Even if Frank didn’t think so, Mickey O’Shea could very well be the kingpin to this entire operation. He had motive and reason to go after Flannigan. But why wait so long? It didn’t make sense.
The Priest was someone, and if not Mickey, who? Michael? Payback for his mother’s death? Or someone else entirely?
I didn’t know the answers but was going to find them out. Frank gave Miles some names of former Dorchester Heights Gang members and he was going to ask around. We had to be close. There were too many coincidences. Too many connections. Too many deaths. And way too many threatening phone calls.
Shuddering, I moved faster through the alley. Elle’s hand was safely in mine. I needed to get us away from here, from the chaos. I had to escape this madness if only for the night. Still, even as I thought it, I knew it wouldn’t happen. Elle had to stay out of this. She shouldn’t be taking risks. I had to convince her. Before we turned the corner onto Tremont Street, I stopped. “We need to talk.”
Elle was shaking her head. “Logan, I know what you’re going to say and you know I can’t stay out of it. I have to protect that little girl, now more than ever. What if Lizzy married Michael because he was like our father? I don’t remember what my father was like with us when we were little. Maybe he was just as loving as Michael is with Clementine now. And where will that leave her?”
Elle was practically hysterical and although I didn’t want to understand her driving need, I did. In fact, I felt protective over Clementine myself.
“I have to be there for her, to make sure nothing bad happens to her.”
I pinned Elle against the brick wall. I needed to calm her down. Standing in front of her, I looked down into her terrified stare. “I promise you I will help you to ensure she grows up happy, healthy, and normal.”
Her eyes burned into mine. “You can’t make me that promise, Logan. There is no way you can do that. This is all me. I have to do this myself.”
The scent of her skin, the warmth in her tone, the pull of her body—they were all I needed to reassure myself that I could do this, that I could help her. I had to. I pressed my hands to the wall above her head. “Elle, I don’t want you to do anything tomorrow when you go visit Clementine. It’s too dangerous. Let Miles and me figure out a way to get the information we need and deliver it to Blanchet.”
She shook her head violently, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I know I’m the reason you’re in this situation with the DEA, why you’re still involved, but you can’t do anything with what you find out about Michael until I secure Clementine’s future. I mean it, Logan. You can’t.”
I lifted her chin. “Hey, don’t cry.”
Her head dropped to my shoulder and she started babbling. “If something happens to Michael, I don’t know what will happen to Clementine. I won’t be able to live with myself knowing I might have been the one to wreck her entire life.”
I pulled back. “Hey, that’s not going to happen.”
“It might. I don’t think Michael has named anyone as her guardian yet. If he goes to prison, she could become a ward of the state until custody is determined.”
“He hadn’t filed—”
She cut me off. “Promise me, Logan. Promise me.”
I clasped my hands to her face. I couldn’t stand to see her so upset. “I promise, Elle. I promise.”
Her eyes were wild now. “Even if Michael catches me, he won’t hurt me. He has no idea about the two of us and besides . . .” Her voice dropped off.
“Besides what?” I asked.
She stared at me for the longest time and then dropped her gaze. “He wants me to move in with him. He thinks I can help him become DA and then judge. He said if I do that, I can be a bigger part of Clementine’s life. That I could help raise her.”
The words were unexpected. They were like a hard punch to the gut, and once again I couldn’t breathe. “What the hell are you talking about?” I bit out.
She flinched at the harshness in my tone. “When I thought you left me, I spent the weekend at his house and he made me a proposition—if he could have me, I could have Clementine.”
Everything around me seemed to be moving. The earth was no longer steady. There was a great divide between Elle and me. My world felt like it was falling apart. I fixed her with a turbulent look. “He . . . propositioned you? And what, you’ve been considering it while fucking me?”
“What?” she asked in shock.
I said it again. “Have you been considering his proposition while fucking me?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
My hands went back to their position above her head and I pounded my fists against the concrete. “You didn’t answer me, Elle.”
There was a hesitation in her movement when her palms lifted toward my chest. I wasn’t certain if she was touching me. I couldn’t feel anything. I was numb. She lifted her head to the sky. I did too. It was filled with a million twinkling lights and if I could reach up and grab some, I’d hand them all to her and assure her everything would be all right.
But I couldn’t.
A horrible sense of foreboding washed over me. She was going to accept his proposal. My gaze swept her, lingered on her lips, and I could see that truth in the way her green eyes dulled, in the way her shoulders slumped, in the way she had yet to touch me.
Outrage burned in my blood. “Why won’t you answer me,” I demanded.
Her eyes flashed to mine but she just stood there, staring at me, saying nothing.
Something in the air shifted.
I was losing control again.
I couldn’t stand the thought. I knew I was being too loud. I knew I shouldn’t be so hostile. I knew what she was going to say. And that was just it: she was everything to me, and I was going to lose her.
With that thought in my mind, I turned and started for my vehicle. Oddly enough, I yearned for the day when I thought I was the threat to her safety. When her being with me was the problem, because at least then I had a solution.
She grabbed my upper arm. I thought she meant to slap me or push me—I wasn’t sure. I froze. Her touch was doing something to me, snapping me out of the daze I was in. She placed her other hand on my other arm and stood in front of me, staring at me like I was the devil. I think she was talking, but the blood was swooshing so loud in my ears, I couldn’t hear.
I was going to lose her.
I’d just found her and I was going to lose her.
She shook me. “Don’t do this, Logan. Don’t shut down on me,” she pleaded.
I’d lost myself in my thoughts.
“I love you. Nothing has changed. I only told you that so you could understand that I’m not in danger around Michael. That I can use what he wants to get closer but I would never do anything to jeopardize what we have. Never. Do you understand me?”
I blinked. “You’re not going to agree to his terms?”
Without hesitation she placed her palms on my chest. “No. I could never do that. I love you too much to lose you. But you have to trust me. You have to let me get closer to him. I’ll stall him while I secure my place in Clementine’s future.”
I stroked my thumb over her bottom lip. “As long as he keeps his hands off you, I will try to come to terms with the plan Miles has laid out. But Elle, if he so much as touches a hair on your head . . . I might just kill him.”
And this time, I meant it. I might not have had enough resolve to kill Tommy Flannigan with my bare hands, but if O’Shea violated Elle in any way, I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions.
Her hands slid up my chest and dug into my shoulders. “He won’t, Logan, I know he won’t. He won’t force me to do anything. He’s not like that with me.”
She was trying to convince me or maybe she was trying to convince herself, but either way, it wasn’t as if I had a choice. “Okay, Elle, I’ll go along with it as long as you promise to be careful.”
She lifted on her toes and kissed me sweetly, softly. “I love you,” she said again.