Page 103 of When He Plays

Chapter Twenty

“Stop it.” Logan waited five feet behind Charlotte as she stood in his suite—their suite—and stared out at the Vegas night. A million lights shined back at them, but he doubted she saw even a single one. No, he knew what she was seeing in her head, over and over again. The body of Evelyn Marteen. “This isn’t your fault, baby. Stop letting the guilt eat you.” Did she think he didn’t realize what she’d been doing ever since they’d found the other woman?

He’d been in room 1408 with her. He’d seen the tremble hit her whole body as she put her hand to Evelyn’s jagged throat and realized the other woman was gone. Dead. Hell, that fact had been obvious from the first glance. Too much blood. Too much stillness.

“He was in the hotel.” A low murmur from Charlotte. “We were all in the same place, and I didn’t stop him.”

“Fine. Yeah, the bastard was there. Probably watching while you and I entered the place.” Which was just something else that enraged him. The killer was locked and loaded on Charlotte. Watching her come in the hotel. Calling her on the phone. Taunting her. There was nothing about that crap that was reassuring and far too much that was terrifying.

It took a lot to scare him in this world. But the idea of ever entering a hotel room and finding his Charlotte sprawled on a bed with her throat cut…

Not happening. I am putting this piece of shit in the ground.

“The CIA was there.” Charlotte still had her body positioned in front of the window. Her head was directed straight ahead. Her eyes seemingly on those lights that fought the darkness. “There were at least five operatives in the hotel or near it. And yet a woman died and her killer got away. I was right there. She died on my watch. He got away from me.”

Enough of this. Hadn’t Logan already said for her to stop? The guilt would do nothing but make Charlotte soak in misery. “She wasn’t some innocent. Evelyn was working with him.” He eliminated the distance between them. Put his hand on her shoulder and spun her toward him. “She was guilty—you’re crying!”

She was.

Dammit. Hell. Dammit. His hands cupped her jaw. “Don’t cry.”

Another tear slid down her cheek.

His fingers rose and brushed away the teardrops. But more fell. “Stop it!”

“Her blood was everywhere.”

“Stop crying, Charlotte.” Ragged. Her tears made his chest ache. They also made him want to go out and destroy. “That’s an order. You stop it right now.”

But more tears just came. “I thought she was helping him.”

Why could the woman not follow a simple order? Those tears were wrecking him. “She probably was helping him!” Probably? More like definitely. “Evelyn delivered the champagne bottle to Harper. Jezebel has her on video doing that very thing.”

Jezebel and her team had finally recovered more footage showing how Harper had been removed from her hotel room. Or, how they thought she’d been removed. A room service cart had gone to her room about an hour after Evelyn left. The staff member had unlocked the door. Gone in. Come back out moments later with the rolling cart. But there was no record of a scheduled room service call for that time.

The CIA suspected that Harper’s unconscious body had been stuffed in the bottom of that cart. Concealed beneath the white cloth that surrounded the cart, Harper had just been wheeled right out.

The CIA and Detective Meredith Reece were currently looking for the person who’d been pushing the cart. It had been a man, short, balding. With a tattoo on his left wrist. The HR supervisor at Harper’s hotel swore he wasn’t an employee. At the moment, no one knew the man’s identity.

As Logan gazed at Charlotte, a tear crept slowly down her beautiful face.

A savage growl broke from him.

“Can’t stop.” Her voice frayed at the edges. “I hate all the deaths, and I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to stop him, but now Evelyn is gone. He has Harper. He will kill Harper, you know that. I know that.”

“If you shed one more tear…” Logan barely recognized the guttural sound of his own voice. “You will…” He stopped. Break me. Your tears are breaking me. Pushing me to the edge, and I don’t want to cross over that edge. I’m already in too deep with you.

“Are we being serious?” Charlotte asked him. “You and I, right now, are we being serious?”

What kind of damn question was that? “Dead serious.” Those tears had to stop. “Don’t you dare shed another tear or I will have no choice but to make love to you so long and hard that pleasure wipes out every single bit of pain you carry.” There. Done. She’d been warned, so if those tears didn’t stop, he’d be in her.

She shook her head. “I meant…are you being serious with me again? Or, will you be serious with me? Will you give me five minutes of the real Logan? I like him. I-I think I need him now.”

“You always get the real me. Serious or crazy, I’m real with you. And I’m being real right now when I say that your tears are making me want to destroy so you have to stop them. Baby, you have to stop because I can’t handle your tears, and my control is going to shatter because⁠—”

She blinked those incredible golden eyes of hers at him. “Make the pain stop for me. Make me see something other than her in my mind right now. I don’t want to keep seeing her poor throat.”

A tear slid down her cheek.