Page 60 of Orion Ruined

“Did they see you?”

“No, but the Cartes knew who we were extracting from there. I had to do it, Logan.”

“They know about Maisy? This changes everything.”

Logan takes off his suit jacket and shoes, lies next to her and immediately she cuddles up in the crook of his neck.

“Where were you, Logan?” Her croaky voice is breaking, like she’s hurt.

“Working, sweetheart. But I missed you like crazy.”

“I missed you too. I thought you were mad at me.”

“Me? I could never be mad at you.” He ruffles her hair. “Are you okay? Do you want to tell the doctor what happened?”

She shakes her head and strokes his chest, seemingly lost in thought.

Logan and I look at each other for a moment too long. What happened today could’ve been a disaster. She seems vulnerable. The three of us are like wolves, protecting what’s ours, yet we exposed her to the most dreaded thing we all want to eradicate in our world.

I want to distract her, to stop her from thinking about today. “Are you hungry, Maisy?”

“No.”

I don’t succeed in diverting her attention, but just seeing Logan and Maisy lying on the bed in front of me feels like enough. I want to lie next to her too, and soothe her, but I would never take that away from Logan. He deserves all the love he can get. As a baby he was dropped off on the doorstep of Lorenzo’s house, and once the DNA test was done, that was it. He was prepped for the life of a mobster. Lorenzo made him work with whores from the age of ten, and any love he got was always bought or sold. It’s the same even today, thanks to his strip club.

From the day we first met, in the factory, his father made him kill people with his bare hands. But nobody really knows what a compassionate guy he is. Although to learn that, one has to go with him on a killing frenzy, which we have too many times, and see that the days of remorse that follow for him are the most painful. Neither I nor Kai can reach him then.

What a doctor he is; once, he said, he gave an oath, but it means shit. That was the moment I saw the real him. He despises all of this, just like Kai and I do.

Ever since Maisy, that scary tic of his comes only when he talks about protecting her. She placates him in the most unusual way, and that works for him.

Logan’s stroking Maisy’s shoulder and kissing her head. It’s time for me to leave. She’s in good hands.

I stand up. “I got something to deal with.”

“Orion, please, I need you,” Maisy purrs. I know she does, but Logan can give her more right now.

“Let him be,” I hear Logan say as I head out. “He needs to release all that anger somewhere.”

He’s right. I’m heading to the gym. I’ll have a tough time controlling myself around her until she’s okay. But when she is, I’ll fucking put her in her place.

I close the door behind me. He’ll give her what she needs. I’m too angry to think.

LOGAN

Goddammit. Kai’s always been the one who thinks the least about the consequences of his actions. He thought joining the MC would distance him from the mob life, but it actually propelled him into it even deeper.

Every real biker knows our faces are weathered as we stare down evil. Our hands are tough and our arms strong, to keep things safe. We are that way to protect those who need it the most.

Noble words he started to live by, until Mickey, Kai’s father, changed all that. He took the mob inside his MC. He thought his son was a genius considering most motorcycle clubs dealt with guns, and the fact that he was boxing, well, a few fixed matches at a young age and Kai became the new God. No thoughts or anything. And since he’s the youngest, we’ve always looked the other way when he’d show up and say he’d done something stupid… but this has gone too far.

If anything were to happen to Maisy, out of the three of us, I’d be worried most for Orion. Because I can’t see anything within that man. He’s a wall nobody can knock down. Kai will most likely kill everyone and everything out of anger, but Orion, fuck. Orion will implode. I’ve seen him go crazy at his worst, when his father passed away from cancer. He didn’t even like his father, but the fact that he didn’t have control over his death, his life, was enough. He was looking for someone to blame. Those months were critically dangerous for the three of us. Kai and I couldn’t reach him, and we didn’t know if he’d turn his back on us, spill all of our secrets. He didn’t. Instead, he started murdering people all over New York. We’d find snitches in pools of blood, their eyes gouged out and faces smashed in with a hammer. We’d find bones half-burned in sulfuric acid. We’d receive neatly-packed dry meat for dogs, only later realizing he’d chopped up bodiesinto small pieces and stuffed their remains into bags. And we don’t even know the half of it. Finally, we managed to get to him and beat the grief for his father out of him.

Today’s been tough. If he saw Maisy tied up and naked, he’s seen that she’s breakable just like anyone else.

The thought makes me determined to deduce if she’s okay. “Sweetheart, were you hurt?”

She shakes her head, looking lost in thought, but I pinch her chin and raise her head to make her look at me. Her highlights bring out a different shade in her dark eyes. I’m beguiled.

---