not a complete idiot. He knows aligning himself against you and Logan means making an enemy of them. But there’s plenty in this city who think it’s time the reign of the Ubelis came to an end and are willing to back him. With his money and his name and frankly his boy-next-door good looks—”
I slam my hands down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “That’s such bullshit! He’s a monster on the inside and Logan is so wonderf—”
Armand takes my hands in his and looks at me gently, his eyes full of compassion. “I know. I know. We’ll find a way out for him. This isn’t the end. I promise. All I’m trying to say is you have friends in high places. And we’ll do everything in our power to help.”
But all I hear is what he isn’t saying. He isn’t saying he has a direct way to help. He isn’t saying they can get Logan out now. All he has are wishes and half-promises. And I appreciate where he’s coming from, I really do. Everyone wants to help.
But it doesn’t mean they can.
I stand on wobbly legs. “Thanks for coming by, Armand. It really means a lot.”
Armand stands and hugs me, but as he does, his hands pat down my back, especially around my shoulder blades. “Are you getting enough to eat? Taking care of yourself?”
He pulls back and holds me by my shoulders, inspecting my face even as I roll my eyes.
“I’m fine, I swear.” It’s mostly true. I’m mostly remembering to eat.
Armand gives my shoulders a slight squeeze. “You have to stay strong for him. Otherwise he’ll go crazy. The only thing keeping him sane is knowing that we’re out here looking out for you.”
I roll my eyes again, because that’s so Logan. Worrying about me when he’s the one stuck in an insane asylum.
I walk him to the front door. “How about this? I promise to go eat the biggest lunch possible, and you promise to keep working every connection you have to get Logan out. Deal?”
Armand watches me with that all-too-assessing gaze for another half a minute, then he nods. “Deal."
I wave at him from the doorway before deciding to make good on my promise and head for the kitchen.
I’m opening the refrigerator door to see if anything is left inside or if I need to order more groceries, when a movement catches my eye in my periphery.
I yelp and slam the refrigerator shut when I realize that the movement is a person.
A stranger. In my house. In my kitchen. With me. While I am alone.
“Who are you?” I shout even as I reach in my pocket for my phone. Where the hell is my phone? Were they here the whole time Armand was? Why didn’t the security alarm go off if they broke in?
The person is short and their back is to me. They’re wearing a hoodie and I can’t even tell if it’s a man or woman, or maybe a teenager, they’re so slight. Maybe 110 pounds soaking wet.
Not that I’m taking any chances. I start backing away, my hand scrambling on the counter for anything to protect myself. Naturally, the block of knives is on the opposite coun
ter, closer to my intruder.
My hands close around a rolling pin just as the stranger turns my way.
My fingers lose their grasp and the rolling pin topples to the ground with a loud clatter as I whisper, “Rachel?”
Eighteen
Logan
I’m early to the lab today and haven’t had enough caffeine yet. Without thinking, I scrub a hand down my face, then jerk back when I accidentally touch my cheek where Adam decked me last night.
I still can’t believe that Dr. Laurel didn’t listen to me when I went to his office afterwards to tell him about Adam’s schemes. Then again, he’s grief stricken. Maybe if I try again today, when he’s in a better frame of mind…
I go to the wall and unlatch the sterile equipment cabinet, pulling out the goggles with my name on them. We all started labeling our equipment after some pieces started going missing last year. Now we sign everything in and out.
I ran a group of experiments overnight and I’m eager to look at the slides. So I tug the goggles into position and start on my work, bent over my microscope.
Everything’s normal at first. Business as usual.
Until it’s not.
It starts as an itch.
And then becomes an uncomfortable tingling.
I ignore it. I have work to do. And I’m hoping Daphne will come in at lunch. If I finish up all the slides, then maybe I can sneak her out of here and we can go to Giuseppe’s for pizza and—
The tingling becomes a burning and I push my rolling chair back from the microscope, yanking off my goggles and blinking hard.
What the hell?
I lift my hand to my face but stop just before making contact. Instead, I hurry to the bathroom, shouldering past someone on their way out.
“Hey man, watch out!”
I ignore him and make my way to the mirror, shoving my face towards the glass. It doesn’t look that bad. There was only the smallest incision from where Adams class ring caught my cheek last night when he punched me, but now the whole area is puffy and red.
Billionaire’s Captive: A Beauty and the Rose Box Set Page 44
