Chapter 277 (PRESENT DAY) (and we're back!!!!! 😍😍😍)

Chapter 277 (PRESENT DAY) (and we're back!!!!! 😍😍😍)

The room stayed quiet after Logan finished telling the story, and for several moments Drea could not decide whether the silence belonged to him or to her. The fire had burned lower while he spoke, leaving the corners of the room dimmer than before, and the shadows along the walls seemed to have settled in to listen. Logan stood near the window with one hand resting against the frame, his body still and his face unreadable. He had spoken for nearly an hour, maybe longer, about his father, Lorne, Westside, Project X, and the years that turned a frightened boy into the man who had walked into her room and told her to look at him.
Drea kept her hands folded in her lap because she did not trust them to stay steady otherwise. She had expected anger from him when he told the story. She had expected bitterness, maybe even pride when he spoke of revenge. What unsettled her most was how controlled he had been. He had recounted his father’s death, his mother’s grief, and Lorne’s betrayal in the same low voice, as if each memory had been frozen long ago and placed somewhere inside him where it could never melt.
“I understand now,” she said.
Logan turned slightly, but he did not come closer. His eyes moved over her face with the same guarded attention he gave everything, as if even her sympathy might conceal a blade.
Drea swallowed and looked down at the edge of the blanket beneath her fingers. “My father had never been the kindest of men,” she said, careful with each word. “I knew that much. He could be cruel. He could be selfish. He liked being obeyed, and he liked making people remember he had power over them.” She lifted her eyes again. “But I did not know he committed such evil. I did not know he was part of something like Project X.”
“He was not standing alone in it,” Logan said.
The flatness in his tone made her chest tighten. “What does that mean?”
“It means Westside needed to go anyway.” Logan pushed away from the window, but he still kept distance between them. “Every alpha there was involved in Project X. Every one of them knew something. Some gave blood. Some gave money. Some gave protection. Some only turned away when they should have stopped it.” His jaw flexed. “That was enough.”
Drea felt the words settle in her stomach like stones. Every alpha. Every powerful man who had sat at those tables, drinking wine, laughing, blessing marriages, and pretending Westside was civilized. She remembered the gatherings now with a new sickness. She remembered her father’s friends, their sons, their alliances, the way they spoke in corners and went quiet when women entered.
“But everyone in Westside was not an alpha,” she said quietly.
Logan’s gaze sharpened, but he did not answer at once.
Drea held on to that silence, because it told her something. “There were servants. Children. Omegas. People who did not know what their leaders had done.”
“I know,” Logan said.
The answer came too quickly, too softly. It was not denial. That made it worse.
Before she could push him further, he glanced toward the door. “I need to speak to my men. There are things to settle after what I told you.”
Drea stared at him. “You are leaving now?”
“For a short while.”
“That is convenient.”
His eyes returned to hers. “Drea.”
“No, do not say my name like that.” Her voice was steadier than she felt. “You just told me the story of why you burned my old life to the ground, and now you want to go speak to your men?”
Something moved across his face, brief and guarded. “If I stay, you will ask questions I may not answer well.”
“That is not a reason to leave.”
“It is the only honest one I have.” He stepped closer then, only a little. “I will come back.”
She almost asked if that was a promise. She hated herself for wanting one, so she said nothing.
Logan watched her for another breath, then turned and left. The door closed behind him with a soft click, and Drea stayed exactly where she was, staring at the wood until her eyes started to burn.
Alice came in not long after, carrying a tray she clearly did not expect Drea to touch. She took one look at her and set it down on the nearest table instead of bringing it closer. “Are you all right?”
Drea gave a small laugh without meaning to. “That question has become very useless.”
Alice’s mouth tightened. “That bad?”
“I do not know.” Drea rubbed both hands over her face, then lowered them slowly. “I think I understand him more, and I hate that. I think I understand my father less, and I hate that too.”
Alice sat on the chair across from her. She did not crowd her, which Drea appreciated. “Did Logan tell you everything?”
“I doubt Logan has told anyone everything in his life.”
“That sounds fair.”
Drea looked at her then, tired and wary. Alice’s face softened, but the softness made Drea feel more exposed. She shifted her gaze away, and Alice seemed to decide on a different question.
“Have you told him yet?”
Drea stilled.
Alice did not have to say what she meant. The room seemed to tighten around the answer before Drea gave it.
“No,” Drea said. “I have not.”
Alice exhaled through her nose. “Drea.”
“I know.”
“You are his breeder. That is why you are here.”
Drea flinched at the word, even though Alice had not said it cruelly. Breeder. The title Logan had placed on her when she first came here. The reason everyone thought her body mattered. The reason Kathryn looked at her with hatred and Brianna looked at her like an infection.
She pressed one hand to her stomach before she could stop herself. “I think it is more complicated than that.”
Alice studied her. “For you?”
Drea looked toward the door Logan had left through. “For both of us.”
Alice’s expression shifted, and for once she did not argue. She stood, smoothing her hands over her apron. “Complicated can still become dangerous if you wait too long.”
Drea looked down. “Kathryn knows.”
Alice froze near the door. “What?”
“She guessed. Or she saw enough.” Drea swallowed. “She said she would not tell him. She said she was trying to save her soul.”
Alice’s face went pale with anger. “That woman’s soul is not what worries me.”
“I know.”
“Then tell him before someone else uses it against you.”
Alice left after that, and Drea sat alone again, her thoughts moving too quickly to hold. Logan had told her about Project X for nearly an hour. Her father. The other alphas. Lorne. Damien. Blood stolen and used. Revenge carried for fifteen years. All of it explained the shape of him, but it did not erase what had happened when he reached Westside.
She tightened her fists, anger rising in a slow, sick wave. When she looked down, the blanket beneath her hands had changed. A thin crust of ice spread from her fingers, pale and bright in the firelight.
Drea snatched her hands back. “Fuck.”
Her breath shook.
There. Two things she was yet to tell Logan.
The baby.
And this.
The cold faded slowly, leaving damp fabric beneath her palms. She stared at it, heart pounding, and wondered if the power came from her, from the child, or from whatever Logan had placed inside her life the moment he took her from Westside. She was still staring when the door opened again.
Logan returned without announcement, as if he had sensed the exact moment she could no longer sit with herself.
His gaze dropped briefly to the damp blanket, then rose to her face. “What happened?”
Drea stood before she could lose courage. “I need to ask.”
He went still. “Ask.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, but it did nothing to steady her. “Did you kill my brother and sister too?”
Logan’s expression did not change, but something in the room did. The air sharpened. The fire seemed smaller.
“They had nothing to do with Project X,” she said.
Logan was quiet.
Drea felt her heartbeat quickening. It pressed against her ribs, fast and frightened, and suddenly she was back in Westside, hearing screams through walls, seeing snow where snow did not belong, watching death move through her home in the shape of the man standing in front of her.
She took one step closer.
“Logan,” she said, voice shaking now. “Did you kill my brother and sister?”