Logan
“Where are you, Ellie?” I drop my phone on the floor next to me and bow my head, barking out a grunt of disgust as I do.
It’s ironic, how I’m on my knees when that’s what I told Ellie I wanted from her.
I slam my eyes closed. Wrath sweltering in my blood. Simmering rage that blisters at my guts.
Revulsion and agony and a pang of guilt busting me open.
All of me spinning.
I hate this city. Hate every damn thing about it. It’s offbeat, loud, and proud. It’s made up of more cultures uniquely their own. And even though it’s below sea level, it’s resting on a swamp of scavengers.
The Big Easy, they say. It’s easy, alright. Easy to get lost in a world that screws with people’s minds.
It’s the city of colorful sex from Bourbon Street to the Bayou. It’s a pleasurable activity in which any willing person can learn and participate. But it also can come with a price if you’re the master and those you fuck take what you give them and turn it into something ugly.
At the moment, I’m not sure which I hate more, this city, myself, or the choices I made.
That’s the thing about choices; you can never go back and erase them. Never undo what’s done.
There were many times I kept wondering the same thing over again. Kept berating myself, always asking why I’d take apart my life a piece at a time. Never got an answer. Suppose that’s par for the course when you’ve lived a life trying to protect someone and get back what was rightfully theirs when all along, all I’d had to do was knock on Ellie Wynn’s door.
But no. I had to twist the knife. Had to make someone pay. A lot of fucking good it did when it’s about to destroy.
I can’t imagine what would’ve happened years ago if I would’ve gone to Ellie instead of seeking out revenge. Maybe it would’ve been the only push I needed to claim what’s mine. But this is my torment. My hell on earth. My old goddamn fault.
Torturer.
Sinner.
The deceiver who feels the gaping hole of losing the best thing that happened in my life in my chest, it nearly caves thinking about what Ellie knows and where she is.
Karma and fate.
They make a deadly combination, both coming into my life at the same time.
The first is a cold-hearted slap to the face.
The second I never believed in, not until I saw Ellie perched up on a bar stool looking like some kind of wet dream. Her laugh contagious. Her innocent eyes searching for something only someone seeking out the same would find.
To be needed.
To be loved.
Yeah, karma. She’s always the one who twists up fate.
Crushing it beneath her heeled boot.
What a fucking cunt she is.
There is much more at stake in this deadly game than losing Ellie.
Lexi and Lane will be hurt in irreparable ways if I don’t play my hand right.
I’ve derailed Ellie’s life, and I’ll live with it, but disrupting the life of an innocent little girl who could be dragged through hell, I’d rather be shoved back through the burning gates.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always protected my brothers. I didn’t do it because I was the oldest and felt it was my duty. I did it out of love, and regardless of how fucked up our lives are, how deep into guilt Seth is, how shallow the well is that makes up the life Lane worries about day and night. I’ll protect them for the rest of my life.
There were times when our dad would tell me to let them fight their own battles with the neighborhood kids. He’d say “Son, your intentions are good, I get why you don’t want anyone to hurt your brothers, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but you protect a little too fiercely.”
I didn’t listen to him then, wouldn’t if he were still alive. Tonight is one of those nights where Lane has to protect himself from a woman who done lost her mind; it’ll be my fault if things don’t go his way.
Should have said fuck it all and had Gabe end the woman who must have approached Ellie because she found out some of the things I’ve done.
Mainly? Murder.
I was almost done digging someone’s grave when my phone kept repeatedly vibrating in my back pocket. I answered when I saw it was Lane.
I made him aware this morning. Told him to stay out of it and to keep Lexi by his side. He didn’t listen. He dropped Lexi off with Gabe, searched all over town for the woman who is out for his blood, and when he found her, it was too late. She’d approached Ellie.
Lane made her leave, and when he walked her to her car, she laughed in his face when he asked what she told Ellie. Frustrated and angry, I’m sure when he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere.
Lexi’s aunt, Sadie Ferguson. Her mother’s sister is the one who hired someone to hurt Ellie. Also, the one who picked up Whitney from Ramon’s. She’s a conniving woman just like her sister who walked out of the hospital after giving birth to Lexi before her discharge papers were even dry.
Stephanie, Lexi’s mom, not once held that precious baby. She blindsided my brother and left Lexi without a mother. Better off, but it left Lane filled with worry about when the day comes where Lexi starts asking about her mom, the repercussions of abandonment it could have on that little girl’s mind.
I’ve told him dozens of times he’s the best father I know, and he’ll figure it out the same way he’s managed to raise her on his own, but I don’t walk in his shoes. I don’t tuck that angel in bed every night. Don’t sit around wondering if it’s Stephanie every time someone knocks on my door.
And now, I sit here waiting on Lane’s call before I make my next move.
“There you are. Your security is gone. Were you expecting me or were you hoping your little bitch might show up? Me, I was looking forward to the latter.”
My head kicks up, and I shoot Whitney right between the eyes with my frosty glare.
She’s a dead bitch for double-crossing me.
“You bought furniture, or did Ellie buy it for you? We have many topics to discuss, Logan. There’s Lexi; there’s Maggie, Stephanie and Sophia, and Ellie. Oh, more importantly, there’s me. Which one would you like to chat about first?”
Whitney sends me one of those twisted smiles I’ve seen plenty of times over the years as she waltzes in and kneels in front of me, her short skirt riding up her thighs. The bitch wants more from me than talk; she wants something she isn’t ever going to get again.
My cock and my safety.
I rough a hand down my face, trying to stay calm.
“What did you do to Maggie, darling. Did you kill her yourself? God, you’re tense. Do you need me to help you out with that?” She rubs her hands up my thighs.
Nausea whirls. My hands shoot out and I grip her by the throat.
A riot starts in my body. Fighting and dueling in my skull. The reminder of what I was, what Whitney and I used to do and what could have been if she wouldn’t have done what she did.
Christ, I can’t even imagine it. Being with this bitch, thinking she was my world once upon a time.
Need.
It trumps and squashes.
This woman or any other isn’t what I need. Not by a long shot. Replaceable. They all are.
Ellie is not.
“You’ll never know what I did, you’re good as fucking dead.” I know better than to confess to Whitney about killing someone. I haven’t trusted her since I found out she conspired with Shadow.
Maggie is out of the picture. She was someone I trusted with everything, and she betrayed me. She might have been a possessive one, but I never thought she’d be this desperate to have me, and by doing so, she’d fed Whitney information about Ellie. It wasn’t until Rocco and I went to see Maggie that she confessed while I put a gun to her head. She’s the one who let Whitney into the club and handed over my laptop. She’s the one who did a lot of things, and she’s no longer breathing.
Bitch was like all the rest of the women who want me. Not one of them looks at me like they’d run off into the sunset with me with nothing but a pot to piss in. Not one of them can stand on their own two feet like Ellie. They don’t feel like her, taste like her. Dress like her. They aren’t her.
Even the one in front of me. A woman I once loved. A woman I pretended to still care about long after her brother went to jail, and now she’s here to try and stake her claim.
To fuck Ellie all over again.
Because of me.
Right.
That’ll never happen. Not while I’m breathing.
“What the hell did Sadie say to Ellie?”
“She tried warning her, and you know why?” Tilting her head to the side, she pins me with a glare. Deep satisfaction is written all over her face. “Tell Lane to let Stephanie and Sadie see Lexi. Give me back what you took from me and I’ll prepare you for when you see Ellie next. I’ll see to it she forgives you.”
She may as well have kicked me in the balls. My entire body winds tightly with worry.
But I mask it the same way I’ve done for years with Whitney. She might be good at manipulation, I’m a hundred times better. Only problem? I won’t jeopardize my niece. I can’t do a damn thing until I hear from Lane.
“Lane will never agree to that. I’m not playing around with you anymore. Told you that years ago when I found out you were the one who snitched on Shadow. Guess my proof will be in your brother’s hands by tomorrow.” I squeeze tighter, crawling up her skanky body until I’m in her face.
Cold laughter pours out of her mouth, covering her with the poisonous woman she is. “I’d think twice before you start throwing demands my way.”
Bitch doesn’t have a leg to stand on with me.
“And I’d start thinking about just how much you want to live if I were you.”
My head spins and my heart pounds, bile climbing up my throat, revulsion crawling across my flesh.
“What I took from you wasn’t yours to begin with, Whitney. You should know better than to try and get a dime from me.”
“I’m here to do what should have been done a long time ago. Make you pay, Logan. I have the upper hand this time. I have proof to get Lexi taken from her daddy. I have proof to make Ellie run. I have proof, you have nothing.”
I breathe deeply to settle the fuming pulsation of my muscles, the wrath boiling through the thick layers of my skin ready to hit my veins and burst open any minute.
Misery.
It bounds me tight.
“Where’s my laptop?”
My head spins and my heart pounds, bile climbing up my throat, revulsion crawling across my flesh.
My blood boils as Whitney licks her lips, relaxed in her pose, gratification pouring out of her.
“Give me what I want, Logan, and I’ll tell you. The quicker you do, the faster you can beg Ellie to forgive you. Although, I’m not sure anymore if she will.”
Dread rocks through my veins as Whitney’s eyes shift to my front door.
I can feel Ellie’s life-force drain away in my doorway, screaming for a breath, for some air before she speaks.
“Oh, God. No. Have you been fucking her the whole time you’ve been with me? What do I need to forgive you for, Logan? I would have forgiven you for anything, but her.”
My stare rips from Whitney to Ellie. The woman so beautiful I can’t bear to see the tears falling down her face, the wringing of her hands. The shock of her seeing Whitney in my house, and me on top of her.
Sickening, cynical laughter breaks from Whitney’s all too happy mouth. I can feel her claws digging in.
A vicious circle of deceit. Round and round it goes.
“Oh, this is better than I thought it would be. You should have learned your lesson years ago not to mess with me, Ellie. Funny thing how I’ve lived in this town for years and never knew you did too. Not until a few weeks ago. We could have shared Logan the way I shared him with everyone else. We could have bonded like sisters again. I wish I could say it’s nice to see you again, but it’s not. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this. I’m Logan’s wife, and we’re having a baby. I’m four months along.”
Ellie and Logan’s story continues in Undone and Untwist.