Page 26 of Consuming Logan

Ava lifted her head. He couldn’t be serious. Eighteen hours ago, he was bleeding out in the emergency room.

“Logan,” she chided. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re my nurse. You know how to take care of me, sweetheart.”

Warmth spread through her. This was her Logan. In his mind they could conquer anything, together.

She shrugged. “You’re crazy, but I love you.”

Logan nodded and held her tighter. She untangled the bedcovers separating them, seeking his heat. The adjustable bed, entirely too small to hold them, groaned when she shifted, but she didn’t care. Like in the emergency room, she was reluctant to leave his side.

“I have one question, sweetheart.”

She wrapped her arms around Logan’s waist. “Yes,” she sighed, snuggling into his solid chest.

“Where were you when I woke up? Is our baby okay?”

Ava gave a sharp intake of breath. Of course, he would remember their baby. Logan never forgot anyone who was important to him. He meant the world to her too…him and this baby. He had battled pure evil and won. She wanted to celebrate that they both were still alive. Logan would push until he had his question answered. Opening her mouth, she said the three words that would paint the past twenty-four hours with a fresh stroke of horror. “I started bleeding.”

Chapter 8

The Barren Mother slammed both palms down on her boardroom table. Her trigger finger itched to grab the Sig Sauer she kept holstered under the tabletop in front of her executive chair. Her organization was at critical mass. After more than twenty years of meeting Shell Cove’s demands for recreational drugs, her entire enterprise was in jeopardy because the men in her employ couldn’t keep their egos in check. In a matter of three years, she’d lost Bluton “Sky” Faraday, the head of Operations, Chief of Police Gardner “Eagle” Johnson, her protection, and Morris “Falcon” Tucker, her enforcer.

Hawk and his three-man team were the last of her lieutenants. But her number one lacked the viciousness she needed in the field. His refined air was best suited in the mansions of Shell Cove’s elite, the corporate boardrooms, and the black-tie fundraisers.

“Which one of you imbeciles attacked Ava Walters?”

Even though she was of petite stature and dressed in her Dolce & Gabbana crocheted collection, the men surrounding her table all averted their eyes. It was a harsh reality but power and money commanded fear, and she had a ton of both. Her weapon lay hidden from most behind a painted smile, designer labels, and private clubs.

“Look at me,” she said, voice barely above a whisper laced with deadly intent. “My orders were to leave those women alone.” She did nothing to suppress her fury. “No one was to touch Logan Masters or anyone connected to him. What the hell happened?”

All at once, the tension skyrocketed up. Beads of perspiration popped on one of her lieutenant’s forehead. The acrid stench of fear wafted from his pores, polluting her air. He was scared. As they should be. Disobedience demanded punishment. A swift, yet bloody affair she rarely had the need to exercise.

“Stop,” she commanded. “I don’t want excuses, gentlemen,” she said reaching for one of the decorative metal pins securing her thick tresses in a chignon. “Now, recount what happened at that club…in vivid detail. The biggest shipment of my career has been held up for weeks. My supplier is scheduled to meet with us at that damn club in eight weeks and now it’s crawling with cops.” She smiled.

“Hawk.” She swiveled to face the calculating gaze of the man on her right. “Who authorized the attack on Ava?”

Nothing happened — of a criminal nature — in Shell Cove under her unblinking stare, Hawk didn’t flinch. She would have to watch him. Hawk was a highly effective tool in the right hands, but he was cunning. If she wasn’t careful, she would find herself behind bars like Sky, Eagle, and Falcon. The man was not to be trusted. Though there was honor among her thieves, Hawk was not a thief. He was a predator who thrived on inflicting pain.

With little more than a raise of his brow, he said, “It wasn’t us.”

Menace rolled off him, and she silently felt a swell of admiration. Hawk held contempt for people like her. She could walk in a room and be invisible, whereas he would instantly draw suspicion if he asked too many questions or seemed too eager.

“How can you be sure?” She bared her teeth, ready to tear off a strip of flesh to get the answers.

He relaxed his posture, his straight shoulders dwarfing the chair back. “I was at the party.”

As a businesswoman, she’d learned that men appreciated a firm hand. Keeping her eyes fixed on her lieutenant, she raised her hair spike and plunged it into the hand of the soldier on her left.

His screams echoed around the room. Hawk was no longer relaxed. He sat ramrod straight. Four ashen faces stared at her, and then the room chilled with anger. And just like the Incredible Hulk, no one fared well when she was angry.

Where Hawk had been relatively mute before, he joined the rush of voices. It had been years since she’d unleashed her aggression on her trusted circle, but too much was at risk. If she failed to maintain a reliable distribution network, her supplier may deem it necessary to eliminate her. Unacceptable.

Glancing at the bloated face of the idiot next to her, she ignored the blood seeping onto the table. “If one drop stains my rug, I’ll slit your throat and have your over-sized body sliced in steaks for my dogs.”

The man pivoted cradling his hand away from the table’s edge. Good boy. She might delay his death by a month or two.

“Hawk,” she raised her voice, “why were you at that party?”