Chapter 12

Logan

Katie had said “Marino” more than once. More than fucking once.

I’d known the minute I’d spotted her sprinting across the sand outside the kitchen window that something was up. It had taken me long enough to admit that I had suspicions about her, and this was the price I paid for that.

She stood on the beach, her bare toes in the sand, wearing my shirt and clutching her midriff as I approached. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted. “Logan—”

“Marino?” I asked, coolly. I should’ve known whatever had happened between us was bullshit. I’d learned long ago not to trust women, men, fucking anyone but myself. Fool! They throw a pretty girl at you and you lose your senses.

“I can explain,” she said, and it was almost comical how stricken she looked. How utterly horrified by the situation. It would’ve been funny if I hadn’t fallen for her act once already.

“Go ahead,” I replied, bitter mirth bubbling from my lips. “I’m all ears. Tell me how Marino turned you. Feed me whatever lie you dare.” I wouldn’t be taken for a fool again. Once bitten, twice ready to serve up some hot fuckin’ payback.

“Logan, please,” Katie said.

“Please what? I’ve given you the opportunity to speak. So speak.”

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, and I had to resist all my primal urges and all the emotional ones. Christ, how could she be this beautiful? How could I still want her after I’d just heard her talking about Marino?

“Logan, okay. I’ll start from the top. I’m a journalist. I write for the Business Breakdown. It’s New York City-based magazine, which my mother Anna Hendrickson owns.”

The Business Breakdown… I read that magazine frequently. “I’ve heard of it, and I’ve never seen your byline in there. I’d remember.”

“That’s because I write under the name J. Henry. It keeps my personal and business life separate.”

“Alternatively, it helps you dupe people you’re interviewing into spilling all, right?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“No. I’m not like that. This… this whole island ‘affair,’ or whatever it is, is a totally out of character for me. But you have to understand that I had no choice. Marino contacted my mother and told her that she would have to do an exposé on you, report back to him with information about you, or he’d burn the business to the ground. He’s threatened her, me. I— Well shit, Logan, I had to protect her and the company. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe.”

“Them?”

“Mom, and Butch. My friend Sam. I— You have to realize that I would never do something like this under normal circumstances.”

“So, it was a lie,” I said. “Everything you’ve told me so far.” I gave a curt nod. “Understood.”

“No! No, no— I would never have slept with you if I didn’t—”

“Save it,” I said, and put up my palm. “I’m not interested in dramatics, Miss Hendrickson. You came to do a job, so I’ll help you complete it. How does that sound? You mentioned an email on the phone?”

“Yes, but Logan—”

“I’m not afraid of Marino and his lackeys. Christ, for all I know you’re the emissary I was meant to meet at that bar.” Of course, it had been a setup. The pill in the drink, the damsel in distress bit. Shit, it had ticked all the boxes for me. What man wouldn’t want to protect and keep a beautiful woman safe?

“I’m not the emissary. I don’t know who that is. Look, I just came here because I have to—”

“You’ve explained enough,” I said and closed in on her. I grabbed hold of her upper arm and held it firmly. “I’ll give you any information you want, Hendrickson. Unlike you, I don’t keep secrets.” She’d tricked me. I wasn’t tricked easily. Not by pretty faces or smooth words. Katie had seemed special, different. Ballsy and sassy, sweet but strong, and it was all a manufactured personality to keep me interested.

Fucking idiot.

“Logan. Please.” She jerked at my grip, but I didn’t let her go.

Why should I? She deserved to be delivered to the feds, same as Marino. She was likely the reason my phone had gone missing. She’d drugged as the other night. Was the marriage real, or all part of the act she’d perpetuated to get what she wanted out of me?

“You want to run tales back to your boss?” I asked. “Fine, I’ll give you what you want, girl.”

“I don’t—”

I cut her off by speaking. “I’ve been betrayed three times in my life,” I said. “First, when my mother and father left me when I was twelve years old. They dropped me off at an orphanage and never came back.”

“Oh— Oh my god.”

“Second,” I continued, “when I was eighteen. I walked in on my best friend fucking my fiancé the night before we were supposed to get married at the courthouse. He was my ‘best man.’ She laughed after the fight happened. I broke his nose, told him to get lost, that I never wanted to see him again. She left too.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Katie shook her head. “Logan, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to tell me any of this. I… just… I didn’t want this to—”

“Third,” I said, ignoring the interjection, “was when that same best friend, Kyle, set me up when we were boosting cars. He got off with a slap on the wrist as a reward for turning me in. I spent five years in prison. You understand that each of these people, all four of them, have been firmly cut out of my life. My parents tried contacting me after I made it big. They called me ‘son,’ sent emails and tried calling. Shit, they even turned up at my offices once or twice. I never saw them. I never spoke to them. I never gave them a dime. I have no family. I have no friends. I have no wife or girlfriend.”

Her mouth worked but no words escaped.

“I’ve never let anyone close enough, because I won’t give anyone that power over me. I won’t let anyone take everything I’ve worked to achieve and throw it down the fucking drain.” I paused and moved even closer to her, lowering my voice, shaking with the intensity of my truth. “I made a small exception for you, I’ll admit it. I let you far closer than I wanted you. They used you against me, and I let it happen. But I promise you this, Jinx, I’ll never let it happen again.”

“Logan!” She burst my name out. “I’m telling you the truth. Marino is blackmailing me to do all of this. He wanted me to email him all these details, or he’ll hurt my mother.”

“And you were going to do it, yes? When I walked up to you, a short while ago, you were about to.”

She didn’t reply, but the truth was in her eyes, in the way she looked down at the sand between her feet.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I don’t want to do it!” She yelled this time, jerking on my grip, and actually got free. She balled her hands into fists and held them at her sides, the phone still clasped in one of them. “This is not who I am! This is not what I wanted for my life or for my mom’s. Goddammit, I had a hard time growing up too! I had a hard time too, and the only thing I’ve ever had is support from my mom. And what, I should repay her by letting some psycho prick kill her? Over a man I don’t know. A man who—” She broke off, her eyes shimmering with tears, and clamped her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. It was her left hand. The hand with that fucking cheap-ass ring on it. “I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t ask for it. But it’s happened.” She dropped her arm and took a deep breath. “It’s happened, and I have to deal with it. Because no matter how much I… I care for you or want you, Logan, I have to protect my family. That’s all that’s ever mattered to me.”

I stared at her.

It was so fucking hard to separate the woman I’d thought I was falling for—yeah, what the fuck was that about?—and the person standing in front of me who was willing to sell me out to Marino.

“You expect me to believe what you have to say based on what? Two fucks, a blackout night, and a few pieces of information?” I made the words crass and hard to force myself into reality, to hear them.

I wanted her still. Fuck! I wanted her still, and it was ridiculous. She was the enemy.

“So, what now?” she asked, so fucking pragmatic. “We’re just going to, what? Go get an annulment, I report back to Marino and ruin your life, and that’s that?”

“Sounds about right,” I replied. “Except you’re mistaken on the ruining my life part, and you missed the part that we’ll never see each other again.”

She swallowed again, tears welling. “Logan, no. I don’t want to report back to him. Do you get that? It’s just, if I don’t, my family—”

A noise crackled in the trees and I looked back into the palms, listening hard. The sun had dipped below the horizon now, and purple dusk had brought the half-light.

“I don’t want it to end this way,” she said simply. “But I don’t see how it’s possible to go down any other way. I’m sorry.”

“If you think I’m letting you leave, you’re fucking delusional.” I turned back to her. “If you think I’ll let you trot back to Marino and give him my movements, my position, you’re insane.” What if she knew about the feds? About the ambush? “Not until I know how much you’ve already told him.”

“I haven’t told him anything. I swear it.”

“But you will.”

“Didn’t you just say you’re not afraid of what he knows about you?” Katie asked, brushing her hair behind her ear. She folded her arms underneath her breasts, the front of the shirt hiking up to reveal more of her thighs.

I didn’t care what he knew about me, but what he knew about the operation. “Stop talking,” I said. “I heard something.”

Katie opened her mouth to argue, but I silenced her by slashing my hand through the air. I listened, but only silence greeted me. In the distance, music thumped into the falling night, likely from someone’s bungalow or the resort.

The music was a mockery of this moment. It was so damn carefree, and here we were, facing off against each other, while lies curled between us. A couple of hours ago, I’d taken her over the kitchen counter. We’d had a pleasant fucking meal right afterward. Now, this.

“We need to get out of here,” I said, and took her arm again. Not her hand. Her arm. I had to keep the connection at bay. “Let’s go.”

“What time is—?”

The pop of gunfire scattered between the trees. Katie let out a shriek and I dragged her closer, then threw her down in the sand again. These weren’t firecrackers. They were gunshots all right, and they’d come from over in the trees.

I dove on top of Katie for the second time in as many days and covered her body with mine. Yes, I still wanted to keep her safe, against all my better instincts, and it was fucking insane.

My pulse raced in my ears.

The gunshots cracked again. A shout rang out. Footsteps came closer. It wouldn’t be long now until they were on top of us.

We had to move.