Chapter 22

Auralie

“Did we do the right thing?” my father asks as he sits back in his recliner and sips on a beer.

“No crawling out of the rabbit hole now,” I murmur as I sit in the window seat, looking down at my Vinegar Hill neighborhood below. And I use the term window seat loosely. It’s really just a window with a sill that’s larger than average, about a foot wide, and I’m barely able to sit my ass on the splintered wood that’s about fifteen years overdue for a re-paint.

But the sun is shining and warm upon me as I rest my chin on my knees and try to shake myself out of my doldrums.

“Magnus will be gunning for us hard,” he says pensively, and my stomach knots up. That is an absolute fucking understatement.

“We had no choice,” I tell him, trying to sound confident, but I’m far from it. I have no clue if we’re doing the right thing, but as I just said.

No choice.

Logan saw to that.

And yet, I can’t find it in myself to be really mad at him. When it boils down to its simplest form, there were actually three choices we had available to us when my father landed himself in hot water with Magnus.

First, and not ideal at all, we could have run. Dad and I could have packed up and moved somewhere across the country. Hoped Magnus wouldn’t want to waste his precious resources trying to find us. It wouldn’t have been hard to set up elsewhere. We could have had a meager but decent life back on the grift.

Second, we’ve always had the option of flipping on Magnus. Can’t say as I ever really gave it much serious thought, but as I watched Magnus pull my father deeper and deeper into his web, not going to say it didn’t cross my mind on occasion to rat him out. Of course, I never considered having my father do this as I knew the risk of pissing someone like Magnus off, but still… it was an option.

Third, and the option I chose, was to assist Magnus in one last con to get my dad back in his good graces. It was the easiest choice, and I was deluded enough to allow myself to think Magnus would accept this as my final payment to him and that he’d release me forever. Deep down, I probably knew it wasn’t ever going to turn out like I’d imagined it, because people like Magnus never let go of what they considered their rightful property. And no doubt… he felt he owned my dad and me.

Ironically, pursuing choice number three ended up ultimately leading us to use choice number two to get out of this pickle, and in hindsight, it’s easy to wish we’d just done that to begin with.

But had we gone to the police from the start, then I would have never gone to Wyoming and met Logan. I would have never known a man existed who was probably my soulmate. And while it ultimately didn’t work out between us—a thought that still has me on the verge of tears when I think about how stubborn he is in his refusal to let me all the way in—I can’t regret the time I spent with him and the hard way in which I fell for him.

“Where do you think Magnus is right now?” my dad muses, but not in a lighthearted way. I can hear the fear coating his voice, and I know he’s not fearful for himself. He’s fearful for me since I’m the one who royally fucked Magnus over this time. I didn’t tell my dad all the details, because he has no idea what the real con was, but I told him enough to make it clear the police was our only option.

I pick up my phone, flip through my text messages, and see the one Bridger sent me just a few hours ago.

Magnus flew out at noon. He’ll be back in NYC this evening.

Bridger has kept in contact with me since I left Wyoming yesterday morning. He’d been instrumental in giving me guidance the night I went to see him after Logan left me. He got me on a plane the next morning, had Cal Carson pick me up at the airport, who in turn swung by my dad’s apartment and picked him up, and then stayed with us all afternoon as we answered Dee Switzer’s questions about all of Magnus’ illegal operations.

Cal is great. It turns out, he and his wife, Macy, know Bridger well, but I’m not sure how. Dee is also great; a tough old broad who smokes like a fiend inside her “non-smoking” government-issue office and doesn’t give a shit who it offends. She’s tough on criminals, but she wasn’t judgmental about me and my dad’s involvement in said crime. She’s more interested in pulling a big fish out of the sea of crime in her city, and once my dad told her about the mini-Ponzi scheme Magnus started nine months ago, her eyes glittered like a child on Christmas morning.

My father gave Dee enough information, including turning over documents proving Magnus was defrauding investors by giving fake returns from new investor money—classic Ponzi maneuver—and she was preparing an arrest warrant but wasn’t sure when it would be executed. Sadly, while Magnus was in serious trouble over the various fraudulent cons he had going on, he wasn’t so big a fish that we warranted any type of police protection. The most Dee could say was that we needed to be careful and that once Magnus was brought into custody, it would be made clear he would be under very intense scrutiny from the police. We all hoped that would be enough to make him want to keep his nose clean and not add a murder charge to his rap sheet. I did not want my father or me going poof.

Of course, there was still the option of us packing up and moving away.

Possibly starting over somewhere new.

Never thought I’d say that because I love New York and it’s my home.

But the time I spent in Wyoming has given me new perspective. Maybe because I was with a man who showed me I could have a really amazing life somewhere else? Well, at least until things went to shit really fast.

And my heart got broken in the process.

I mean, really broken.

“You okay, darlin’?” my dad asks.

I tilt my face away from the street to look at him. He has no idea the things I went through to save him. I could never tell him the level to which I stooped, not only because he’d be devastated to know what I’d done for him, but also because while Mickey Foster is a non-violent man, he’d never give up a quest to kill Magnus for the type of con he involved me in. My father may not have had qualms with me cheating, lying, and stealing to make a living, but he’d never forgive the injustice of Magnus forcing me to essentially prostitute myself if he knew the real truth. As it were, I’m just thankful my dad accepted me at face value when I told him that the con was a bust and that our only option was to help the police bring him down.

“I’m fine, Daddy,” I say softly. “Just… worried.”

“Looks like more than worry on that sad face of yours,” he observes.

I take in my dad’s kind face with his laugh lines, and even smile to myself over the inherent sparkle of deviousness in his eyes that is the telltale sign of a lifelong con artist. I love him for his faults and despite them, and when all is said and done, I can never regret my actions to save the one man in my life who loves me unconditionally and holds nothing of himself back.

“Ever think about leaving New York?” I ask him in an effort to not only change the subject away from my sad thoughts about Logan, but also to actually put some thought into the best way to keep us safe until Magnus is put in prison. That was not going to happen overnight, and I was not looking forward to sleeping the next several months with one eye open. “We could start over somewhere. Maybe southern California where it’s always sunny and warm?”

“Hate to leave our home, baby girl,” he says morosely. “But like you… I’m worried about what Magnus is going to do. At the very least, you should leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” I rebuke. “We’re a team.”

“Always a team,” he says and holds his beer up in salute to me. “So maybe California isn’t a bad idea.”

I give him a lukewarm smile and wonder what it would take to start over. Dad has no job skills, but he can grift anywhere. I could help out… maybe still go to school. I give a mirthless internal giggle over that. The College Grifter. I bet I’d be one of a kind.

A knock on the door has me freezing in place, my eyes the only things moving toward my father. He lowers the recliner slowly, wincing as it creaks a little, and sets his beer on the table. Reaching down to the side of his chair, he picks up the baseball bat he keeps there. Like I said, he’s generally a non-violent type and doesn’t believe in guns, but living the type of life we do… you have got to have some protection.

I swing my legs off the windowsill, placing them on the floor to stand up, but my dad shakes his head at me in silent admonishment. With a jerk of his chin, he motions me to go to my bedroom.

I shake my head in denial, considering the large butcher knife in the kitchen.

“Get in your room now,” he whispers at me with that stern father look that’s not to be disobeyed.

My pulse spikes in fear, but I refuse his order, instead darting into the kitchen and grabbing the knife out of the wooden block. I creep back into the living room, my father giving me a harsh glare before moving to the door.

I pad silently behind him on bare feet and watch as Dad puts his eye to the peephole. He stares a minute and turns to face me, giving me a silent shrug to indicate he doesn’t recognize who’s at the door.

This relieves me slightly because it’s clearly not Magnus, but it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t send a messenger over to find out if I was here. There’s no way he knows about our involvement with the police yet, but I’m sure he’s more than pissed he couldn’t find me in Wyoming.

I push past my father and put my eye up to the peephole, perhaps able to recognize one of Magnus’ henchman or even better yet, the apartment manager who might be here to collect our rent, which always seems to be overdue.

Instead, I see Logan’s beautiful face staring at the door and I jerk backward, knocking into my dad.

“Who is it?” he whispers to me.

“Logan,” I whisper back involuntarily. I look back through the peephole and take note of the swell of joy and anger that sweeps through me.

Without another thought, I pull the chain free of the lock and swing the door open, fashioning my most malevolent stare at the man who managed to drive me higher than I’ve ever been in my life, only to drop me from the stratosphere to crash back down to earth.

“What do you want?” I ask, my tone appropriately icy.

Logan’s eyes roam briefly over my face before looking down to the butcher knife in my hand, and he winces. And because I apparently have some sort of mystical connection to his emotions, I read his guilt loud and clear.

I put you in danger, and now you have to carry a butcher knife around your apartment.

But he quickly schools his features and says, “I came to check on you. Make sure you’re okay.”

I can’t help the sarcasm. It comes pouring out. I hold the knife up and say, “I’m just peachy, Logan. Just waiting for Magnus to come bust into my apartment and whack my father and me.”

I open the door up a little so he can see my dad standing there with the baseball bat and jerk my chin toward him. “See. Dad’s got a bat. I got a knife. We’re fine. So you can just mosey on out of here and head back to Wyoming.”

“You’re clearly not fine,” he grits out as he pushes his way past me into the apartment.

“Well, make yourself at home,” I mutter as I step back and then close the door behind him.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he snipes back.

I roll my eyes at his back before asking with resignation, “Seriously, Logan… what are you doing here?”

I pretend not to notice how damned good he looks in faded jeans, his hiking boots, and a long-sleeved dark blue Henley, even as I feel my skin tightening all over just from his presence.

Logan spins on me, scrubs a frustrated hand through his hair, and admits, “I was worried about you.”

I throw my hands out, one still clutching the knife, and say with exasperation, “Well, as you can see… I’m fine. So you can just go.”

“I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” he blurts out, his face lined with guilt and worry.

“He got you into this mess?” my dad asks from behind me.

I wince, because I’d forgotten my dad was witnessing this painful exchange. I also cringe because my dad has no clue who Logan is or that he played a part in our current predicament. All I told my father when I came home was that I couldn’t continue on with the con because I felt it was too dangerous, and that I met someone in Wyoming—that would be Bridger—who had a way to help us out of this mess.

To my dad’s credit, he tried to question me on what type of danger Magnus had put me in, but I’d stubbornly refused the details and said he’d just have to trust me. There was no way I could ever tell my father the sordid details of the con, much less how I fell for a man who was trying to help me out but put me in a worse pickle than I already was. I certainly couldn’t tell him that now, or else he’d take that bat to Logan, and I liked his face all pretty the way it was.

With a sigh, I say, “Dad… this is Logan. A friend. He had my back in Wyoming… like my friend Bridger.”

This was not a blatant lie, because if I were to look at it solely from Logan’s perspective, he did have my back. He just went about it the wrong way.

Logan cocks an eyebrow at me, clearly surprised I’d reference him as a friend or that I’d even dare to say he had my back. And then he goes on to make matters worse, when he asks me dryly, “A friend? I think I was more than that.”

“Seriously?” I ask in exasperation. “You want to lay that innuendo out like that right in front of my father? Who you just met and who is also holding a baseball bat that he is not afraid to use?”

And he did not just quirk his lips up in amusement at me…?

Before I can slap the smirk off his face, he steps past me and holds his hand out to my father. “Mr. Foster… I’m Logan McKay. As Auralie said, I’m a friend of hers. And I hope I’m more than that.”

I growl low in my chest as my dad’s eyes cut to me with surprise before he looks back to Logan and offers his non-bat-bearing hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you.”

Logan nods at my dad before turning back to me. “Bridger told me you met with the federal prosecutor.”

“Yes. My dad gave enough information and proof that they’re going to issue an arrest warrant for Magnus,” I tell him grudgingly. “No clue when they’ll serve it though.”

“He’s going to come after you,” Logan states a simple fact I already know. “First and foremost because you ditched him in Wyoming.”

“This I know,” I say, sarcastically waving the knife in front of my face again, which is really a childish maneuver but whatever. “Hence the reason we’re armed.”

Logan snorts at our pitiful defense system and walks back to my door. I’m stunned for a moment, thinking my sarcasm has driven him off before I can really look at him and get my fill of all his magnificence before he leaves me again. I almost call him back once he opens the door, but he halts there and sticks his head out into the hallway, looking down to the left.

“You guys can come in,” he says to someone in the hall.

Logan steps back and admits two burly men in their early thirties. Both dressed in street clothes… jeans, t-shirts, and jackets. Fairly non-descript except for the air of menace they both carry about their personas.

Logan turns to me. “This is Wade and Wilson. They’re going to be your shadows until Magnus is behind bars.”

My eyebrows shoot sky high as I look at the men standing there before me, both with their hands clasped behind their backs as they stand at almost military attention.

“Come again?” I ask Logan in shock.

“They’re protection for you and your dad,” Logan says briskly. “They’ll switch out with another team for the night shift, but they’re on you until Magnus is taken care of.”

“Protection?” I mutter, still not able to comprehend what Logan is doing.

Logan’s eyes slide to the knife I’m still clutching. “Yeah… they’re much better than knives and bats.”

“I don’t understand. You what… hired bodyguards?”

“No,” Logan says sarcastically, but it’s a sarcasm laced with amusement. “I went to St. Margaret’s School for Wayward Children and hired mercenaries.”

“Huh?” I ask, completely lost in the conversation, not because it’s confusing as hell, but mostly because my brain has been pure mush since Logan walked into my apartment.

“Didn’t you see Deadpool?” he asks me.

“No, I didn’t,” I murmur.

“Well, never mind… you’re going to have twenty-four-hour protection,” he says confidently. “They’ll stay out in the hallway, but if you need to leave, they’ll go with you. I’ve also hired someone from their agency to track Magnus down to deliver a very strong message that you are under protection and that orders are shoot to kill if someone comes after you.”

I blink in astonishment, and my dad mutters, “Holy shit.”

Logan turns to Wade and Wilson, nodding toward the door, “You guys can go ahead outside. You’re officially on the clock.”

“Yes, sir,” one of them says in response, and I’m not sure if it’s Wade or Wilson, but then they both turn and walk out the door. In a daze, I bend over and place the knife on the coffee table, clearly not needing it right now.

When I look back to Logan, I ask with narrowed eyes, “We can’t afford this. And I know you can’t afford it, so who’s paying for this protection?”

“I actually can afford it,” Logan says. With apologetic eyes, he adds on, “It’s the least I can do for you.”

I do not like that at all, because now I know he’s here only because he’s driven by guilt for putting me in this situation to begin with. It was stupid to think he’d come all this way because he wanted a relationship with me.

“Well, thank you,” I snap at him. “I appreciate the offer, and we’ll accept it. So now that you have that burden off your shoulders, you can go ahead and go now.”

Logan stares at me for a moment, and it’s the only time I’ve not really been able to read what his silence says. Finally, he nods at me and then turns to my father. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Foster.”

“You too,” my dad says, sounding every bit as shell shocked as I feel.

Logan turns to the door. My heart cracks as he turns the knob and pulls it open. Before he steps through though, he turns to me and says, “I also came to tell you my story. Who I was two years ago and why it’s led me to do the things I’ve done.”

My jaw drops open wide and my heart squeezes even more painfully.

He gives me a wink. “When you want to hear it, I’m staying at the Marriott on Adams Street. Room 4319.”

Then he walks out the door and shuts it softly behind him.