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he man. “He’s from Boston, stereotypical Charlestown trash. He’s got a rap sheet a mile long and just got out of prison a few months ago. The guy’s bad news. He’s violent and… abusive.”
“Clearly. He did a number on that dog.”
“Mac.”
“You just said his name was Greg,” I responded, confused.
Logan laughed and tipped his beer bottle to his mouth. “I meant the dog. I named him Mac. Last night after I left your place I made mac and cheese. He shoved his whole face in the bowl, the thing’s a pain in the ass.”
“Yet you named him,” I said with a smirk.
Logan shrugged and his cheeks flamed. “Well, yeah. He’s my dog now.”
He’s not adorable, he’s not adorable, I chanted in my head over and over again. He’s a liar and probably a drug dealer. I squared my shoulders and looked him dead in the eye, silently letting him know that I wanted the full story and I wanted it immediately.
He leaned back in his chair and met my eyes. “Listen, what I say needs to stay between the two of us, okay? I trust you about as much as you trust me, but I can get into some serious shit if I get busted.”
Oh God, he really is a drug dealer.
“I…” Logan trailed off and it seemed as though he was trying to find the right words before he continued. “I help high profile girls get out of bad situations. Girls that need to get into rehab, girls that need to get out of abusive relationships. I even help some girls get decent, honest jobs. Their parents contact me as a last resort when they want to keep it under wraps. They pay good money, the police don’t need to be involved and I help get families back together. All of it is done by me. I’m my own boss, I make my own rules and I help as many people as I possibly can. But… Nicole was the first girl that I helped for free. She didn’t have parents to help her.”
“I’ve known her for years and she didn’t have two pennies to rub together. She and Greg have had an on and off thing for years, even when he was locked up. She’s a sweet girl but she’s really messed up. Codependent. Weak. Nicole has been depending on men her whole life and she has no idea how to live on her own. I’ve always tried to be there for her but whenever she and Greg were together I couldn’t be around. He’s possessive and controlling and out of his fucking mind. Every paycheck she got was given to him and everywhere she went he went, too.”
“Whenever Greg would fuck up and hit her he would always apologize with a gift. The last time it happened he got her-”
“A puppy.” I finished the sentence for him.
Logan nodded his head and then continued. “Anyway, I still tried to talk her into leaving. I have a few friends down in Florida that do what I do. We’re a pretty good team and we all tried to convince her that it would be safe down there. Conlon wouldn’t know where she was and she could start over. But she refused, she said this time would be different.”
“About two weeks ago she called me in the middle of the night. He’d beat her up pretty bad, broken her ribs, knocked one of her teeth out. I drove all the way out there and picked her up without a second thought, and brought her back here.”
“Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
“It’s part of what I do. I don’t go to the cops if I don’t need to. I couldn’t with Nicole because they would have made her testify in court and Conlon’s buddies would have gotten to her long before that. It was too dangerous to bring her to the police, so I did the next best thing and got her out of town. Bought her a one way ticket to Fort Lauderdale and my friends picked her up there.”
So many questions were going through my head. Was she an ex? Was he doing this because he was in love with her? Why didn’t he want people to know what he did? Logan seemed compassionate and empathetic. He seemed… sweet.
That struck a nerve with me and I found myself feeling somewhat of a kinship with the man that I was so ready to turn into the authorities. I liked to help broken animals and Logan liked to help broken girls. I hated how surprised I was at the fact that he was helpful and honest, and not some punk like I’d originally written him off as.
“So, the dog…” I trailed off.
“Conlon beating on Mac was a warning. He wants to know where Nicole is and he won’t stop until I tell him. He’s a psycho.”
“But now that she’s gone you can go to the police,” I said and drained the rest of my beer.
Logan shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. He winced and rubbed his shoulder as it cracked loudly. “Nah. I, uh, I have a very nosy family.”
“Expectations to live up to?”
“Something like that. Don’t worry, okay? I’ll handle it. You have nothing to worry about, Juliette.”
I was very quickly realizing that there was more to Logan Ashford than I originally thought and it was making my head spin. He made a living out of helping young women get from point A to point B. He helped battered, sick women learn how to stand on their own two feet and there was something unintentionally beautiful about that. I knew that I couldn’t praise someone for being a decent human being, but it seemed that Logan was doing more than that. He was risking a part of his life by trying to save people. He could have been a doctor or a lawyer but he wanted to do something else instead.
Maybe Logan had a gift, too.
I was still shaken up about the fact that Conlon showed up at my work looking for Mac, but there was nothing I could do other than hope and pray that it didn’t happen again.
But in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking that hoping and praying wouldn’t be nearly enough.
