I couldn’t tell.
“Maybe because we both were born in the pits of Hell.” It left me like some kind of surrender. Or maybe it was an out for both of us. A reason for the pain.
He kept sweeping the pad of his thumb along my jaw.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“We were supposed to escape it together.” That time, his words gritted with spite.
The bitterness I couldn’t seem to get over boiled inside. I almost demanded to know how much he’d sold the stones for. If he understood what it’d cost.
Instead, I let the resentment bleed out. “It seems like you’re doing pretty well for yourself to me.”
It was me who had been left behind.
I could hear the grinding of Logan’s teeth. “You don’t know anything about me.”
He was right.
I didn’t.
Not anymore.
All except for this connection that still felt so alive.
Except for the torment, the mischief, the loss, the sweetness that I saw play in his eyes.
He suddenly straightened and moved away from me so quickly that I stumbled forward a step, not even realizing I’d given myself over to his hold.
A shattered breath heaved from my lungs as he moved for the door, the man ignoring that every second of this push and pull was wrecking me.
“We need to go. My brothers will have my ass if I don’t show on time.”
“Both of them will be there?” I asked on a worried breath.
He chuckled out a rough sound. “What, are you scared?”
Um, his brothers were terrifying, but that didn’t have anything to do with it.
“Maybe it would be better if I stayed here.”
He was back to touching my face, his voice this low, growl of a promise that shook me to the core, even though it was clearly meant to be a tease. “Don’t worry, Aster, I’ll protect you. You keep forgetting I take care of what’s mine.”
* * *
Logan whipped his car into the parking lot of a—my head jerked around to read the sign—Christian elementary school.
I could feel the confusion claw its way across my face as my attention jumped back to Logan.
Seriously, what in the world was happening?
He didn’t even glance at me as he drove through the packed lot in search of an open spot, which by the looks of it, we were going to have to park along the street.
Apparently, most of Redemption Hills had shown for whatever thisfamily thingwas.
I’d thought it would maybe be a dinner. Or more than likely, a deal…the dirty kind dealt in dingy backrooms of seedy clubs or maybe in upscale basements like last night.