The Boys Club (22 page)

Logan crept up the stairs to the
main floor of the house with the gun leading the way. He remained alert for any
sound that would pinpoint Sara’s location, but none came. Mathers most likely
heard the sounds of the gunshots in the basement, but Logan hoped it hadn’t
caused him to run off with Sara in tow. If they had left, Logan’s chances of
ever finding her were slim.

Logan took the last stair through a door and into a hallway.
His feet silently crossed over one another, only stopping to check out the
rooms he passed. Just as he started upstairs, a noise on the main floor toward
the back of the house caught his attention. He changed direction and moved
toward the voices, one of which was Sara’s.

He stepped into the kitchen, where Mathers had his hand on
Sara’s back, pushing her toward the back door. “Running away from me?” Logan
asked. “I knew you were afraid of me.”

Mathers wrapped his arm around Sara’s neck and whipped
around. Sara yelped when he thrust a gun against the side of her head. “You
don’t want to test me, not with her life on the line.”

“Stephen—”

He slapped his hand over Sara’s mouth before she could say
anything else.

Logan took another step toward them, his gun steady in front
of him. “Oh, I don’t have a problem testing you. You always were a bit of a
pansy when it came to confrontation. Always had to do things behind the scenes
so you didn’t have to face the consequences.”

Mathers narrowed his eyes. “I’m not screwing around with you
today.”

“Sure seems like it.”

“Your problem is that you can’t take any situation involving
death seriously. Never could. You always had some smart remark for the person
on the other end of the gun.”

“Maybe that’s because their incompetence level was just that
ridiculous.”

“Put the gun down, Logan,” he said. “I know you don’t want
to see her pretty little brains all over the wall.”

Logan held up his hand, but kept the gun pointed at Mathers.
“Are you really going to shoot her?” he asked.

“If you force me to, yes.”

Sara squealed under his palm.

“Won’t that screw up all your plans?” Logan asked. “You need
her alive so you can marry into the family and become an heir to Langston’s
empire. If you don’t have her, you’re not legitimate in his eyes.”

“I’ll take over whether or not I have the little whore to
help me.”

Anger swelled in Logan’s chest, but he didn’t let it
distract him.

“Now, put down the gun,” Mathers said.

Logan crouched, as if complying. “We both know you’re not
going to shoot her,” he said. “But I will.”

He quickly aimed and fired off a round into Sara’s shin. She
screamed and slumped down. As soon as her head fell away from the gun, Logan
raised his gun and shot Mathers in the forehead. He raced over to pull Sara
away from Mathers, so he wouldn’t land on top of her.

Gathering her into his arms, he said, “I’m so sorry, Sara.”
He brushed back her hair from her pained face.

“You shot me,” she whispered.

“I know, and I wouldn’t have if there was another way.”

“Is he dead?”

Logan nodded.

She exhaled and closed her eyes. “This really hurts.”

“I know it does, but you have to hang in there for me.
You’re losing blood, but I can’t tie it off not knowing if anyone else is
here.” He glanced around the floor, but did not see the bullet that he shot
into her.

“Your finger… we have to get it.”

“It’s too late,” he said, moving to her side. “Put your arm
around me. This is going to hurt a lot, but we need to get out of here.”

Sara wrapped her arm around his neck and he held up as much
of her weight as he could. He kept the gun raised at his side in case they ran
into anyone else. She moaned every time she put a bit of weight on her leg.

Logan stopped walking, bent at the knees, and lifted her up,
with his left arm propping her back up and his right hand holding the gun
underneath her knees. “Hold onto my neck,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his
shoulder.

He stumbled a few times, but made it to the front door. A
man stood next to an SUV, and Logan pulled the trigger beneath Sara’s body
before the man could get to his own gun. Sara jumped, but Logan held onto her.

“Just a few more feet,” he said.

He set her down at the passenger side door of the SUV. She
held onto the door, while he went over to the man and fished the keys and a
cell phone out of his pocket. Logan helped her settle into the front seat, and
walked back over to the man’s body. Ignoring the pain in his hand, he worked
quickly to remove the man’s T-shirt. His teeth tore through the material so he
could rip the shirt down the middle.

Back at the SUV, he used the shirt as a tourniquet around
Sara’s leg. She cried out a couple times, but he made sure to tie it tightly
around her leg. Once the blood slowed its leaking, he moved over to the
driver’s side. After climbing in, he helped Sara with her seatbelt.

Sara leaned her head back and groaned.

“We’ll get you some help,” Logan told her. “Just try to
sleep.”

She turned to him, tears running down her cheeks. “It
hurts.”

Taking her hand, he said, “Hang in there, okay? It won’t be
too long.”

Her eyes closed. She released his hand and folded her arms
over her stomach.

Logan started the vehicle and called up their location on
the GPS built into the dashboard. He sighed with relief when he saw they were
less than two hours away from the Church.

After maneuvering onto the main highway, he checked Sara.
She had fallen asleep, but her breathing seemed a bit shallow. Logan knew the
pain could cause that, but it still worried him. He grabbed the cell phone and
punched in Schaffer’s emergency number. Schaffer answered on the second ring.

“It’s Logan.”

“Where the hell are you? I sent some men to the safe house
in—”

“Mathers found us at the safe house. He had some help, but
we managed to get away.”

“Did you at least get to find out who the leak is?”

“Jack.”

Silence came from the other end of the line.

“Are you there?” Logan asked, thinking he had dropped the
call.

“How did he… how is that possible?” Schaffer asked.

“He wasn’t dead. They put another guy in his place, someone
I had taken out, and burned the house down so we’d think he was dead. I never
got close enough to his body to know he was still alive.”

“Where is he now?”

Logan hesitated, not wanting to rehash everything that took
place.

“It’s okay, Logan. We’ll talk about it when you get here.
How far away are you?”

“About two hours. I’m coming in hot, though. Sara’s been
shot and I’ve been injured. I need a surgeon for her to remove the bullet from
her leg.”

“I’ll have Doctor Connors get a team in now. What are your
injuries?”

“I have two broken fingers and another one missing. All on
the same hand.”

“I’ll let her know that as well so she can determine the
treatment. Do you have the finger?”

“No. It had to be left behind.”

“Okay,” Schaffer said. “Damn it about Jack.”

“We’ll talk about it when I get there. Please make sure that
the team is there when we arrive. I’m very worried about Sara.”

“It will be done.”

He disconnected the call and looked at Sara. She seemed to
be in the same state, still shallow breathing, but sleeping. His own pain
flared up and his eyes threatened to close, but he forced himself to stay awake
and keep focused on staying in between the lines on the blacktop.

When he pulled into the Church’s parking lot a couple hours
later, his vision blackened, and he had to hold still for a moment so he wouldn’t
lose consciousness. He kept himself together long enough to pull the SUV up to
the front doors. He jumped out of the vehicle and raced around to the passenger
side.

Sara stirred awake when he opened the door. “Are we at the
hospital?” she asked, her voice quiet and eyes distant.

“We’re at the Church. They have a surgical team waiting for
you.”

“I don’t want surgery,” she said.

“They have to get the bullet out of your leg.”

She leaned over to try to get out of the car. Logan almost
collapsed under her weight, but managed to hold her up. He carried her to the
front door, just as Schaffer ran outside. Allie followed with a couple nurses,
who guided a gurney through the door.

Schaffer helped Logan get Sara onto the gurney, and the
nurses strapped her down.

Logan turned to Allie. “You have a good surgeon?”

“The best. Same with the anesthesiologist. We made up a
makeshift operating room, everything is sterilized, and they are all ready for
her.”

He watched the gurney disappear into the church and started
to follow before tripping.

Schaffer and Allie caught his arms and kept him standing.
They helped him into the church and in the elevator.

Allie examined his hand as the cab moved down to the
basement. “I need to debride this wound. Schaffer tells me you don’t have the
finger.”

All of his energy suddenly zapped, Logan shook his head
instead of responding verbally.

“I’m going to have the anesthesiologist put you out for
this. It needs too much work to keep you awake.”

“I’ll be fine,” Logan said. “Just go take care of Sara.”

The elevator doors opened, and Logan tried to shrug them
away as he walked through the doors. He made it halfway down the hall before he
fell down and passed out.

Logan startled awake and sat
straight up in bed. He looked around the room and recognized it as being in the
Church. He let out a long breath and tried to calm his racing heart.

His left hand throbbed with pain, and he examined the
bandage over it. He held it up to his chest and stroked his other hand over his
wrist and the bandage. He always gave Allie a hard time about trying to give
him pain medication, but for the first time he needed them.

Climbing out of bed, he walked over to the dresser, where
his go-bag sat. The dust and grime covering the black reminded him of his
journey with Sara. He frowned, realizing he had never been woken up to find out
how she did in surgery.

He wandered into the empty hallway outside his room, and
made his way down to Allie’s office. She looked up from her desk as he entered.

“Aren’t you a sight?” she asked, with a lopsided smile. “How
are you feeling?”

He glanced around the room, feeling a bit disoriented. “How
long have I been out?”

“All night.” She glanced at her watch. “About 15 hours now.”

“I guess I needed to sleep.”

“When you woke up from your surgery, you were incoherent,
confused, dizzy. You were suffering from extreme exhaustion, so I gave you
something to encourage your body to do what it needed to do. Sleep and
rejuvenate. Kept you hooked up to your IV for a bit and let you rehydrate as
well. I took that out this morning while you were sleeping still.”

Logan touched the back of his right hand, noticing the
bandage strip on it for the first time.

“You didn’t get a lot of sleep on the job, did you?”

He shook his head. “How’s Sara?”

“She’s great. She’s been up for hours now, has some pain,
but nothing that we can’t manage.”

“When, uh… when are we releasing her to the feds?”

“Tomorrow morning.” Allie shuffled some papers on her desk.
“She’s been asking about you. How you’re doing, if she can see you. She’s very
concerned. I told her that once you woke up, you would check in on her.”

“Where is she?”

“In the room next to yours. You should probably get cleaned
up and see how you’re feeling after that before you start making journeys
around the Church.” She leaned back in her chair and lowered her eyes back down
to her desk. “She’s a very pretty girl.”

Logan read the meaning in her tone. “Allie—”

She held up her hand. “I can tell she cares about you, with
as much as she’s asked about you and your injuries. I’m sure when you spend
time together in the field under difficult circumstances, you can grow attached
to the person you’re with.”

Logan looked away from her, unsure of what to say.

“I’m not upset,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about
me.”

He met her eyes and nodded. They stared at each other for a
tense moment, and then he pushed his chair back. Holding up his bandaged hand,
he said, “Thanks for fixing me up.” He walked toward the door.

“Hey, Logan.”

He turned around, eyebrows raised.

“I’m sorry about Jack.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

Back in his room, he took Allie’s advice and hopped in the
shower. After dressing, he walked to the room next door and knocked.

“Come in!” Sara’s voice called through the door.

He eased the door open and went inside. Sara sat up in bed,
propped up by pillows, her injured leg bandaged and on top of a wedge to keep
it elevated. She threw the book in her hands down beside her.

“You’re awake!”

He smiled at her enthusiasm. Allie hadn’t been lying when
she said Sara was doing great. “I’m awake.”

He sat on the edge of her bed, and she leaned over. Clamping
her arms around him in a warm embrace, she whispered, “I was so worried about
you.”

They parted, and he said, “You’re worse off than I am.”

“Yeah, but you slept for so long. I was worried something
was wrong.”

“I didn’t get much sleep on this job. It was time to catch
up.”

Her wide brown eyes searched his and he couldn’t help
himself. He leaned over and forced his lips onto hers, engaging her in a
passionate kiss. He had not realized until now how much he missed kissing her.

Her cheeks turned pink as they parted. “I’m glad you’re
okay,” she said.

“How’s your leg?”

“It’s healing okay. Doctor Connors gave me some pain
medication, but I’m managing okay without having to take too many of them.”

“I’m so sorry I had to shoot you.”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You saved my life. You
have nothing to apologize for.” She moved over in the bed and patted the empty
space next to her.

Logan scooted up on the bed and stretched out beside her. “I
hear you’re leaving us tomorrow.”

She sighed. “That’s what Schaffer says. I asked him if you
could come with me.”

His heart skipped a beat, hoping that Schaffer may have
granted her request, though he knew better. “What did he say?”

“Same thing you told me. It’s too dangerous to have you with
me.”

“I wish it wasn’t like that, but now you’ve seen what
Langston’s men are capable of. I don’t want to put you in any more danger. It’s
best that I don’t know where you are.”

“I understand,” she said, picking up the paperback book beside
her.

Logan frowned, as she closed the book. “We have books here?”

She laughed. “Of course you do! Schaffer brought in quite a
few for me to choose from. I figure I’ll be doing a lot of reading when I’m
with the feds, so I wanted to get started.”

He took the book from her hands. “
To Kill a Mockingbird
,” he said, and groaned. “Schaffer had me read
this one when I was 16.”

Sara tilted her head and grinned. “Oh, really? What do you
remember about it?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. At her laugh, he added, “I
hate reading.”

“Well, I love reading. I’m not so sure about country music,
though.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You don’t like country music? You
never said anything when we were listening to it in the car.”

“I didn’t want to offend you.”

“You’re offending me now.”

“I guess we’ll just have to stop talking then, won’t we?”
She smiled and gave him a quick kiss. “Do you realize this is the first
semi-normal conversation we’ve ever had?”

“And I’d love to keep having it. I hate that you’re leaving
tomorrow.”

“Me, too. But tonight, can’t we just—”

“Pretend?” He rested the palm of his good hand against her
cheek. “Until this ends.”