Page 89 of Short, Lethal & Claimed

“Does it matter?” Logan asked as he closed the door behind him.

“It does if you’re looking for a reason to come after my family,”Kale drawled.

“I want answers,” Logan assured him.

“Does this have anything to do with the brownstone?”

“Does it matter?” Logan asked, taking in all the changes that Jill made to his room over the past week.

She’d taken it upon herself to turn this house into a home for the children. She’d started cleaning the house, making sure the children didn’t have to depend on takeout or have to spend all of their time in their room. She’d turned one of the bedrooms into a playroom for them, ordered a playground for the backyard that took him half the night to put together, set up a cozy living room for them downstairs, and scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom before setting it up so that she was baking them cookies a few days after they moved in. She also set up his room with new bedding, furniture, and ensured that he had everything that he needed in his bathroom.

“Not really. What do you want to know?”

“The truth,” Logan said as he made his way to the windows overlooking the large, dimly lit backyard and felt his lips twitch as he watched Caleb race outside, completely naked and giggling his little butt off.

“You’re not invisible!” Shane yelled as he chased after him.

“Yes, I am!” Caleb said with a huge smile as he quickly climbed up the slide and slid down before Shane could grab him. He watched as Jill raced over to the slide and scooped the little boy up before he could make a run for it. She-

“You have the children,”Kale said, letting him know just how sensitive his hearing was now.

“Yes,” Logan said, not bothering to lie to the shifter as he watched Shane try to wrestle Caleb back into his teddy bear undies while Jill did her best to hold onto the giggling child.

“There are quite a few people looking for them,”Kale drawled coldly, letting him know just fucking pissed he was about the children being dragged into this mess.

“And I’m planning on killing every single one of them,” Logan said, watching as Jill kissed Caleb’s forehead before she placed him back down on his feet and-

“Stop taking off your teddy bear undies!” Shane yelled with a growl of frustration when Caleb took off running back into the house.

He watched as Jill followed them at a leisurely pace, pausing to pick up Caleb’s discarded undies before she disappeared inside and-

“You saw what you wanted to, Logan,”Kale said, making Logan go still.

“Meaning?” Logan asked as he made his way to the chair that Jill ordered for him and sat down.

“You saw a beautiful girl who was in need of rescuing,”Kale murmured softly.“She was cruel, manipulative, and incredibly selfish, but she knew how to get what she wanted with a sweetsmile and when that didn’t work, she used tears and tantrums to get what she wanted,”Kale said as Logan told himself that Kale was lying, he wasn’t talking about his sweet Elizabeth, only…

Long forgotten memories that he’d excused at the time and had refused to think about because it always made him feel like he was betraying her memory had him swallowing hard as he remembered what happened when she didn’t get her way. The tears would start and they wouldn’t stop until he did what she wanted.

When he couldn’t give her what she wanted…

God, it had been pure hell.

“What else?” Logan forced himself to ask.

“Are you sure you want to know?”Kale asked, making him chuckle without humor.

“I’m not sure of anything right now,” Logan said, ramming his fingers through his hair as he dropped back against the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Tell me everything.”

After a brief pause, Kale did exactly that.

For the next hour, Logan sat there listening as Kale recounted everything that he remembered about Elizabeth. While Kale recounted the rumors that Logan refused to believe and the tales of her cruelty, he found himself thinking about the woman that he’d planned on spending his life with. He thought that he found the perfect wife the moment that he saw her. She was beautiful, sweet and he knew without a doubt that she would have made a wonderful mother one day, but now…

He thought about how upset she would get when he played with her cousins instead of focusing on her, the way that she ignored them when they called her name, and the way that she changed the subject whenever he brought up having children.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Logan demanded when it became too much.

“Because you loved her,”Kale simply said, making Logan sigh heavily as he rubbed the back of his neck.“And I never planned on standing by and letting you marry her, but I don’t think it mattered.”

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