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She nodded and set her suitcase on the floor. He entered the room and wrapped a hand around the handle.
“Logan, I…” She hesitated. What more was there to say that they hadn’t said a hundred times in the four days since she’d agreed to take the deal with the bratva? “I’m sorry.”
She’d said that a hundred times too.
“You don’t have to apologize for doing what’s best for you,” Logan said.
His eyes had gone back to being distant, the way they’d been when he’d first shown up in Chicago. He wasn’t cold, but he’d reconstructed the wall between them, and she knew she could never expect him to lower it again.
“I just need time to figure some things out,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.”
They were platitudes. She was leaving. She wasn’t coming back. Logan wasn’t coming to Chicago. It was like when she’d gone to Duke, just a little more civilized, a little more honest.
“I understand.” He said it with the detachment he probably used to speak to Imperium clients, which was what she was now. Or a former client anyway.
She didn’t know what was going on with the bratva behind the scenes — she didn’t want to know — but Viktor Baranov, through Lyonya Antonov, had guaranteed Gabriella and Leo’s safety.
Now she just wanted to go home, back to her routine and everything that was familiar.
“We should get going,” Logan said. “I’ve already taken the other suitcases to the car.”
She nodded, then stepped toward him and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”
He nodded stiffly and she followed him into the hall.
Leo and Bea were waiting in the living room, Leo playing with the fidget spinner Logan had bought him for the plane. They’d be using Imperium’s private jet, but it was still a long time to sit still for Leo, and the spinner would keep him busy when he couldn’t use his iPad.
“Bea,” Logan said, nodding.
“Don’tBeame,” she said, pulling him into a hug. “Thanks for the awesome vacation, and the awesome company.”
He laughed. “Anytime, and I mean that. Come back to stay anytime you like.”
“Jag said the same thing,” she said.
“I… uh, don’t think I want to know any more about that,” he said, kneeling in front of Leo. “I’m really going to miss you, big man.”
Leo pouted. “I don’t want to go. I’m going to miss the picnic."
“I know, and we’re really going to miss you there,” Logan said. Leo had been promised swimming and ice cream with Willow at the next Imperium beach gathering, and he’d been looking forward to it for two weeks. Gabriella hated to disappoint him, but it was for the best. “But you know what?” Logan asked. “We have beach picnics all the time, and there will always be a spot for you and your mom.”
Gabriella noted the careful phrasing, the way Logan softened the truth without telling a lie.
“Be good for your mom, okay?” Logan asked. Leo nodded solemnly. “The plane ride will be long, like it was on the way here, but you have your spinner now, and your iPad, and before you know it, you’ll be back in your bedroom with all those dinosaurs. I bet they’ve really missed you.”
Leo smiled briefly, then threw his arms around Logan’s neck. “I love you more than dinosaurs.”
Tears filled Gabriella’s eyes, and her chin shook with the sob she forced herself to swallow.
“I love you too, buddy.” Logan extricated himself from Leo and held out his hand. “Catch you on the flip side?”
Leo slapped his hand with a smile. “Catch you on the flip side.”
Logan straightened and glanced at the window. “Looks like Jag is here.”
He picked up Ella’s bag and walked it out to the waiting Land Rover. Gabriella wanted him to say something else even though she knew there was nothing else to say, and she wasn’t surprised when he opted to load her suitcase while Leo and Bea got settled in the backseat.
When Logan was done, he walked around to the passenger side where Gabriella stood in the open door.
