Page 100 of Consuming Logan

Logan recoiled at the thought. “You call this protection?” he growled. “There’s three dead bodies, Susan.”

She laughed. “Would you rather they be you, Ava, and Monique?”

“Hell no, but—,”

“You should have been my son,” she rasped.

What in the hell was she saying? Judging by her expression, Logan’s internal turmoil must have shown on his face. “Robert Lee was mine first. You didn’t know, did you?”

“No,” he mumbled. This couldn’t be about who came first.

Logan thought back to the rumors he’d heard as a young man about the Masters and the Holbrooks.

“Men and their secrets,” she mused. “I’ve always watched over you, Logan. Keeping Randall from Ava,” she paused, “unlike Maribelle, I approve of her. That’s why I voted to secure your position at the foundation five years ago.”

Logan tried to reconcile all the pieces of the past to this moment in time, but it was all happening too fast. So, he asked the question. “Why the killing and the drug trafficking?”

Laughing, she shook her head. “Isn’t it obvious? Because I can. Like you I have a plan to be on top, Logan. The best of the best.”

“I don’t kill,” he growled.

“Don’t you?” she challenged. “You kill friendships. You kill professional relationships. You kill family connections. You’d kill this man if given the chance. Hell, you claim to care for Ava, yet you killed her love for you.”

“Don’t listen to her Logan,” Ava yelled.

Guilty as charged. Logan had taken Ava’s love for granted, thinking she would always be there for him, even when he neglected her needs.

Ash threw back his head and laughed. “Cry me a river,” he said, “or better yet, a brook,” and then, he angled the blade at Ava’s throat. Logan lunged. But too late he realized Ash’s true target. The mad man pulled a scalpel from his pocket and sliced across Ava’s side.

All movement ceased. His heartbeat stilled, even as his body moved on instinct.

Ava screamed.

Susan used the opening to scramble through the door behind Randall and Monique.

Ava’s blood dripped onto the carpet.

“Logan.” Ava’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Save…save, the ba—bies,” she trailed off.

Logan saw the single tear stream down her bruised cheek, and then he saw the red stain spreading across her abdomen. He leaped catching her, before she crashed knees down to the floor. Instead of protecting her face, her forearms formed a barricade across her belly. Selfless. Ava sacrificed herself to save their babies, and now he may lose her.

Like a wounded animal, Logan bellowed in pain, fear, and rage. Susan waved adios and walked out the way she’d entered.

Ash grinned. “You can’t save her and the baby. Especially when you’re dead, brother.”

“Caleb,” Logan spoke into the smart watch on his wrist, which had been open to Caleb’s listening ears the entire time. “Ava’s hurt. Where’s my backup,” he stammered. “She’s…she’s losing blood fast. Hurry.”

Caleb’s voice sounded in the room. “Help is on the way.”

Logan sprang into action. “That’s the difference between you and me, Dusty Ash. I can, while you never could,” he snarled, rushing forward in a clash of fists with the man who’d taken everything from him.

Ash threw the first punch, landing a solid hit to Logan’s gut. When he tried to stab Logan with the blade, using the forward momentum he blocked with his right, and wrestled the scalpel away with his left hand.

Ash paused and then grinned. “You still trying to protect that surgery hand, my brother.”

With both hands up in a defensive posture, Logan beckoned Ash forward. “What you waiting for? And, you’re no brother of mine.”

Logan slammed his left fist into the other man’s temple. “That’s my helping hand, asshole.”