Page 136 of Stolen By the Billionaire
All the Scholarship Mafia guys at Le Rosey were sad sack cases, specifically selected to tug at donors’ heartstrings and wallets. They were the designated poster children for Le Rosey’s largesse, trotted out at charity events to orate prewritten speeches about their hard lives in the US where no social safety net caught their families’ tragic falls and their everlasting gratitude to Le Rosey’s donors.
And true, Sarah’s parents had wronged Logan with that whole “abandoned the family” stuff. Fucking reprehensible.
Yet, when Blaze and Logan had been at that European boarding school together, Logan had been neck-deep with the kids from sketchy families, those whose immense wealth was nowhere near commensurate with their family’s supposed landscaping businesses, construction companies, or mid-level political offices.
He’d been as thick as thieves with them.
As thick as organized crime bosses.
Thick as Russian oligarchs.
Maybe he still was.
Logan had never once mentioned to Blaze or the other two guys in their tight group, Micah and Tristan, that he had a sister.
If Sarah hadn’t been such a consummate farm girl who’d mended a fence post in ten minutes and was obviously in an intense relationship with her livestock guardian dog, Blaze would have entertained the possibility that Logan and Mary Varvara Bell had masterminded the whole situation.
Because Mary Varvara Bell was Logan’s aunt.
He’d never mentioned her, either. The four of them had never discussed what had become of the Malefactor’s organization or their no-payback loans after Logan’s grandfather had died. They just raised a glass to him when they got together.
But Logan might be working with Mary Varvara Bell.
Probably to produce the military-grade weapons she’d demanded.
But Logan, of all people? Logan?
But Blaze’s neck itched, his thigh twitched, and his nose sniffed the acrid-chemical scent of betrayal.
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside the mirrored, gilded box.
The floor pushed on the soles of his feet as the elevator began a graceful, if slow, ascent.
Blaze shouldn’t have brought Sarah to New York. He should have lit out for the Canadian border (but she didn’t have a passport) or the Mexican one (less of a problem) or gotten lost in the Pacific Northwest forests.
He should have done anything other than bring her to her brother, the one who’d demanded Blaze rescue her but keep his kink-stained hands to himself.
Logan had positioned Sarah as both Blaze’s moral responsibility and forbidden fruit.
If that had been his intent.
Occam’s Razor: the most straightforward explanation was usually the correct one. In this case, the simplest explanation was that Blaze had exposed Sarah as a chink in Mary Varvara Bell’s armor, one that she’d decided to cut out with an inconsequential murder.
Maybe Logan hadn’t betrayed him, and this was all Blaze’s fault.
Sweet relief lingered from his nose down his throat at the thought that Blaze was a dumbass and Logan hadn’t betrayed him.
And yet, the idea was too tempting.
Blaze distrusted it.
He scratched the back of his neck, the puzzle pieces sliding around in his head, but nothing fit together quite right.
Gaps filled his proverbial puzzle board, and the borders were missing. He knew that there were too many things he didn’t know.
But he knew that Logan was not safe for Sarah.
Blaze turned and crammed Sarah against the mirrored side of the elevator, capturing her wrists in his hands, shoving them above her head and pinning her to the wall, and he took her mouth with his.
