Page 92 of Tortured Eyes
“Gone back to Costa Rica. She said she wanted the space to think. I don’t even know if she’ll come back now if I’m honest. With Nate gone she’s been distant, not herself.” I nod and look at the table, finally shrugging out of my coat.
“He shouldn’t have died. Shouldn't have damn well been there.” All the emotion of that night wells up inside me, threatening to spill out. I try sitting straighter, avoiding it, but mix in Bryce’s cutting words earlier, the way she blames me, and then the talk of my father being ill, and I’m failing. “I tried to stop it, but I was too late, and I couldn’t get in between him and the bullet.”
She’s over at my side and wrapping her arms around me before I can blink, my head being pulled into her chest. “I know you did,” she says, rubbing her hand into my hair. “I know, Logan.”
No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t understand the panic I felt then or the sense of betrayal that still sits in my guts even now. I try moving out of her embrace, attempting to brace myself away from the oncoming tears, but she holds me so damn tightly, as if all this time apart has meant nothing. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“I’m sorry.” The words falter out of me.
“I know.”
Fuck knows how long it goes on for, but I keep repeating those words as if they’ll somehow make him come back to life. They won’t. Nothing will. He’s gone, as is the attitude I held so close to my own chest. Something broke inside me when his body fell. Something changed. I understand that now because I’m choosing Samuel’s thoughts and opinions over my own. In this moment, when I should feel harsh and stoic, I’m falling apart. I’m thinking about care and love, feelings instead of hatred and vengeance.
It all makes me linger in her hold as she keeps consoling me for something she should blame me for. Some part of me feels like I’m finally coming out the misted rage I’ve been labouring in all this time. I don’t know where to go with what I’ve got now, though, don’t know how to process something I’ve kept unreachable for so long. These tears. They mean something to me. Something more than the tortured anger I’ve kept inside. That anger's necessary, though. New York needs me, as do the streets of Chicago now. Fuck knows how Vico managed it with Hope and Fia in tow. He must have flipped some switch I don’t have yet, found a way to love and cherish, and be as fierce as his streets needed him to be.
“I can’t do this,” I mutter, pulling myself out of her hold to stand. I wipe under my eyes, snatching my coat from the back of the chair so I can leave. “I can’t be who you want me to be anymore, Mother. I’m not who I was.”
She nods and backs off a few paces, a small smile on her face. “But those tears prove you are, Logan. Don’t you see? I’m so glad to see them. I love you, no matter who you are. You bring those tears home whenever you need to. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
I hear the main door close in the hall, the sound of my father’s footsteps clacking through the house. “Wipe your eyes again,” she says to me. I do, all the time trying to get a fucking handle on the feelings and thoughts crashing down on me. “Go now, before it gets too much for you and you both start arguing. We’ll try again soon.”
I back away from her, crossing the floor I grew up on, ran around on as a kid, and smile at her as I turn. She's right. That’s enough emotion for now. I’m stewed up, worn out, and in need of solace away from this house and the people in it. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime, but not yet. Not until I work out what it all means for me in my own head.
Five strides and I’m into the hall and making my way through to the main door. I’ll go have a drink with Carter. Cool off and say my goodbyes to him, too. I’m not coming back for a while. There’s no need. The streets are calm enough for the cops to deal with for a while, and this damned heart needs a place it can harden up again, maybe even heal.
“Logan?” my father says from his office. I half baulk, and then turn back to it. He’s sitting behind his desk, a look of concern on his face. “You came to see your mother?”
“I said I would.”
“And now you’re leaving?”
“New York.” He nods and leans back, his eyes tired and sad. "I'm needed."
“When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Silence stretches. I don’t know what to say any more than he does. It’ll take a long damn time for me to get over this fully. As he said—stubborn ass fool. But I guess I will at some point. I’ll manage myself over time, find reasons to need to be here and give them some parts of myself back that they’ve lost along the way. Maybe they could meet Samuel one day, thank him for his ability to make me listen enough to hear sense. Not now, though. Not a fucking chance I’m sharing him yet.
"How's the cop?" he asks.
"Best left on her own," I murmur, thinking of those words she left me with. I look at the floor, unsure if I could, or should, talk about her with him. I could barely speak to him a few days ago, let alone discuss feelings. “I'll let you know when I'm here next." That's all I'm comfortable with for now. He nods at me, or to himself. I don't know. It's difficult. It all feels hard, and the tense air between us doesn't help. "You alright?” I ask, wondering about that heart of his.
“I am if you are.”
I look at the floor again and chuckle, turning for the doorway. He is if I am. Guess that's the type of thing good fathers say. "See you around,” I call back.
I’m as alright as I’m going to be for a while, and there’s only one person now who’s going to make me more alright than I am at the moment. But that’ll have to wait until I’ve had a drink with big brother, put some ghosts to bed and helped to heal a rift that’s been broken for too damn long. Besides, I'm getting a thank you from him before I go. A little more begging and apologising.
* * *
New York air greets me like a memory I’ve been lost without. I smile and let the cold air bite against my skin, windows down in the car as I weave the roads to Clearwater. Nothing else matters at the moment. The phone calls I had to make to let the team know I’m back were made on the flight over here. Meetings are set, deals rolling as they usually do, and given my ferocity in Chicago and the streets being cleaned down, everyone’s fucking wary of me again and acting accordingly.
I'm not surprised. The interlude in Chicago helped create unity in more ways than one because not even the cops could keep me in jail for a murder I apparently committed. Not enough evidence. Damn right there wasn’t. That’s what a good lawyer and a tonne of dirty information gets me. I’ll take a trip to see Senator Kelly at some point soon, thank him for his help and remind him that information is never going away. Should keep my ass out of jail for the foreseeable, regardless of what I do that goes against the grain of the law. Shame a certain lawmaker doesn’t see me as a better man than I am, but she’s made her choice.
Twenty more miles and the road runs down towards the coast, familiar street signs passing me by. Every once in a while, we’ve met here since the beginning. I should change that, find somewhere else. Not because I don’t want to see him, and not because I don't enjoy it here, but because this place belongs to him. Anyone goes digging or follows me, and they'll find it and him—just like Bryce did. I can only hope she keeps that shit to herself, because the thought of having to warn her off him, in the only way I know how, doesn’t hold the same appeal anymore.
