Page 28 of Keeping Kasey (Love and Blood #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kasey

Soft lips trail featherlight kisses over my shoulder and collarbone.

“Good morning to you, too,” I murmur, arching my back to reach Logan’s lips.

He pulls out of my reach, a challenge in his eyes.

“Cranky already?”

“Stay home tomorrow,” he says, close enough that his breath fans over my skin.

I wrap my arms around his neck. “That’s not happening, and you know it.”

He dips down, brushing his lips against mine, and murmurs, “Then neither is this.”

When Logan sits up, I tighten my hold, moving with him until we’re kneeling on the bed, chest-to-chest.

“I’ll stay home if you stay with me,” I counter, and the ease with which I’ve come to call the manor home should be a red flag, but I can’t bring myself to care.

Logan narrows his eyes, but he shouldn’t be surprised. He had to know I’d use that argument.

“Trust me,” he says, leaning in. “If I could spend the rest of my life in bed with you, I’d die a happy man.”

“That’ll come sooner than you think if you don’t kiss me.”

He laughs, finally taking my lips with his in a kiss that steals my breath, as he pulls me back under the covers.

Half an hour later, I’m sitting on the bed watching Logan put his suit on, hair still wet from his shower. There’s something so mesmerizing about how he gets ready. Each step is methodical, done with a masculine confidence that makes me want him all over again.

“You know, the world wouldn’t stop turning if you wore sweatpants just once,” I tease. “Especially when you’re only getting on a plane.”

You’d think I’d suggested going in his birthday suit by his disgust. “No man with my status would be caught dead in sweatpants . I have a reputation to uphold here.”

“Right, you’re the big, bad, perpetually uncomfortable crime boss after all.”

“I’ve been in suits as long as I can remember. At this point, anything else is uncomfortable.”

I pull my legs to my chest. “Any idea when you’ll be back?”

He straightens his tie and joins me on the bed.

“Tomorrow evening. Hopefully, early enough that you’re not asleep when I get back,” he says with a charming wink.

“No promises.”

He leans down to kiss my temple. “Then at least promise me you’ll take it easy tomorrow.”

I suck in a breath through clenched teeth. “I already committed to two brawls and a car chase.”

“You’re lucky I’m late, or I’d make sure you’re too tired to go anywhere tomorrow,” he says with narrowed eyes gleaming with a dangerous promise.

“You talk a big game, Mr. Consoli. Can you back it up?”

His eyes spark with challenge, and it sends a thrill down my spine. I could spend my life chasing that feeling, like an adrenaline junkie hooked on the rush.

The thought isn’t the first of its kind this week, and it ignites both excitement and guilt—emotions I quickly bury.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” he says, sealing the promise with one last kiss that flushes my cheeks and steals my breath.

Will he always have this effect on me?

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers.

“Tomorrow,” I murmur, and hate the sinking feeling that accompanies watching him leave my room.

This week has been incredible.

The doctor recommended a week of rest, and even though I can’t remember the last time I went a single day without working, the week wasn’t as mind-numbingly dull as I had worried.

Of course, there were times when I was ready to give the doctor the middle finger and work anyway, but Logan kept me busy.

He hasn’t been back to the base since we returned from Detroit.

He spent the week working from his home office and being a complete control freak about my health. The prospect of being treated like a helpless child was made far more bearable with Logan making tea, running baths, and giving me massages all week long.

This morning was the first time we’ve even slept together since the night I was attacked, and the lack of physical intimacy has brought out an entirely new side to our relationship.

If you could call what Logan and I have a relationship , that is.

We went for walks with Kane around the property each morning.

We cooked each meal together—or rather, Logan cooked while I sat on the counter giving him explicit instructions because he’s helpless in the kitchen but too stubborn to let me do anything resembling work.

We watched movies—in segments, per Logan’s orders, to avoid worsening my concussion.

We even spent one night on the back porch around an electric fire pit with James and Damon.

The three of them were so relaxed, talking and laughing like…

well, brothers . It was the first time I’d seen the Consolis as a real family, and not just in the criminal sense.

When Logan did have to work, he made sure it was when I was taking a nap, a bath, or lying on the couch in his office listening to music.

And every single night, Logan fell asleep beside me.

This is the first day we won’t be spending together.

James got the call in the middle of the night that Ford had woken up from his coma, so he and Logan are going to see him.

The news is miraculous—considering the doctor’s prediction that Ford had a fifty-fifty chance of making it—and I loathe the part of me that worries Ford overheard Brandon that day.

Consoli will find out you’re a traitor, and he’ll kill you.

Those words play on a loop inside my brain a dozen times a day, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something. I know I’ve never met Brandon before, but when I lie in bed each night, wrapped in Logan’s embrace, I remember the sense of familiarity he sparked.

The odds of Ford hearing Brandon—or remembering it, if he did—are slim to none. Yet, the paranoia refuses to loosen its grip.

Countless times, I’ve been so close to telling Logan everything, but it’s his own words that stop me.

We’ll execute every traitor.

I’ve done nothing wrong, I know that, but the survivor in me—the one who’s been on her own since she was sixteen—can’t help but feel the need to protect myself.

Even if I don’t know what I need protection from.

Tomorrow is the first day I’ll be back at the base since the attack, and I’ll finally start the search for the communication program.

I’ve been itching to start the project since Logan and James told me about it. The work falls well within my area of expertise. So much so that a part of me worries I’ll get the list too quickly and won’t have a reason to stay.

The fact that I don’t want to go should terrify me.

But it doesn’t.

I’m not sure what orders Logan gave Damon, but he’s waiting outside my bedroom door the next morning, and he all but handcuffs himself to me all the way to the base.

By the time we get to Ford’s office, I’m already feeling smothered—a feeling that grows when I see who’s waiting for me there.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask as I toss my book bag on a nearby chair.

Matteo looks over my head to his cousin. “Can I have a moment?”

“She’s not leaving my sight.”

I turn to Damon. “It’s okay. Just wait outside the door.”

He doesn’t move right away, and I wonder if his protectiveness is more than just an order from Logan. I get the heartwarming feeling that he’s genuinely worried about me.

It’s only after leveling his cousin with a narrow-eyed warning that Damon finally steps into the hall.

“Look, if you’re here for some verbal sparring, I’m not in the mood,” I tell him.

“Not exactly. I’m here to see if you’re okay.”

“And?”

He pulls in a breath. “And because I’m sorry.”

That’s enough to get me to lower my guard—or at least my snark.

“It’s not your fault—”

“It is my fault,” he says, flexing and unflexing his fingers. “My job was to keep you safe, and I didn’t do that.”

“Ford was with me. You had no way of knowing—”

“It’s my job to know.”

“Will you shut up and let me talk?” I snap, and Matteo smiles and waves his hand dramatically for me to go on. “I don’t blame you for what happened. You couldn’t have known what Brandon was going to do. If you want to worry about someone, it should be Ford.”

Matteo nods. “Still. I wanted you to know I would never intentionally put you in harm’s way.”

“I know that,” I tell him, and it’s true.

Matteo might not like me very much, but he never wanted me to get hurt.

Seeming satisfied with the conversation, Matteo moves to the door, but he stops when his hand touches the knob. “I think I spoke too soon about you and Logan.”

My heart flips at the simple mention of his name.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I think you were right about making him happy.”

“And what about distracting him?”

He shrugs. “Two things can be true at once.”

With that, Matteo opens the door and leaves, not giving me a chance to respond.

Not that I’d know how to, anyway.

I push the conversation with Matteo to the back of my head and settle into the desk chair. Damon falls onto the sofa across the room, looking ready to nap, but energy is buzzing through my veins.

My fingers fly across the keyboard like my lungs bring in oxygen.

This isn’t only second nature—it’s a necessity to live .

The excitement that comes with what I do hasn’t faded since the day my father sat me down and taught me coding for the first time.

It’s my favorite memory of him.

I was in the sixth grade, staying home from school with strep throat. My dad stayed home from work to take care of me, and I was so angry that I didn’t feel up to playing board games or going on walks like we usually would.

But my dad wanted to spend time with me anyway, so he brought his laptop to my room, sat beside me on the bed, and built a video game from scratch. It was a simple game, like one you’d see on an Atari, and I later learned he used graphics from several classics.

It was like watching him create his own world .

I think he would’ve loved for me to find a love for video game programming, but my fascination went beyond games. I wanted to create bigger, more complex software. If those worlds I watched my father create were a child’s drawings, I wanted to make the Mona Lisa.

I found my passion in cybersecurity—in building walls and breaking them down. Each program outdoing the last in intricacy.

My passion grew with me, making me into the person I am today.

And even if it eventually took my dad’s life, I can’t help but wonder—in moments like this, when I hone in on a mission to dissect the complexities of an entire database—if he would say it’s all worth it.

If his love for what he did was worth the danger it brought.

Because for me, it is.

If doing what I love is what eventually kills me, I’ll consider my life well-lived.

I start my search by looking exactly where I’d hide a comms program—fifteen minutes of my fingers flying over the keyboard with ease. If this were a piano instead of a laptop, I’d be orchestrating a masterpiece that would put Beethoven to shame.

It’s brilliant.

It’s a work of art.

It’s mine .

It’s… mine?

An error code pops onto my screen, and my stomach doesn’t just drop—it plummets six feet into the ground.

I recognize this… all of this.

This isn’t possible. It can’t be.

I spend thirty seconds staring at the error code, hoping I’m wrong—but I already know I’m not.

I force myself to enter the bypass key that opens the comms program.

A bypass key that I created.

Because I built this communications program three years ago.