Page 127 of When He Plays

She glanced back at the room. “I had to tell Harper that Sebastian Shay did not make it out of surgery.” A long exhale. Her gaze slowly tracked to meet his. “She took the news harder than I expected. I wonder if there was more to their relationship than I realized.”

“He’s dead?” Fuck. Now he felt bad for giving the bastard such a hard time.

“Um.”

Hold up. That wasn’t an answer. His gaze narrowed in suspicion. “Is the man dead or not?”

“Carmichael Lennon is dead. You very nearly cut out his heart, didn’t you? Quite vicious.”

“He took Charlotte.”

“Yes. Though for a moment there, when you disappeared in the dark of that building as you searched for the breaker room, I did wonder if you would get back in time or if I would have to do the deed myself.”

He blinked. “You were fucking there?”

“I have to applaud you. The way you had things going down in the end, the way you waited for him to turn at you with that knife. Bravo. You clearly made it into self-defense and not murder. Even if we both know you went into that building, fully intending to end his life.”

He absolutely had gone into the building with that intent.

“Jamar is recovering,” she suddenly said, briskly changing topics. “He’s on the floor below us. Definitely ready for his retirement from the CIA. I think this situation just sped up his timeline all the more.”

“And your timeline?” Logan had to ask. “You still out?”

“I am closing out the pesky paperwork involved with this mission. Got to make sure all the I’s are dotted. The T’s crossed. That sort of thing.”

“Uh, huh. T’s crossed. Sure.” He shoved his hands into his back pockets and rocked forward. “Would that I dotting and T crossing include the way you’re handling Ares?” He recalled the fury that he’d felt when he’d spied Ares in the lobby of his hotel. At first, he’d been ready to rip the man to shreds. But the confession Evans had made didn’t sit well with him…

He looked me in the eyes, and I think he lied when he named Ares as the perp we were all after. Gut instinct.

So when Ares had appeared, Logan hadn’t immediately attacked the other man.

Sebastian had. But Logan had pulled the marshal off Ares. Ares had started talking then, fast. He’d been feverish, desperate. Afraid.

He’d explained that he’d come for their meeting, and that he’d wanted to return Charlotte’s knife and Logan’s brass knuckles as some kind of olive branch.

Since Logan knew jackshit about a meeting with Ares, he’d let the man keep talking.

Ares had suspected that he was being set up. After all, his assistant had wound up in Pierre’s room with her throat slit. Charlotte had been drugged—most likely—at Ares’s place. Though they were still waiting on the tox screen results to come back on that one. How long did that shit take? Did the CIA not have some magic pull they could exert?

But, back to Ares. The Greek had been desperate. He’d told Logan and Sebastian that he suspected they were working with the authorities. He’d begged them for a deal.

“Ares wants to turn on the Russians.” Jezebel’s quiet voice carried only to Logan. “He hopes for a new identity in exchange for his cooperation. My supervisors are quite pleased by that unexpected turn of events. Fun discovery—Ares was hiding quite a bit of intel in his Vegas building. All sorts of interesting evidence pieces that he’d squirreled away and locked tightly in various safes that he’d installed. His contingency plans, I suppose. Now he’s trading that material for his life.”

Ah. Well, he’d suspected something important was in that building. Logan just hadn’t thought it was the sort of stuff that would give the guy a new life.

Though at the moment, he wasn’t particularly interested in Ares. Logan looked around Jezebel, his gaze darting to the closed hospital room door. He needed to see Charlotte.

“We have the tox screens back,” Jezebel murmured. “Drugs were in the champagne bottles, though I think we all know that already, don’t we?”

The damn door was still closed.

“And Evans is cooperating, both with me and Detective Meredith Reece. He’s already confessed to a number of crimes. He even took us to the body of the man who helped to transport Harper from her hotel room to that unfortunate cage.”

“Evans had better not see the light of day anytime soon.” A snarl.

“He won’t. No worries on that score.”

Did he look worried? Pissed, sure. But he wasn’t worried. If Evans got out, Logan would handle him. Why is the damn hospital door still closed?