Page 82 of Thirst Trap

Chapter 45

Midnight Confessions

The city looked unreal from the Tower,silvered and small. Logan stood at the rooftop helipad, wind clawing his coat, watching the clock like he could will it forward.

11:59 p.m.

My phone buzzed.

I’m downstairs. You better be worth it.

He was.

We moved through dead-quiet executive floors, his keycards humming open one steel door after another. At a matte-black threshold he paused.

“This is where the lies stop.”

I braced for theatrics. A lair. An armory. Instead: a business.

Rows of monitors streaming code. Ledgers, cash, maps. A glass conference room with suits bent over a city grid while men in tactical gear hovered nearby. A vault. A woman in a lab coat. A guy cleaning a gun while sipping coffee.

“Jesus,” I breathed.

“Upstairs is branding,” Logan said, flat. “Down here is control. We don’t push drugs,we own the people who do. We don’t pull triggers unless we have to. But we always can.”

Surveillance feeds lined a corridor: ports, banks, satellites. He stopped by a black-glass door and faced me, unblinking.

“This place changes people. I need you to understand what I am.”

“Surgical,” I said. “Cold.”

“Necessary.”

“Why show me?”

“Because I want you in my world,” he said. “No more secrets.”

“I don’t scare easily.”

“I know,” he said softly. “That’s why you’re here.”

Upstairs, the penthouse opened like a cathedral,ocean on one side, city on the other. He wasn’t looking at the view. He was watching me read the wall of family photos,weddings, babies, a crimson-suited Bonnie holding a toddler; an older couple hand in hand on a beach.

“There’s so much love in these,” I said.

“Under the blood and business, we’re still a family,” he answered, voice gone fragile.

“We were raised to protect it. It’s our curse.”

He poured a drink and didn’t touch it. “You still want me?”

I set my palm on his chest. “I never wanted the edited version. I wanted the man who guards his brother like a wolf and sends me sunrise pictures because he can’t say he misses me.”

A broken laugh. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Probably not,” I said, smiling. “But I’m here anyway.”

Later, at the window, he stood shirtless in the city glow. I touched his spine; he shivered.