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Nathan’s face turned red. He opened his mouth to speak and was cut off by Ella.
“Hello! I’m right here. Remember me? The person who was just attacked?” She sighed and sat in the chair behind her desk. “This isn’t about either of you. It’s no one’s fault. Well,” she said, reconsidering, “it’s Baranov’s fault. It’s Vitsin’s fault. Let’s move forward, shall we?”
Logan hated how calm she sounded. He hoped to god it was because of her experience in the courtroom and not because she didn’t realize the kind of danger she’d been in, the kind of danger she was still in.
“We have to get you out of the city,” Logan said.
She blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s not safe for you here. I’ve got six men ready to guard you and Leo and I can get as many as I need, but none of them can be with you every second of every day,” Logan said.
Nathan sat on the edge of Ella’s desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s the point of a bodyguard if they can’t be with you every second of every day?”
Logan had had no beef with Nathan before today. Well, nothing personal anyway. Logan couldn’t blame the guy for wanting Ella, and it had been her choice to marry him.
But right now Fitzgerald was getting on his last nerve.
“Would you like me to send a man into the bathroom with Ella?” Logan asked. He turned to Ella. “Would you like someone to join you in the bathroom? In your bedroom while you sleep?”
“Of course not,” she snapped.
“Then you have to leave the city. The fact that this guy got into the garage — ”
“It’s not guarded,” Ella said.
“Exactly. There are too many holes in a city this size. We’re trying to plug them all, but you’ll be safer somewhere else until the trial,” Logan said.
“This is where I live. Where I work. Where Leo goes to school,” she said. “Where exactly am I supposed to go?”
Logan didn’t hesitate. “You can come back to L.A. We can put you up in the South Bay with the same level of security you’d have here. You’ll be closer to Imperium’s headquarters and farther from Baranov’s thugs.”
“The Baranov bratva isn’t the only bratva,” she said.
“I’m aware, but it would take coordination and cooperation for them to bring in the west coast factions. That will take time, and that’s the one thing they’re running out of.”
“I hate to say it, but maybe he’s right,” Nathan said.
“I’m not leaving Chicago. I need to prepare for the trial, and I need all of the office’s resources to do it.”
Logan recognized the unrelenting tone of her voice, knew it meant she’d made up her mind. It was the same tone she’d used to tell him she was going to Duke. That she was going to Duke and didn’t want to be with him anymore. That she wanted to leave for college free and clear of the past.
She hadn’t been kidding then and she wasn’t kidding now.
Logan cursed and resumed pacing. “You have always been the most stubborn, pigheaded — ”
She stood behind her desk, bright spots of angry color on her cheeks, her mouth open in shock. “And you have always been the most short-sighted, regressive — ”
“Regressive?” The word exited his mouth on a roar. “Because I didn’t have to leave L.A. to prove I was worth something? You’ve got it all wrong, Ella. And maybe if you didn’t care more about your career than your life, you wouldn’t be in this position.”
“You’re a bigger asshole than Hawk ever was,” she said as he turned to leave. “And no one calls me Ella anymore!” she shouted at his retreating back.
He slammed the door shut and stalked past Ella’s coworkers, all of them staring with wide eyes in his direction.
14
Ella was in the war room, staring at the bulletin board and wondering if one of the men pictured there was the man who’d attacked her, when her phone rang.
She picked it up off the table and sighed when she saw Hawk’s name. She wasn’t sure she had the bandwidth to deal with her old friend, but she had to deal with someone at Imperium, and right now Hawk was a million times better than Logan, who’d made her feel absolutely murderous in her office that morning.
