Page 27 of Consuming Logan

Immediately the room quieted. True power came not with money or influence. It came with the ability to control behavior.

“No one saw me,” he said in his defense, “but we have a problem with Victor.”

Victor was a psychotic pedophile with a brilliant business mind. Unfortunately, Sky, before his incarceration, had managed to tangle her business with a very dangerous man. Sky had promised Victor that he would supply him with a new flower. In the human trafficking world, a flower was a young girl untouched by any man. Victor had unwittingly requested Sky’s niece, a nine-year-old by the name of Cassidy. At the time of his arrest, Cassidy had been discovered with Sky, but in her heart, she knew the guy would never turn over his own flesh and blood to a twisted madman like Victor. Fortunately, the girl had escaped with her older sister Estrella, and Sky had been captured by the Shell Cove Police Department.

She stood, and then walked casually to the window. Penthouse views were the best. She could see the beauty of the outside, but no one could see inside. It was a parallel of men and women. Men coveted the fragile outward beauty, yet ignored the strength contained in the petal. Underestimating women were their weakness. “What’s the problem?”

Hawk uncurled his meaty fists. His hands were like cement blocks on the table. “Sky made promises that Victor is expecting us to fulfill. He still wants a girl.”

“Well, Cassidy is in the wind.” She lifted one manicured hand, waving off the comment. “We have no intel on her or the sister’s location.”

“Understandable,” he breathed, the sound rough and forced. “But…he’s made another selection.”

She spun to face him. “I don’t deal in women,” she hissed. “You know that.”

Hawk ran a hand over his mouth, stroking his beard. “If we refuse, it would mean war.”

Unwilling to admit defeat, she snapped, “Who is it that he wants?”

“Though I didn’t think he was serious at first, he wants the girl that’s been on the news.”

What kind of clue was that?

With a roll of her eyes, she sighed in irritation. “Could you be more specific?”

Honestly, men could be so simplistic at times. For the amount of money she paid her staff there was no need to stroke their egos.

“Monique Faulkner. Logan’s star patient with the bionic arm. His exact words were ‘I want to add a medical miracle to my collection.’”

What? Mentally, she stumbled. She forced herself to place one foot in front of the other, not letting on how the veiled threat unsettled her. It was an impossible request. Victor had to know kidnapping a young girl with the weekly media attention put them all at risk of exposure.

The Barren Mother started tapping her foot. How the hell were they supposed to reach a girl adored by the entire city with the media watching?

She ground her molars in frustration. Victor wanted to destroy her business. If she failed to meet his demands it made her appear weak. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Right, she needed a plan to stall Victor while protecting Logan and Ava.

“Find out who attacked Logan and his fiancée. Eliminate them. And then, I want a contingency plan if we don’t have the girl in our custody when Victor arrives.”

When voices started overlapping each other, she held up a hand, silencing them.

“Let me establish the ground rules. No one leaves this room until I have back up plans to the back up plans. That applies to finding the attacker, getting the girl, and moving the drug shipment.”

“Susan,” her oldest and most loyal lieutenant uttered her name. She’d earned her title with true sacrifice — her life, her blood, her love. Four decades of building her network from the ground floor. No one had the right to strip away her title, her birthright into the criminal underbelly of society. She was the best of the worst. So the moral majority cursed her existence, but let’s face facts, they couldn’t dream of living her lush lifestyle. So, who gave a shit about the little people? Not her.

The Barren Mother returned to her seat. Slow and deliberate, she pulled two more decorative pins from her hair, placing them side by side on the table.

“If you ever say my name again while we’re in this room, I’ll bury this dagger in your throat.”

He nodded. She smiled when he lifted one hand to absently adjust his collared shirt. She relished the power. Men loved when women could dispose of them. It called to the predator inherent to the male species.

“Now,” she stroked one of her pins, meeting the cautious stare of each man in the room, “who wants to take a stab at our problem?”

The room fell silent.

Chapter 9

The attack had a lingering effect, like the breathless sensation after a well-placed gut punch. For the first time in his life, Logan felt a shift in power—away from him. An unknown opponent had intruded on his home field, executed an illegal play, and scored. It didn’t bode well when he felt out of control. His well-planned life was in a fumble and gathering speed. Now Logan needed to get himself and Ava back to their safe zone. Their normal began and ended tangled together in sweat drenched sheets.

Six days of sleeping solo in a hospital bed, followed by a bumpy transition home left his frustration high and his muscles bunched and tense. Like a tourniquet, his drive to avenge and his need to protect Ava and the baby had tied him in a knot. If anything happened to her or the baby, he would cease to exist. Even with a night of rest in their bed, and he used the term loosely, neither one of them had slept well. Uncertainty had kept him awake last night and on edge this morning. Ava had to feel the tension radiating from him. Logan expected her to try to calm his rage or soothe his inner beast.