Chapter 200: The Unexpected Piece in the board

Logan's POV

I jammed my fist into my palm as I marched down the corridor. I shouldn't have said that to her. I shouldn't. This was my fault as much as it was Draco's.

I grunted at myself, biting down hard on my lips till they bled. I tasted my own blood, yet it did nothing to calm the heat bumbling through every vein in me. If I hadn't asked her to stay away, she would still be here. She would still be safe.

My cell phone vibrated along with my pocket, causing my thigh to almost vibrate too. I snatched the phone from my pocket.

I didn't need to glance at the name on the screen before I threw it to my ear. The familiar low, but deep voice boomed in my ear—Ashton.

“Things are going according to plan.” He said, moving straight to business. Ashton might be a loudmouth, but he was serious when he wanted to be. “Lara has met with Cole. She’d given him the ledger, fed him the planned BS, and he’s taken it, hook, line, and sinker.” He paused. “And according to the message he just sent Luca on his cell phone, which my boys are pulling up now, he is to meet Luca at 9pm tonight at a local cafe near his college, before the cafe closes at ten.”

“Nine,” I repeated to myself, glancing down at my wristwatch. It reads 8:30. The report of an engine starting boomed from downstairs. I hurried to the nearest window. I swiped the curtains with my arm, pulling the windowpane so I had a clear view of the driveway.

Cole's Porsche eased down on the cobblestones, the headlight spread a flush of bright white lights ahead of him, illuminating his path to the gates.

I leaned back from the window, striding into the living room. I snatched my car keys from the center table. “Cole's leaving the house again. I don't know why he came back. But he is leaving again. He must be heading to the cafe now.” I shook the sleeves of my suit, steering the wristwatch to my eyes. I stared down at it again. “We still have twenty-five minutes. Plant some boys in the cafe. Not the usual big toughs, just regular boys that could blend in perfectly with the setting. We need eyes in the cafe, and those boys are going to be that.”

“I’ll get right to that immediately.” Ashton responded.

“Yeah, do, man.” I ended the call, striding into the garage.

I pulled open the Rolls Royce and jumped in. I was steering the car out of the garage when Draco stumbled right into the front of the car. He blocked my path with his body.

I braked forcefully, thrown forward by the sudden stop.

“Let me in on your plans, Logan,” he yelled over the noise of the quieting engine. He strode fast to my side of the car.

I grunted, grinding my teeth. I escorted him to me with a glare that hid nothing of my hate for him now. Yeah, we were both at fault here. But none of this would have happened if he had had the balls to talk some sense into Mariah.

He stood before me. The usual haughtiness in his stance abandoned, his shoulders sagged. He leaned on the car window. He looked nothing like the proud man I’d always known. He looked miserable. But right now, I didn't give even a tiny fuck about him.

“What are you planning to do, Logan? Mariah has regained consciousness, but she is almost lost in her own mind. She is worried, and so am I. We need a plan.” He said.

“Why should I care how you and your wife feel? This happened because of the both of you.”

“That doesn't matter right now. What should matter is saving her before the bastards harm her.”

I glared at him, my brows furrowed. I steered my eyes from him to the driveway and back, and I pondered about it. I grunted, nudging my jaw at him. “Get in,” I said.

“I think I should come with my own car and take the men along?”

I grunted. “Just fucking get in, man, before I change my mind.”

He hesitated for a moment, staring from me to his car, then he ran fast to the other side of my car. He threw himself in.

“Now what is the plan, Logan?”

I turned to him, never relaxing the heat in my eyes for him. I let him feel my hate, letting him know I still haven't forgiven him. “The plan is that you don't fucking disturb me, you don't ask questions, and you follow my lead. Once you breach any of these, I would be dropping your fucking ass out of my damn car. Do you get that?”

His eyes darkened, his face tightening. “You can't talk to—”

I reclined back on my seat. “Then you can just as well get off my damn car and find Rachel yourself.” I said.

He growled a grunt, throwing his face out of the car. When he returned his face to me, his eyes were tighter than before, pulsing with murder. I slipped him a grin for the trouble. I couldn't give a damn that he was angry.

“Okay, Logan,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

I gave him another hard, mocking grin, ignoring the murderous glint in his eyes. “Rule number four, Draco—”

“What is it?” he snarled.

I returned my gaze forward as I started up the engine. “That you use your fucking seatbelt, because this is going to be a crazy ride. We have lost 15 minutes already because of you, and we need to make up for it.”

I threw the car forward into the driveway with a forceful jerk that threw him forward. He hadn't used the seatbelt yet, so he hit his head square on the ceiling.

He grunted, and before he could rebuke me, I shot fast down the driveway at a mad speed that shook him around in his seat a bit. We had to make up for lost time.

I stared down at my wristwatch as I eased the car behind Ashton's van, a street away from the cafe. 9:05, only five minutes late. I looked away from the wristwatch as I shifted the gear to park. That wasn't so bad.

Ashton must have heard our car arrive, because he opened the van wide. He stood at the edge, grinning down at us, watching us as we stepped down from the car.

In the car behind Ashton were two boys seated behind an array of screens. And there was Lara. She sat with one leg over the other, following my walk to the car with her eyes.

I slipped her a smile. This mission was possible because of her. She’d managed to sell Cole the idea that I left the ledger in her care because I didn't trust Draco. I had intended to make it possible for Cole to be able to take the ledger directly from Draco's safe. But with Rachel being abducted, I had to make some last-minute changes to the plan.

Lara returned my smile, standing up as much as the van would allow. She threw her arms around me as I jumped in, hugging tight to me. I returned her hug as best as I could, which included just a pat on the shoulder. Enough to let her know I appreciated her help, and also enough to let her know nothing sexual can ever exist between us.

“I thought you said your brother wouldn't be involved.” Ashton said, eyeing Draco while Draco jumped into the van too. He wasn't particularly a fan of Draco.

“He crashed on the plan at the last minute. Sorry I couldn't inform you.” I answered.

Draco grunted at him, right to his face, as if to tell him to stop staring. But that's like telling Ashton to stop living. Well, they weren't fans of themselves. They had quite a history together.

Ashton pointed at one of the screens, shifting his gaze from Draco to me, smiling a little now. “We caught more than your man, Logan. We caught another big fish,” he grinned.

I carried my gaze to the screen he was pointing to. The camera was from a cell phone set three tables away, where one of Ashton's boys was recording the scene. Though it was being recorded from far away, the recording was clear enough, showing Luca, Cole, and Agent Bradley.

I sighed as I leaned back from the screen, turning to Ashton's grinning face. “I’d always suspected he was going to be the FBI agent working with Luca. He had always hated our guts.”

“We can get them together.” Ashton grinned, his eyes lighting up with a twinkle.

“No! We are focusing on Luca. We have nothing on Bradley. He is going to have to wait.”

Draco rubbed his eyes on his face and stared at the screen again and again. His jaw hung open as he turned to me, pointing to the screen. “Aren't those Luca, Bradley, and Cole at the same table? ” What the hell is Cole doing with them?” He asked, turning from me to the screen and vice versa.

“Remember the first rule, Draco. No questions.” I told him, shaking my head gently.

“Just fucking tell me what is going on,” he yelled.

“Why did you bring him?” Ashton grunted. He pressed his palms on his ears at Draco’s yell. His face wound tight. But he didn't dare look at Draco's face. Instead, he glared at me, fluttering his eyes at me to rebuke me.

I stretched just my lips in a forced grin at him, and I dropped my shoulders helplessly. There was nothing I could have done to stop him. Ashton grunted, turning quietly to watch the screen.

“Tell me what is going on, Logan,” Draco yelled again, eyeing me and Ashton.

“Cole is Luca's spy.” I answered simply.

“How is that even possible?”

“Well, it is,” I answered, direct and simple as before.

“Just fucking please talk,” he yelled again, this time. He had the sense to bring his voice lower and swallowed whatever was left of his pride. His eyes were strained against their sockets as they lingered on me.

“Luca held down Briella and her baby so as to get to us. He kept Mariah away for close to two years for the same purpose and even abducted Rachel. He could have easily abducted Cole and used him to get us, but he didn't. Why do you think he did that? Because Cole was always an important piece of his plan. He needed not just a spy but a means to get whatever he could use to totally destroy our family. He doesn't just want to kill us. He wants to sink our family by showing our secrets to the world.”

Draco looked to the screen and back to me. “That still doesn't explain what Cole is doing there, and how are you sure he is Luca's spy?”

I grinned. “My suspicions began after Luca found out about our attempt to get him in Rachel's school, but the clincher came when Cole faked a seizure during my little session with him after Briella's death. I knew then that he was hiding something. All I had to do was have his cell phone cloned, and I got his correspondence with Luca. Not enough to know what the real deal between Cole and Luca was, but it was enough to know Luca was pressuring Cole to get him the ledger with all our transactions."

Draco's lips parted to speak, his jaw slack, his gaze divided between me and the screen. “So Cole has been Luca’s spy all this while…”

I nodded my head to the side in silent confirmation. Draco's face tightened on itself, his eyes reddened, pinning on Cole and Luca in the screen. His biceps quivered.

On the screen, Cole passed the ledger to Luca, and Luca passed it to Bradley, who tucked it into a suitcase he brought with him.

“What are we still doing here?” Draco turned sharply to me after a couple of moments of staring at the screen. “Why can't we just badge in there and capture them now? I can call the men from home to come if Ashton doesn't have much to raid the joint,” Draco yelled, his chin trembling as he spoke.

“That's because Rachel isn't in the cafe with them. We need to tail Luca to wherever he kept Rachel before we act. If we capture Luca or if he knows about us before he takes us to where he kept Rachel, we might never see her again. Because a man like Luca wouldn't tell us anything no matter how hard we torture him. He could even use her to bargain for us to let him go, since he knows we are desperate about rescuing her. The last thing I want is the bastard escaping my grip again.” I explained, my fingers folding atop my legs while I leaned low, watching the screen.

Draco grunted, grinding his teeth noisily. He whipped his face back to the screen, grunting again.

There was silence for a minute in the van until Ashton broke it with an almost soundless squeal.

He pointed his finger at another recording on another screen, showing another angle in the cafe, where another of his boys was recording from. This view showed a bit of the door. “Who are those?” he asked, making another excited squeal.

I stared at the men gathering outside of the cafe door. An enormously fat man at the lead. The men had one of their hands in their coat pockets, the pockets bulging outward a little. There was no mistaking the men were hiding guns in there.

“Isn't that Billy?” Draco said, his gaze fixed on the enormously fat man in the lead of the group.

“Who the hell is Billy?” Ashton and I turned, asking him almost in unison.

Draco took his gaze over Ashton’s head to me. “Billy is Luca's nemesis from Sumpter County.”

“Meaning he is here to kill Luca.”

“Y-eee-s,” Draco answered sluggishly, his eyes dimming slowly. “Hell no! We have to stop this. Billy could take Luca away,” he yelled.

“Yeah,” I whispered in answer to him. “Seems like it is going to happen your way after all.” I slipped him a sad grin as I pushed past Ashton for the door.

We jumped down from the car, Draco and I.

“Should we get the boys ready to go in too?” Lara asked in her soft, careful voice.

“Get them the hell in,” I nodded, but they shouldn't move before—”

Gunshots boomed in the air just then, sending cold tremors charging at an insane speed through my veins. I started on a spot, turning fast in the direction of the gunshot—the direction of the cafe.

There was a moment paused, then another gunshot rang in the air, and another, and soon it became sporadic. Yells and wails tore through the air alongside the gunshots, and people began scampering out of the cafe in large numbers.

“Damn hell.” I grunted, charging fast after Draco, who had resumed running for the cafe. But then, I stopped, frozen on the asphalt, my gaze fastened on the cafe. The gunshots had suddenly stopped, and then there was silence. What was worse than the noise of gunshots was the loud, deafening silence that usually came after it. That usually meant there was no more disaster to prevent, because whatever disaster was going to happen had already happened.

“Fuck.” I screamed to myself, resuming my sprint to the cafe.

Ahead, from the crowd yelling and screaming out of the cafe, a man with a very bloodied shirt split from the group, running fast for Cole’s Porsche. It wasn’t Cole. It was too far to see his face. My eyes snapped wider on the bright blond hair caught under the bright yellowish light of the streetlights even before I could recognize the clothes I’d seen him wear through the recording. The bastard—Luca.

Draco saw him too and changed course to the car, but Luca had already gotten into the car. The engine boomed with a loud cry, and immediately, it steered into the next street, driving off at top speed.

“Damn,” I grunted, jamming my fist into my palm. My breath came raspy now, the cool night air stinging my nostrils. How could this fucking happen? I stared around, but there was only Agent Bradley's car before the cafe.

Draco's growls split the air as he forced his way into the midst of the crowd spilling from the cafe, charging and stomping through the small mass of people. He got in, and just as I reached the sidewalk to the cafe, he was running out with a blood-stained key in his fingers. He nudged his chin towards Agent Bradley's car. “Let's go,” he cried.

Just as we jumped into the car, he started the engine, throwing the car into the road after Luca. He gripped the steering wheel harder than usual. Blood stained his eyes while they stayed trapped to the road. But it wasn't just blood. I glimpsed a bit of moisture too—tears.

My heart raced faster beneath my chest now, pounding against my ears. “What the hell happened inside the cafe?” I yelled at him while he stepped on the gas pedal, the noise of the speeding car almost swallowing up my question.

His eyes drifted to me then, and he blinked off the tears that stained them before they could drop. He knew not to appear weak. It was a taboo for a man like him.

“A massacre happened there. Cole is fucking dead,” he yelled at me.

I collapsed into my seat as if I had been shot right in the heart. Pain gripped tight to my chest, as my heart nearly exploded beneath it.