Page 139 of Stolen By the Billionaire
From inside the apartment, a woman’s low voice spoke in a measured cadence like she was filling time and knew she wouldn’t be interrupted, the practiced intonations of a news anchor.
Blaze breathed, extending his senses to pick up any data he could.
The scents leaking out the door betrayed Logan.
Italian basil and garlic, like pizza or pasta with marinara, filled his nose and mouth, but the browned umami of roasted meat wafted underneath, and the complex smoky cumin and onion of Indian curry tingled his nose a second later.
Blaze asked, “Who’s in there with you?”
Logan blinked and pulled back, a half-smile creasing one side of his face. “Twist and Micah. It’s a reunion.”
“In the middle of the night?”
Yeah, Blaze was interrogating him because this had somehow turned into an op.
Logan said, “They wanted to meet my little sister, not that any of you depraved weasels are going to fuckin’ touch her. Is she here?”
“Did you tell them about her?” Blaze asked him.
“Now, I did.”
“Why didn’t you mention that they were here?”
“I was getting to it. You only just got here.”
Blaze leaned to the side and called into the apartment with decorum due to the time of night, “Twist, Micah, is that you?”
A duet of familiar male voices returned his query with, “Yes,” in no harmony whatsoever.
Micah added, “It’s us,” because he had always been the chatty one.
Blaze’s trapezius muscles from his ears to his shoulders elongated, dropping his shoulders and chin. He chucked his chin up and around, stretching the tension away.
This couldn't be a trap if Twist and Micah were in the living room, watching the news and eating room service from the building’s private restaurant on the top floor.
Even if Logan’s morals were on the slippery side, Twist and Micah didn’t swing that way.
Blaze was a paranoid idiot, but he’d seen dozens of operations go south and people die because one single treacherous person had been trusted who shouldn’t have been.
But not this time.
He eyed Logan. “Yeah, Sarah’s here with me. You going to let us in, or what?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Logan stepped back, and the door swung open. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
Humble abode, Blaze’s blond-haired ass. He’d seen the million-dollar aerial view of Central Park dozens of times.
He led the way into the hallway, holding his hand out to Sarah to signal that she should follow.
When she stepped around the doorway and inside, Logan stilled, and he looked her up and down, her dark hair to her sneakers, and then stuck out his hand to shake.
Logan’s surging New York inflections flattened, and his voice droned in a monotone. “Sarah, it’s good to see you. I heard about your parents passing, when they passed away a few years ago. I’m sorry for your loss, for you losing your parents.”
Oh, what Blaze could have mined out of that statement if he’d been coaching a client on the Vets in Crisis hotline. They would’ve been on the phone for hours.
Sarah stood shock-still, staring at both of them before gingerly shaking Logan’s hand. “Um, thank you. I’m here to talk to you. I mean, to listen. To listen to you. I think I should listen to what you want to say.”
Logan nodded and dropped her hand, looking down, blinking like sand was blowing in his eyes. “Yeah, we’ll get to that, I guess, but later. Twist and Micah are here, and you’ve met Blaze, right? Yeah, of course you have. Um, yeah. These three guys were my lifeline at that boarding school. I wouldn’t have made it without them.”
