Page 39 of Keeping Kasey (Love and Blood #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Logan

I grit my teeth as James pulls another piece of glass from my arm.

“How can there possibly be more?” I grind the words out and glare at Kasey. She sits opposite me on the kitchen counter as Damon tends to the cut in her hand.

Somehow, her cut was shallow and clean, but half the damn plate broke off in my arm.

“Serves you right,” Kasey mumbles, then hisses as Damon wraps a bandage around her hand.

“I barely cut you.” I gesture to my arm. “This was hardly equal retaliation.”

“You’re right. I went easy on you.”

James rolls his eyes. “You two are so annoying.”

“I’m happy to walk out that door and never see any of you ever again,” she says as Damon finishes wrapping her hand.

“We’ll go to the base first thing tomorrow,” I assure her. “We’ll need to get a statement ready to send out to the family.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Why is that necessary?”

“Because we told them that an enemy family hired you to sabotage us,” James says tonelessly.

“So, everyone is going to want to kill me? You guys really suck.”

“I’ll compose a statement explaining that we struck a deal that benefits our family enough to justify the risks,” I state. “They don’t need to know more than that. We’ll have Damon stay with you to ensure no one tries anything.”

“Handcuff you to me this time,” Damon mutters under his breath.

Kasey shakes her head. “Absolutely not. I don’t want someone smothering me while I work.”

“Nonnegotiable. This is about your safety.”

“Which you care about all of a sudden?” She shakes her head. “Just give me my gun back, and I’ll take my chances.”

“Nice try. I’ll be holding on to that for the time being. I’m sure you understand.”

“I most certainly do not. Give it back.”

“As soon as I have what I want.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“It is now,” I say through a grimace as James digs into my arm again.

He pulls the fragment out and sets the forceps down. “That should be all of it.”

Damon passes him the antiseptic, bandages, and the suture kit—because, of course, she’d cut deep enough to warrant stitches.

What’s worse, I can’t even have a damn drink to numb the pain.

Kasey hops off the counter and leans against it with her arms crossed over her chest. “I’ll agree to that, but I have conditions.”

“Of course you do,” I mutter as James cleans the cut and readies the curved needle with sterilized thread.

“I’m not staying here.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.” She looks around the kitchen like she’s surrounded by poisonous spiders and not pristine appliances.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight until I have the list.”

“And I’m not staying under the same roof as the people who spent four months hunting me down.”

I suck in a breath, teeth gritted so tight they might break, as James stitches me up.

He’s good… he had to be. Growing up, it was always Damon, Mason, and me coming home with injuries from the dangerous—and in Damon’s case, reckless—things we did. James was always the most careful, but that often meant he fixed us up.

Still, it hurts like hell.

“Where will you go?” Damon asks, knowing I can’t.

He’s been cozying up to Kasey since the second she got back. From what I can tell, she doesn’t appreciate it, but it pisses me off anyway. I’m only allowing it because he has a better shot of getting her guard down than I do.

She shrugs. “A hotel.”

“Fine,” I bite out, forcing myself to focus through the pain, “but we’re getting adjoining rooms.”

“The point is to get away from you,” she deadpans. “That would put me even closer to you than I am here.”

I’d shrug if my arm didn’t feel like it was being held over a flame. “Then we can stay here.”

She cuts her eyes at me, but she must see that I won’t change my mind because she relents, “Fine, but no guards.”

“Not happening,” James interjects, pulling the thread taut and tying it. “The Consoli boss isn’t staying in a hotel unguarded. Out of the question.”

“Then he’s not staying in the hotel with me,” Kasey says. “I’m not going to be smothered by your soldiers. It’s no better than staying in this—”

“It’s fine,” I cut in. “We’ll stay in adjoining rooms with no soldiers. But you’re rigging the hotel security system to alert us of unwanted guests.”

Her glare is unmoving, but she nods once. “I still don’t work for free.”

This, I’d been expecting.

“The amount we originally agreed on,” I offer.

“Plus a bonus to cover everything you destroyed or had confiscated by the FBI.”

“I’ll put the money toward my car collection, and we’ll call it even.”

She fights back a satisfied grin, confirming the suspicion I’d had about that particular form of payback.

I once told Kasey my car collection was the only thing that was truly mine, not my family’s. Going after it was a personal attack—a way to hurt me, and me alone.

Damn if she didn’t succeed.

“I’ll take the bonus, and now that I think about it, I paid my rent in full for the year. You can throw in the compensation for that, too.”

I could argue with her—after all, my car collection was worth a hell of a lot more than her shabby apartment—but at this point, I don’t care about the money. I care about getting this job done once and for all.

“Done.”

“Not quite.” She lifts her chin, and I already know I won’t like whatever she’s about to say. “You’ll cover Mark’s hospital stay and compensate him twice what you’d give a soldier’s family who was killed in the line of duty.”

Heat floods my chest.

I’d almost forgotten about that bastard.

Once James secures the bandage, I hop off the counter and match her combative stance, shaking my head. “I’m not paying your boyfriend . Not my fault he got in my way.”

“You shot him after I agreed to go with you.”

I’m burning from the inside out.

One breath. Two. Three.

“I’ll compensate him on two conditions.”

She looks utterly exasperated as she gestures for me to go on.

“Ryan stays to ensure he doesn’t do something stupid like go to the police.” Kasey opens her mouth, but I lift a hand to cut her off. “He won’t lay a hand on him, but that’s not my territory, and if Lover Boy makes a nuisance of himself, Moreno won’t hesitate to take him out.”

Kasey lets out a resigned breath. “And?”

“You won’t contact him again.”

Her expression doesn’t change, and I wonder if she saw that condition coming.

“Why do you care what I do when I leave here?”

“I don’t like loose ends, especially ones that know too much, like my name —thanks to you. I’ll arrange for the payments to be distributed to him monthly, but if I find out you’ve contacted him, the payments stop, and so does my generosity.”

Kasey studies me closely. I know exactly what she’s looking for, but she won’t find it.

I’ve got a mask of steel, and she isn’t getting past it today.

“You’ve got a funny definition of generous .”

I gesture to my arm. “You’ve got a funny definition of white flag .”

It’s a stifling drive to the hotel.

I didn’t expect things to go back to how they used to be, but when Kasey stares out the window with the same dejected look she wore the entire trip back to Chicago, it bothers me.

The weight crushing me is unrelenting.

It was easier to ignore when James was picking glass out of my arm and I was negotiating new terms with Kasey, but it’s harder now that we’re alone.

She didn’t delete the list.

She didn’t delete the list.

Every time I think about it, more weight crushes me.

She still lied about the attack and the program. She’s still a traitor. She has to be.

Because otherwise, the things I did…

I don’t know how to twist this, spin it, or use it to my advantage.

When she stormed out of my office—the truth hanging over me like a guillotine—I didn’t have a single word to say.

I barely reached my chair before collapsing into it.

Heat flooded my chest, but no amount of deep breaths could smother the flame.

What was I thinking?

But I knew the answer.

I could disguise it before as hatred for her betrayal, but now that I know the truth, I have to face the grim reality.

She left.

I loved Kasey. I asked her to stay. I all but slid a ring onto her finger.

And she left .

The office door opened and shut, and I knew it was Damon who left—probably to go after her.

“What now?” James had asked.

I laughed—a haunted sound.

“ What now? ” I barely lifted my head enough to show him the hopelessness crushing me to pieces. “Now I try to justify putting Kasey through hell so I can live with myself.”

It was the truest thing I’d said in months.

“She still lied about the attack and the program being hers. She still ran,” he said, reading my mind exactly.

It was one of the very rare moments my brother told me what I wanted to hear instead of what I needed to hear.

He said it himself last night—I’m in over my head.

“The things I did…” I shook my head. “She’s never going to forgive me.”

“Do you want her to?”

Yes.

But I couldn’t say that. I shouldn’t have been saying any of that.

I should’ve been planning our next move.

I made mistakes, and now I needed to ensure they weren’t for nothing.

“I want the traitors out of our family,” I told him. “But she can’t be our prisoner.”

“That won’t be as easy as saying sorry.”

“I won’t be saying sorry.”

I can’t afford the weakness. Not even for her.

“What then?”

“First, I’ll let her do what she loves most.”

James lifted his brow.

“Fight me.”

The only good thing about Kasey’s confession was the blush flooding her cheeks as she yelled at me. I didn’t even care that she was calling me a monster—a vile, cruel monster—all I could focus on was the spark ignited in her glare.

Kasey doesn’t need my pity. It wouldn’t make her feel better or make up for anything I’ve done.

But I can let her fight me—let her hate me.

“Then I’ll offer her the only thing she really wants,” I told James with a hollow smile, “to get away from me.”