Stef rolled his gray eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re also the stingiest man in town.”
Caleb shrugged. “Hey, it’s how I keep being the richest man in town. I don’t go around buying a bunch of crap.”
“Except for the massive cabin, all the new medical equipment, and the brand-spanking-new ambulance,” Holly murmured.
“Do not to be forgetting the new bed. Yes, that was good purchase. That bed is not a California kingdom. It is much bigger. I swear this new bed is from Russia,” Alexei said with a smile and his patented bad English. “It is bed for Russian acrobats.”
Momma looked at the big Russian. “Are you going to start talking nasty around the young’uns, Markov?”
The ex-Russian mobster shook his head. “Oh, no. It is plain to see Miss Georgia here is very innocent.”
Georgia didn’t even blush. “Thank you. I am a delicate flower.”
Holly laughed. “Sorry about that. Neither one of them has a sense of decorum.” She stood up. “Seth, I’m glad to hear they’re letting you go tomorrow. I’m going to take my gorgeous monsters home. I look forward to the makeover party.”
“Oh, yes, we’re still having that. And Nell said she would bring a soothsayer along to bless the cabin after all the death and destruction,” Georgia said. “Hey, I bet someone who makes a living off of soothsaying probably needs a makeover, too.”
Georgia would make over the world if it would let her. She would make it beautiful and cover it in little rhinestones so it always shined. God, he hoped she still looked at him the same way. He closed his eyes and just fucking said the words he had been holding inside for a year.
“I was going to tell them.”
He opened his eyes. The whole room turned to him. His ma was holding hands with Momma, both of them watching and waiting. Standing by as they always had.
“What are you talking about?” Seth asked.
Holly seemed to understand. “Logan, you don’t have to do this.”
Alexei shook his head. “He does, Holly. He needs this. He needs to be a man. That was taken from him. He take back by talking and doing the right things and letting himself love.”
Logan felt a well of emotion. It had been blocked for so long. He’d shoved it down and ignored its existence, but he couldn’t now. “You’re wrong about one thing, Alexei. I wasn’t a man before. I was a kid, and maybe that would have changed on its own. Or maybe not. I lived this charmed life, and I didn’t have to see the sacrifices that were made for me. I didn’t have to see them as sacrifices at all. I just saw it as my due. My moms sacrificed. They could have gone somewhere where they would have been easily accepted, had friends like them, but they stayed here because of me. Because they thought this was the best thing for me. God, I can’t imagine what it was like all those years ago. It’s great now.”
“Logan,” Ma began, but Momma shook her head.
“You let him talk, Teeny. He’s finally doing what we asked him to do. He’s dealing with it,” Momma said. “And it wasn’t so bad, son.”
“She’s being Marie, Logan. They had tough times here. Stella talks about it. Sure, it’s good now. It’s great because of people of like Marie and Teeny,” Stef said. “Because they helped change the generation that came before. They were strong, and now the world is a little better.”
“I didn’t see the pain they endured. I was a child and the world revolved around me until one day it didn’t. The world revolved around my pain and my sacrifice and it was all bullshit because I broke. God, I broke.” He didn’t want to say the words. He hesitated and then felt a hand in his. Georgia. She threaded their fingers together, and he noticed that she reached for Seth, too. Their strength was his, an offering of love. This was what he’d had growing up. A family that held on, that gave each other strength to do the things that needed to be done.
He held his head up and looked Alexei in the eye. “I apologize. I would have done the same thing. And I would get on that table again myself if it meant saving my people.”
Alexei nodded. “This I know. You say you were child, but even then you had heart of a great man.”
“I didn’t. Did you not hear what I said? I broke. I wanted you and Holly and Stef and Jen here because I have to tell you that I was going to tell them everything I knew. It wasn’t much, but Luka had beaten me so badly. I just wanted it to stop. I was going to give you all up. I am so sorry.”
There it was. The heart of all his pain. His shame.
Seth sat up, moving slowly. “How many times, brother?”
Jamie came to stand beside him. “Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing.”
“What?” What were they talking about?
Noah shook his head. His three childhood friends stood together. “Damn, man. Don’t you remember? When we were kids, we would see how long we could stand things. Like how long we could run in place. Or how far we could swim. You had a ritual when we would do it.”
Jamie took over. “You would talk to yourself. You would say just one more minute and I’ll get to stop. And then the minute would be up and you would say it again. You were such a stubborn shit. He actually passed out once when we were trying to see who could go the longest without taking a breath. The sucker turned blue.”
Seth nodded. “So we’ll ask again. How many times did you say it?”
It came back to him in a great rush. God, how could he have forgotten? He hadn’t really. It had just been an incidental thing, something meaningless in the great nightmare that had been the day. Even as they’d pulled him into the office, he’d already been at it.
Ten minutes. I can take ten minutes and that’s all Alexei has.
Ten minutes had become an hour, until he counted the time in blows and lashes and bites of pain.
Two more and I can be done. Just two more.
“I don’t know. I lost count.”
Jen Talbot stepped in front of him, her gentle hands reaching for his face. “Logan Green, you never would have said a thing. You had every opportunity to stop it. You took that pain for me and Holly and, Logan, you didn’t know it then, but you took that pain for my baby and any babies we have later. This baby is going to live and breathe and grow because of what you did.”
“You never would have said it,” Stef agreed. “I saw some of it. That was not a boy on that desk. That was a man I was damn proud to know. That was a man I’m going to name my son after because I hope he has half your courage.”
Holly was surrounded by her men, their arms around her, somber looks on their faces as she cried freely. “I…we are so grateful to you, Logan. We love you.”
“I love you.” Georgia wrapped her arms around him. “I love you so much. I’m so proud to be your girl.”
Seth reached for his hand. “Hey, of course you are, baby. Logan Green is a big fucking deal. He’s my hero. Always has been.”
“You’re my boy. You’re our boy and we’re proud,” his momma vowed.
Logan let go. He’d held it for so long, but there was no need now. He cried. He let it out in a great yell that had the nurses rushing in, but he barely saw them because he was surrounded, protected. Arms came around him, hugging him, and familiar voices soothed him and somewhere in that great show of love he did the one thing he hadn’t managed to do.
He forgave himself.
Chapter Nineteen
Georgia walked into the dungeon prepared for just about anything. After all, this was her wedding night.
“What do you think?” Seth asked. He looked entirely perfect in his Armani tux. Prince Charming in the flesh. “I tried to get it right. I wanted it to be a perfect mix of romance and, well, whatever it is that Logan does to you.”