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He scratched at the heavy beard he hadn’t bothered to trim in…hell, months, and hauled his ass out of his empty bed. Cool hardwood kissed his bare feet as he padded to the huge paned window that looked down on New York City. He’d bought the penthouse in one of the remodeled buildings in SoHo long before it was cool to live there. But he liked the mix of cultures. The rich and the working class, the artists and the trendy.
It was a cool city, even at 3 AM. He didn’t need to check the time, he could tell from the traffic patterns. Snow was also on the horizon. The sky was that iridescent orange that teased a righteous snowfall.
He didn’t mind. One more reason to stay holed up. The thought of interacting with people made him downright surly lately. Playing nice for Christmas had used up the last of his reserves. He wandered over to his kitchenette and brewed a large black coffee, bringing it over to the new jewel of the apartment. An upright piano he’d found at a back alley auction in Chelsea. The thing had a magic to it that he hadn’t felt since he and Alex Nash had christened a broken-down piano in a bar in Georgia.
It was scarred and he was on the fence whether or not to fix one of the keys that stuck. He kinda liked the sound it made. He set his mug down and sat at the mismatched bench he’d picked up at the same auction.
In only the lounge pants he’d worn for the last two days, he rested his fingers on the oddly warm keys. The melody had been locked in his brain for the better part of a week.
Knowing that would be the last of his sleep for the foreseeable future, Logan let the music transport him out of his too busy brain. He pounded out his aggression with a Frank Turner song to get his fingers limber, then switched back to his own songs.
He worked until his fingers ached and his throat was little more than sandpaper laced with coffee. He ignored the telephone’s trill, both his cell and house line. He worked until the fat snowflakes coated his windows and his back screamed from staying in the same position.
Finally the song let him go. Scrawled lyrics over the back of music sheets were tacked together with bars full of manic notes. The song was good. It was loud and ugly and filled with hurt. The kind of song that his record company would probably shit a puppy over.
It wasn’t the slick, Everyman’s song he was known for. No, it was a mix of his old anger and his adult world views. It was poetry that he hadn’t allowed himself to let out in a whole helluva lot of years.
His first instinct was to bury it.
It was his pain and his words. There was no denying it to himself
. This wasn’t a bit of fiction he’d come up with. It was laced with her—both of the women, actually—the hate and misery, the raw edges of loss, and the guilt. The insidious guilt that rode him like a bitch.
But he didn’t bury it. He slapped it on his scanner and sent it to Zeke and Morgan before he could burn the pages. Then he went to his fridge and drank a quart of water and the better part of a half-gallon of orange juice.
The sugar killed the haze and beat back the headache. When his phone rang this time, he picked up, assuming it was one of the guys.
“Logan, would you answer your goddamn phone once in a while?”
Panic clogged his raw throat. “What’s wrong? Is she all right?” he asked automatically. Marcus Roth rarely called him for more than a status update, and he wasn’t due for one of those until Friday.
Was it Friday? He didn’t even know.
He rubbed his hand over his bearded cheek. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I was working.” Calm. Deep breaths, man.
“We’ve got an issue.”
“I’m assuming she’s not in any danger if you’re busy spanking me and not getting to the point.”
Six months of babysitting and he and Marcus had quickly fallen out of the professional pandering conversations into a semi-friendship.
“Look, I told you it was a mistake to keep her out of the loop. She’s a bright girl. She was going to figure out someone was tailing her eventually.”
“I thought your people were good, Roth.”
“Fuck off. You know they are. Hell, Elijah’s out there with her right now.”
“I know, and I’m paying you a fucking fortune to keep him on Isabella.” God, it sounded off to call her by her full name.
He shook his head. She haunted him and fucked with his head. And he couldn’t let her back in, even if it was just her nickname. Because there were still nights that he woke with his dick so hard from dreams about losing himself in her sweet body.
A week.
He’d only had her for a handful of those days.
Zeke had urged him to get another woman under him, to forget her. Just the idea of him skin to skin with someone else made his head throb. And now Roth, with an unscheduled call, ate at his guts like acid.
“I’m assuming she caught on?”
