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“Why am I sensing there’s more?” Logan asked.
Hawk sighed. “Another guy has started appearing outside Emilio’s school, and a dead bird was left on Ella’s doorstep.”
Logan sat up straighter. It didn’t matter that Emilio was another man’s son. The little boy was Ella’s flesh and blood, and that made him family to Logan even though he’d never met the kid. “They’re threatening her son? Coming to her house?”
“Not overtly,” Hawk said. “But you know how it goes.”
Adrenaline pumped through Logan’s veins and he got to his feet and paced the patio. “What about the police? Aren’t they supposed to protect her? To protect them? She’s prosecuting the city’s case for christ’s sake.”
Hawk nodded. “They’ve had her under surveillance, although Ella said that can’t continue for the next two months. Plus, I wouldn’t expect them to be up to the task of a mob hit.”
Logan froze. “Is that what we’re talking about here? A hit?”
The thought made his blood turn to ice. Regardless of what had happened between them, she was still his Ella, someone who’d been part of him in a way no one had ever been part of him before or since.
“I don’t know,” Hawk said. “I wish I could say it wasn’t, but I just don’t know.”
“So what are we talking about here?” Logan asked. “Personal detail? Security system for her house?”
“To start.” Hawk hesitated. “Thing is, it has to be you.”
Logan recoiled. “Me?” He shook his head. “I know you’re not suggesting I should be the body man for Ella and her son. Not after everything that’s happened.”
There were few things he wanted less — and few things he wanted more — than to be close to Ella and her son.
Which was exactly why it couldn’t happen.
“Who would you send?” Hawk asked.
Logan ran down the list of qualified guards in his mind. There was no shortage of them. Every guard at Imperium was required to certify in MMA. They were required to spar Mauz, a deadly weapon if there ever was one, multiple times. They were even required to fight Hawk, who could be a dirty, mean street fighter.
And that wasn’t all. They underwent extensive weapons training, attended sessions run by Imperium team leaders who’d worked for the FBI, the NSA, Homeland Security. They even completed offensive driving courses designed to get them out of tight spots in a vehicle.
They knew how to spot a tail, how to neutralize it, how to watch for under-the-radar threats, how to cut those threats off at the knees before they had time to get within striking distance of a client.
They were the most highly trained private security service in the country.
And still, Logan didn’t trust a single one of them with Ella’s life.
He tried not to think about what that said about the state of his feelings for Ella, which had been ground up and spit out so many times only a sadist would still be carrying them around. And yet here he was, carrying the tiny shards of glass around in a velvet pouch.
“Well?” Hawk prodded.
Logan sighed and dropped into the patio chair. He ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“That’s what I thought,” Hawk said.
“Let’s say I go,” Logan said. “What are you thinking?”
It was simpler to think about logistics. To think about security systems and guard formations, about a driver for Leo, Ella’s son, and about working with the local PD.
All of that was a million times easier than thinking about seeing her again.
About being close to her again.
“I’m thinking you go first, do some recon,” Hawk said. “She’ll have the police detail for a few more days. You can talk to them, see what they know, maybe twist some arms into keeping them on the job at some level. Check out Leo’s school, see what kind of procedures are in place to keep him safe there, see what else we can do to protect him while keeping things as normal as possible for the kid. Then you write it up, tell us what you need. We’ll send reinforcements.”
“You make it sound simple,” Logan said.
