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For a kid who’d grown up in a neighborhood filled with liquor stores, houses with bars on the windows, and cracked and buckled sidewalks, it was paradise. Living and working in the same area was an added bonus, especially in L.A. where it seemed like everyone had a two-hour commute.
Case in point: less than ten minutes after he’d left the cove, he was pulling into the driveway of his modest Spanish-style house on the peninsula.
He got out of the car, headed inside, and dropped his keys on the table by the door. The sudden quiet was always a bit of a shock after one of the company’s beach parties, and he used his phone to turn on some music, then exhaled as the sound of Neil Young’s Heart of Gold spilled from the house’s state-of-the-art sound system.
It was one of the few extravagances Logan had installed when he’d bought the place. He’d made comfort and warmth a priority when he’d chosen the furniture and other decor. In another life, the house might have been filled with conversation and laughter, with toys and magazines and the detritus of family, but he’d given up on that long ago.
Six years ago, to be exact, the last time he’d seen Ella.
The night she’d told him she was pregnant, that she was getting married.
He fought against the vise cinching his chest and tried to exhale the memory as he walked to the drawer in the kitchen filled with takeout menus. It was a waste of time and space, but he preferred the paper menus over yet more time on his phone scrolling through takeout options.
He decided on Mexican and had just placed his order when the doorbell rang.
He set down his phone and made his way down the hall to the carved vintage door he’d had imported from Mexico. He could have checked the security cameras from his phone, but what was the point? There were only a handful of people who would ring his doorbell.
When he opened the door, he found Hawk standing on his porch. One look at his best friend’s face and Logan knew something was wrong. That’s how it was when you knew someone most of your life, when you were like brothers.
“What’s up?” Logan asked. They’d parted ways two hours before at the cove, and Logan had assumed Hawk would head home to have dinner with Laurel after getting his mom settled.
“I got a call at the beach, but I wanted to talk to you alone.” Hawk hesitated. “It’s about Ella.”
* * *
Logan stared down at his beer, bracing himself for what was to come. He already knew Ella was safe. He’d made Hawk tell him that much before he let him in the house.
She’d already broken his heart. Twice actually: once when she left for Duke and again six years ago when she’d told him she was marrying another man. That she was now divorced didn’t soften the blow. She was as out of reach to him as the moon.
“Just tell me,” he finally said, still staring at the beer.
They were on the patio, the rhythmic crash of surf hitting the cliff below Logan’s house, filling the silence.
“She’s in trouble,” Hawk said. “She needs protection.”
“I take it this has to do with the Vitsin case,” Logan said.
“I wondered if you’d been following the news,” Hawk said.
They didn’t talk about Ella by unspoken agreement. Logan assumed Hawk kept in touch with her. He’d been one of her two best friends when they’d been kids, even after she and Logan had become so much more than that, but talking about Ella always left Logan feeling like he was bleeding out.
He’d been grateful Hawk had seemed to understand.
Logan looked at his friend and tried not to be insulted by the pity in his eyes. “I have.”
Logan had a news alert that notified him every time Ella’s name — Gabriella, as she was now called — came up in the news. He knew that she’d been assigned to a high-profile mob case involving Yakov Vitsin, one of the highest ranking brigadiers in the Chicago bratva.
“So you know the basics,” Hawk said. “And you know why she needs help.”
“Anything specific or just general caution leading up to the trial?” Logan asked.
Vitsin had been under surveillance by the FBI and had been caught on tape discussing his murder of a local businessman who had refused to kick money to Vitsin’s crew. The crime wasn’t unusual, but the loose lips were, and Vitsin was looking at twenty to life.
That wasn’t the real problem for the Baranova crime family though. Convictions made mobsters nervous. They increased the likelihood that other members of the organization would step forward, worried that Vitsin might flip, either before the trial or after when reality set in that he was going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Logan could see why Viktor Baranov, boss of the Chicago territory, would be nervous.
Hawk took a swig of his beer and met Logan’s eyes. “She’s had a tail.” Hawk shrugged. “Not unusual, and nothing the police can do since they’re just following her from a distance, but the message is pretty clear.”
