There were two things Logan was certain of right now. The first is that he was monumentally screwed. The second was that he couldn't think of a better solution to his current situation. Sitting in the holding cell of the La Bonita police department was more than enough to make him anxious. It didn't help matters that he was surrounded by enforcers and thugs from all levels of Julio's organization. If they so much as suspected him of snitching they'd shiv him right then and there. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that the cops had honestly succeeded in disarming all of them completely.

The cops knew who he was now. They knew what his connection to Julio was. It was only a matter of time before they asked him to inform on the organization. Logan had done a few brief stints in the La Bonita jail before. He wasn't interested in going back. Especially not for someone like Julio. The price of freedom, however, was his life. Putting himself under the protection of the cops, turning his back on everything he'd ever known. It was a terrifying prospect.

That Detective, Fuentes, he'd had this self-righteous look in his rain-cloud eyes. The kind of look that people got when they were certain they were going to win in the long run. He'd been like a rock, cold and uncaring, as he asked his questions and analyzed the situation. He probably thought he was helping Logan escape a difficult situation. He didn't seem to think that he was actually making the situation worse.

Logan hovered near the back of the holding cell. It was one of three large pens that lined one wall of the bullpen. Dozens of thugs, mostly picked up during the raid, had been shoved into the cells. More were sitting along the benches that lined the hallway towards the interview room. The grumbling and shouting of "wrongly accused" miscreants pierced the steady droning of the police as they worked. The bullpen was a large room, filled with desks, where the La Bonita police filled out their reports, fielded calls, and processed complaints from the citizenry.

Most of them looked tired. The aftermath of the raid had been a mess, and most of them had been cleaning it up since late last night. From the look of the light streaming through the large windows at the front of the building it was already mid-morning.

Logan sighed and leaned against the solid stone wall behind him. Everything had seemed so much different only a few short hours ago. Julio had been throwing a party. The bar had been full of familiar, though somewhat unpleasant, faces and he was looking forward to an evening filled with drinking and good food. Life at Julio's side hadn't been altogether unpleasant. The sex had been okay, and he hadn't needed to worry about anything. He knew there were people who would probably judge him for his choice of lifestyle, but he'd stopped letting it bother him. Usually.

The look in Detective Fuentes' eyes as he'd dug to the heart of Logan's relationship with Julio had been aggravating. Somehow, he'd dredged up feelings of shame and self-doubt that Logan had long since cast aside. What did he care what this stupid, self-righteous detective thought of him? He'd never been forced to make a choice between sleeping with a drug lord and sleeping on the streets. The mosquitoes, the heat, the lack of a safe place to lay your head, all of that and more was enough to drive anyone into situations they might have otherwise avoided.

At least, that's what Logan told himself.

Thankfully, his companions within the holding cell, a bunch of muscle-bound morons that he only knew by sight as Julio's henchmen, weren't interested in chatting him up. They would have known who he was, and there was a good chance that they probably looked down on him a little. It didn't matter what they thought as long as they left him alone. He didn't want any trouble. What he wanted was to go back in time and avoid all of this.

Logan clenched his fists and thunked his head back against the stone. There was no point in wishing things were different. This was his reality now. Julio was gone and wouldn't be able to protect him anymore. He'd gotten out of plenty of tough situations in the past, this wouldn't be any different. The only thing that mattered was protecting himself. Nothing else, no one else, was important enough to sacrifice himself.

He grit his teeth as he scanned the room. None of these thugs meant anything to him. Not even Julio was important enough for him to go down with the ship. He knew any one of them would sell him out if they got the chance. He also knew that if he wanted any shot at maintaining life on the outside, he was going to have to give the police everything he had. As long as they could keep him alive it would be worth the risk.

The front doors of the police station bottle-necked the constant stream of people coming and going. There were shift changes, concerned citizens, a couple of reporters chasing leads, and not to mention a few dozen individuals wearing uniforms that Logan didn't recognize. He'd heard murmurs about the new anti-drug task force after the raid last night. Apparently they'd kept their entire existence under wraps while preparing their case against Julio.

As Lacey Aguado set foot in the police station, wrapped in the signature yellow windbreaker that everyone on the task force seemed to wear, she almost immediately locked eyes with Logan. He recognized her of course. She was the younger sister of one of Julio's drug runners, Liam. He'd used his tour boat to smuggle drugs onto Catalejo island from outside locations and stashed them in his boathouse.

Logan remembered Julio's long and frequent tirades about Liam's constant requests to be let out of his obligations. The drug lord had been on the verge of picking up Lacey and holding her hostage to ensure Liam's continued cooperation. Lacey had disappeared and gone underground before that could happen. No one knew where she'd gone, not even Liam. The amount of manpower that Julio had put into searching for her was staggering. He wasn't the sort of person that liked to lose control of a situation.

Lacey had popped up during the party at the head of the raid. Logan wasn't sure what pissed Julio off more. The fact that there had been a raid at all, or the fact that Lacey Aguado was the one heading it up.

Every single thug in the room watched as she, flanked by two other yellow-jacketed task force members, made a beeline for the cell where Logan was being held. He shrank back against the wall and directed his attention elsewhere. If she pulled him out of here like this, in front of everyone, they'd know something was up. The rumors would start to fly and chances were good that he wouldn't survive the night. Rumors among thugs who currently lacked leadership, or any sort of direction, were a dangerous thing.

"Aguado!" Detective Ramos Fuentes emerged from the crowd near the front door and shouted out to her before she reached the cell. He looked freshly showered, with a clean shirt and freshly combed hair. The dark, day-old, stubble on his chin had been shaved away, leaving him smooth and handsome. He looked every bit like a television show detective. Suave, knowledgeable, stoic, but with something deep and dark behind his calm facade. Something about his expression as he called out to Lacey sent shivers down Logan's spine. Maybe it was the authority in his voice or the thunder in those storm-cloud eyes, either way it was enough to make Logan's mouth go dry.

"I'm in the middle of something here, Fuentes," snapped Lacey as she and her entourage stopped short and turned to face him. "Whatever you've got to say can wait."

"It really can't," insisted Ramos as he crossed the room. "You and I need to talk, now." He stressed the "now" so that there could be no mistaking the seriousness of his intent. His tone, however, came across like a parent chastising a child.

Lacey picked up on it almost immediately. She was young, probably barely in her twenties, and looked like she was eager to prove herself. She seemed to view Ramos' interruption as a direct challenge to her authority. Or, at least, that's how Logan interpreted the ice cold glare that crossed her conventionally pretty features.

"This isn't some pissing contest, Aguado," Ramos said as he reached her. "Before you do anything else, we need to talk."

"I'm acting on information you gave the task force," she said as if that was supposed to counter anything he had to say.

"Not now, Aguado and not here." Ramos shot a glance towards the holding cells and then across the room to the line of benches. "This isn't the place."

Lacey followed his gaze but still looked like she wanted to argue some more. Much to Logan's relief, she seemed to think better of it. Without a word, she gestured towards the line of doors on the other end of the room where the meeting rooms and private offices were located. Logan had seen quite a few of the task force members coming and going from one the meeting rooms and assumed that had been turned into their temporary headquarters.

As Lacey and Ramos made their way towards the task force HQ, Logan released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. That had been a close call.

"Who was she coming for?" asked one of Logan's cellmates as they returned to a poker game they'd been playing in the middle of the holding cell. There were at least six of them, each as big as the other, and they seemed to be wagering their work hours. Ten minutes here, an hour there. If the various scraps of garbage they had piled next to them were any indicator then one of them had raked in a significant number of the other men's hours. He seemed to think he might not ever have to work again.

None of them seemed to realize that even if they got out of here without going to jail, this was the end of Julio's organization. There's no way the cartel would ever trust him with a shipment again. There would be no more jobs after this. The point of their game was moot. Not that Logan was going to tell them any of that though. The more they focus on one another, the less they were focused on him.

"Eh, who cares?" said the guy with the biggest pile of minutes racked up. "It's not like any of us could tell the little bitch anything anyway. After all that time looking for her and she ends up being the big dog behind this whole task force thing? Talk about irony."

That wasn't exactly ironic...Logan shook his head but kept quiet. Sure it was quite the twist, but it wasn't irony.

"Just remember," countered the smallest of the group, who was still pretty large, "anyone talks, standing orders are to gut him on the spot."

"Still, the head honcho was going to question one of us," continued the big winner. "She hasn't personally talked to anyone else that we know about. Rumor says she's only been chatting with the boss, trying to get him to talk. She probably thinks someone in here knows something that might help with that."

"Like who? None of us knows anything. The boss tells us to punch someone, guard something, go somewhere, we do that. He's never actually trusted us with anything really important about the business though," one of the others pointed out.

Logan felt his heart rate spike. Since when had those meatheads gotten so observant? He was pretty sure most of them had failed, or never even attempted, high school. The fact that they were actually following a logical train of thought was unnerving to him. He pressed himself against the stone wall and silently wished he could just disappear. Outwardly, however, he did his best to maintain the calm, uncaring, smirk he always wore. It was a good mask, he liked that mask.

"What about pretty boy over there?"

He felt their collective eyes turn on him. He cocked his head slightly and glanced back their way. Not more than a glance, just a look to show them he was listening.

The group was silent for a long moment. Logan briefly anticipated defending himself to them or throwing some sort of doubt their way. He swallowed, wetting his dry throat, and willed himself to stay calm. Rushing to defend himself would only make him look guilty. He hadn't even done anything wrong. He hadn't given anyone any information, he hadn't turned anyone in. There was no reason for them to suspect him of anything.

"Yeah, pretty boy, like he knows anything about the boss' business. The only thing he ever thinks about is dick." The big winner chuckled and the others joined in. Their opinion of him wasn't high. It never had been, and he hadn't gone out of his way to try and correct them.

"Those scabby knees of his will probably get some more use before he gets out of here though," chortled another. "He'll do anyone to stay off the streets. Won't you, pretty boy?"

Logan chuckled under his breath as he relaxed against the wall. The morons continued poking fun at him, but he remained impervious to it all. He was safe, for now.