Page 3 of Sinful Palace

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Logan

Willow quiveredin the seat next to me, eyes facing the windscreen as she stared vacantly into space. She was paler than usual, understandably, and every bare inch of skin was coated in sweat. Her gray jacket was flecked with little dots of blood.

I turned my gaze back to the road and sped up, needing this ride to be over already. I didn’t want to look at Willow again. I couldn’t.

Why the fuck did I kiss her back there?

I hated her, but in that moment, an extraordinarily powerful urge overtook me. I had to protect her and hold her close. Touch her. Drown myself in her.

Why?

“Logan,” she murmured a few minutes later.

“What?” I said, wishing she’d stop trying to talk to me.

“How did you find me?”

My brows furrowed. “Did you forget the tracking device around your neck?”

“No. I mean, how did you find me so fast?” she replied. “How did you realize I was missing? The fire was meant to distract you so you wouldn’t notice I was gone.”

I let out a deep sigh. Clearly, Willow wasn’t going to give up until I told her everything.

“When Adam came in to help us get Chloe and my parents out, I figured you’d been left alone outside,” I began. “It occurred to me that you might try to run, but at the time I was too distracted to do anything about it. It all went quicker than I thought, though. We got out of there within fifteen minutes, just as the fire trucks started to show up.”

I paused and risked a short glance at Willow. She wasn’t looking at me, but I could still see the guilt etched into her face.

“I knew you were gone before I even looked for you. I just knew it,” I went on. “So I checked the tracking app on my phone. It said you were fifteen miles away, heading east. At first I thought it was a GPS error. There was no way you could’ve made it that far on foot in fifteen minutes, and it wasn’t like you had a phone to call a cab. Then I remembered.”

“The iPhone,” she whispered, dropping her gaze to her lap.

I grunted, cursing myself for being so thoughtless. “Yeah. Stupid fucking mistake. I assumed it was broken. But then I realized I never actually checked properly. So I logged back into the remote access app on my own phone, and lo and behold, there it was. You’d rescued it from the maid, and you’d been using it for the last two days. I read your messages, and that’s when I knew the tracking app wasn’t wrong.”

“How did you get to the port in time to catch me when you were so far behind?”

“I fucking sped the whole way,” I said, gripping the steering wheel even tighter as I rounded a bend. “How else?”

“Oh. Right.” Her voice was barely above a murmur now.

“When I arrived, I saw you slinking into one of those alleys between the containers. I followed you, but I went a slightly different way. I wanted to know who the fuck we were dealing with before I did anything.”

“So you knew it was a set-up. That’s why you brought the gun.”

I shook my head. “I had no idea if it was a set-up or not. But I knew there was a chance. That’s why I brought it.” I paused and exhaled deeply. “When I finally caught up, you were standing there with your hands in the air, and Teddy had that gun pointed at you. I heard everything.”

A bitter taste filled my mouth, and my lips pressed into a grimace as I remembered what I’d done. Teddy had flicked off the safety on his pistol, and with that little clicking sound, instinct took over. Before he could pull the trigger, I put a bullet in his head.

I knew I wouldn’t miss. All intelligence analysts at Caldwell went through mandatory firearms training during the hiring process.

“Why did you do it?” Willow asked, turning her tormented gaze back to me.

“Do what?” I replied, even though I already knew exactly what she meant. This question had been coming ever since I pulled the trigger. I’d been dreading it.

She sniffed and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Why didn’t you let him kill me?” she said, voice cracking with emotion. “Why did you choose me over him? He was one of your best friends, and I’m your worst enemy.”

My upper lip curled. “I’m well aware of that.”

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