by D. J. Heart
“I understand,” Chad says grudgingly. Logan envies him. Not the fact that he’s an alpha, or that he’s gorgeous, or that he has two mates who love him to death. No, Logan envies his financial stability. He can’t imagine how nice it must be to have money.
“Do you want to meet up and discuss our strategy moving forward? Most of the work we do can be done from home, anyway. That is, if you’re still interested in working with me.”
“Of course I want to keep working with you. How about I come by your place? I would invite you here, but I don’t think you and Peter should be running into each other anytime soon.” Chad laughs, but he sounds serious.
Logan’s stomach clenches anxiously. Peter is mad at him? Logan gets that Peter would be angry over the whole bombing thing, but he can’t blame Logan for that, can he?
“Is he really mad?” Logan worries at his lower lip with his teeth, biting down until it hurts.
“Not with you, really. Just with the whole attack. He wants me to quit and it’s pissing him off that I’m not doing what he wants. He can be kind of a tyrant.”
Logan can imagine.
“Okay, do you want to come by now? We can still get those letters to the state legislators sent out in time if you still have copies on your computer. We never did get a chance to look over them.”
“Sure, I just need to shower first. I’ll be there in about an hour, okay?”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
“Okay, bye.”
Logan hangs up the phone.
***
“So? What do you think?” Chad asks when Logan looks up from the screen of Chad’s laptop. Logan smiles, wondering what he should say.
The letter is quite a bit more… forceful than anything Logan would have written. But then again, he shouldn’t expect something overly deferential from an alpha like Chad.
Who knows? Maybe this will be more effective.
“It’s very assertive. I like it.” Logan grins. He doubts that the letters he’s sent in the past ended up anywhere but the trash, so he’s not going to say that his way of careful wording and blatant attempts at manipulation is any better.
“Yeah?” Chad asks with a pleased tilt of his mouth. Logan nods.
“Yeah.”
“So we just print out a bunch of copies and send them off?” Chad asks.
“That’s the plan. I don’t have a printer though, so we’ll have to go by the office supply store. There’s one right around the block. Do you have a thumb drive we can put the letter on?”
Chad looks confused. “There’s an SD card in the slot, would that work?”
Logan nods. “Should be fine. Just copy the file over to the card.”
Chad does as instructed, and they bundle up before heading outside. Chad looks like a model in his fitted leather jacket and tight jeans, but Logan is pleased to note that his dick doesn’t even twitch.
The thought of Merchant, on the other hand, looking good in a tight wool sweater and fitted slacks, makes his balls tingle.
“Why do we need a memory card to buy a printer?” Chad asks as they head into the office supply store. Logan barks out a laugh.
“We’re not buying a printer, Chad. We’re paying to use theirs,” he says, smiling. “I can’t afford a printer, not to mention the ink.”
“Oh,” Chad says. “That makes sense.”
They head inside and make their way to the printing desk, where a bored teenager stands behind the counter.
“Welcome to Office Magic, how can I help you?” she asks without looking up from her phone. She’s drenched in perfume, and Logan pities Chad’s sensitive nose.
“Hi, we need to print a Word document. We need twenty copies, along with twenty standard envelopes.” Logan looks to Chad, holding out his hand for the memory card.
“That will be eight dollars and seventy cents,” the girl says. “Please put your card in the machine and check your formatting.”
Logan pops the card into the machine on the counter, making sure the letter looks good. They’re using a single template, and filling in the names by hand. Chad looks over his shoulder, fascinated.
While they wait for the letters to print—a surprisingly long process for something that really shouldn’t take more than a minute or two—he and Chad walk around the store. They get a few odd looks, Chad in his designer outfit, Logan in his threadbare bargain-bin salvage, but Logan feels relaxed.
He has a plan for the future that includes his passion for omega rights, financial stability—as long as his uncle hires him—and what he thinks could end up being a pretty serious boyfriend.
Logan deliberately avoids thinking the word mate, but it dances around the back of his mind no matter how much he tells himself not to go overboard. He just can’t help it. He and Merchant have only been on two dates, but it feels like more.
“You seem happy,” Chad says as they browse the printers on sale. They’re not buying, obviously, but it doesn’t hurt to look.
Logan can’t help the blush that spreads over his face.
“I guess,” he says, smiling. Chad turns his head and studies him, and it feels like he’s under a microscope. Chad’s gaze zeroes in on the bruise on Logan’s neck.
“An alpha?” he asks. He sounds pleased.
“Yeah. You know that guy Peter sent over to pick me up from the police station? Merchant? I’ve been seeing him. It’s going really great.”
Chad looks less than pleased, his brow scrunching up in a frown, but before he can comment the bored teenager storms over to where they’re standing with a stack of letters and envelopes. She looks mad.
“God, I’ve been calling your number for like five seconds. Here you go.” She thrusts the letters into Logan’s hands, ignoring Chad completely. She storms off back to her counter with a huff.
“Thanks!” Logan calls after her. He turns around to leave, Chad falling into step next to him.
“What?” he asks when they get out the door. He doesn’t like the worried look on Chad’s face.
“You like him?” Chad asks, like he finds it hard to believe.
“I do, yeah. Why do you look so worried?” Logan wonders why Chad is reacting like this. He and Peter had sent Merchant to protect him—wasn’t that proof that he could be trusted?
“It’s not… Merchant isn’t the kind of alpha you mess around with. He and Peter get along, but… I don’t know. He’s pretty scary.”
Logan frowns. Merchant intimidates Chad? He doesn’t get it. Merchant is a little rough around the edges, sure, but he doesn’t give out the same “do not fuck with me” vibes that Peter does for example.
“He took me hiking,” he says, for lack of anything else to say. Chad raises his brows, but he doesn’t comment.
“I like him. We’re going on another date tomorrow night.”
Chad holds up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be negative. I’m just… surprised. I never thought of Merchant as the kind of guy who went on dates. Though I guess if he’s marking you it isn’t casual, so… I don’t know. I’m sorry?”
Logan shrugs. Maybe it isn’t so weird. If Chad only knows Merchant in his capacity as a bodyguard, then it makes sense that he can’t picture him outside of that setting.
“Just… be careful, okay? If he does anything you don’t like, you can tell me and Peter.”
“I don’t think—”
“I know. But you can, if you need to. All right?”
“Fine,” Logan says, giving in. He doesn’t think he’ll need any help, but it’s nice of Chad to offer. “And thanks, I guess.”
***
They get back to Logan’s apartment and personalize all the letters, putting them in envelopes so that they’re ready to be sent off. They forgot to get stamps at the office supply store, but Chad offers to go by the post office on his way home.
“Thanks,” Logan says, relieved if only because he won’t have to pay for the stamps. Or so he assumes.
“No problem,” Chad says, h
eading out. “I’ll keep looking through The Virgin O files until the next time we meet, and we can discuss what to do from there. Good luck with your uncle.”
Chad waves one more time and walks away, and Logan closes the door behind him. A minute later there’s a knock on the door, and Logan frowns in confusion. He’s not expecting anyone.
Chad must have forgotten something.
“Hey, did you forg—”
Logan stops talking, his heart sinking into his stomach at the sight of Officer Wilson standing on his doorstep. The cop looks pleased as punch.
“Officer, what can I do for you?” Logan asks, stepping outside and closing the door behind him. It’s cold outside, but he doesn’t want Wilson inside his house. Wilson grins, like he’s getting a treat, and takes a menacing step forward. There’s less than an inch between them, and Logan can feel the heat coming off the alpha’s body.
Clenching his muscles, Logan prepares for a beating. It’s happened before, but never from an alpha in uniform. He waits for the blows to start, but they don’t come. When he opens his eyes, Wilson looks smug as fuck.
The cop grabs him, moving fast and catching Logan off-guard, and slams him back into the door. “Logan Barnes, you are under arrest for industrial espionage. You have the right to shut your cunt mouth and do exactly what I tell you. Do you understand?”
Wilson spins him around and wrenches his arms behind his back, kicking his legs apart and making him stumble into the wall. Before he knows it, Logan’s hands are cuffed behind his back and he’s being hauled down the walkway toward the stairs. Wilson has a hand fisted in the back of his shirt, nearly lifting him off the ground as he marches him forward.
Logan can’t believe he’s being arrested. Again.
“You can’t do this!” he exclaims, furious and without thinking. He regrets it instantly.
“Stop resisting, cunt. You don’t want another bruise on that pretty little head of yours, do you?”
“I don’t have a bruise on—”
Wilson slams Logan’s head into the wall, making him scream out in startled pain. The wall is hard brick, and Wilson wasn’t holding back. Logan is pulled back by his shirt and propelled forward toward the top of the stairs, and for a second he’s worried that Wilson is about to push him down. Wilson doesn’t, though Logan has a hard time keeping his feet under him as Wilson pretty much lifts him by the scruff of his shirt and carries him down to the parking lot.
Logan curses himself. Why couldn’t he have just shut up and not made a fuss? His head throbs, blood running over his ear, and he knows that he probably has a concussion.
Fuck.
Wilson leads him to a gleaming cruiser parked on the curb.
“Come on, in you go,” Wilson says, pushing him into the back seat. Logan bends his neck just in time to avoid hitting his head, tumbling into the car and landing on his face. He can’t believe this is happening to him.
Industrial espionage? That’s a new one, Logan thinks as he tries to right himself into a more comfortable position. He manages to sit straight, but that’s about it. His head hurts and the cuffs are digging into his wrists. Wilson gets into the front seat and starts the car.
“Sucks that you didn’t kick the bucket with that bomb in your office,” Wilson comments, shooting Logan a superior look in the rearview mirror. Logan doesn’t respond. He needs to be calm and stop giving Wilson reasons to mess with him any more than he already has. He looks down, playing the submissive beta while cursing up a storm inside his head.
He needs to get a fucking grip.
Closing his eyes so that he won’t have to see Wilson looking at him, Logan tries to keep the anxiety away. He’s been arrested before, sure, but that was in combination with clearly illegal police harassment. This—a real charge and a warrant for his arrest—is new.
He’s worried about what it means. He knows very well that if he has to go before a judge—almost certainly an alpha—his chances aren’t good. Alphas, with the weird exception of Chad and Merchant, tend to hate his guts.
Logan forces his fear and anxiety to the back of his mind and tries to think practically. He’s going to get one phone call, and he needs to decide whether or not to call his mom. If this is all just a scare tactic meant to put him in his place if not prison, leaving his mom out of it is the best idea. He hates worrying her, and this would probably give her a heart attack.
That leaves his sister, Chad, and Merchant. Chad is out from the start. They work together, but they don’t have a “bail each other out of jail” type of relationship. His sister would be useless, running straight to their mom, and if she’s going to let his mom know he might as well just tell her himself.
Which leaves Merchant. Their relationship is brand new, but of all the people he thinks of calling, it’s Merchant who seems most natural. He just hopes that Merchant won’t think it’s weird that he’s calling him, or that he’ll be put off by the fact that Logan is in trouble with the law.
No. Logan is sure that Merchant won’t think it’s weird. He’ll probably be pleased that Logan is turning to him, if only so that he can show off by coming to the rescue.
Logan doesn’t mean that in a bad way. Merchant marked him. That means something to an alpha. Merchant will in all likelihood see Logan coming to him as an affirmation of that claim.
They arrive at the station, and Wilson manhandles him out of the back seat and drags him inside through the rear door. He’s taken directly to an empty holding cell. Wilson pushes him inside with a sneer and unlocks his cuffs.
“Good luck, cunt. You’re going to need it.” The words are accompanied by a mean laugh. Logan moves back into the cell, hoping that Wilson will go away. There’s a vicious smile on the officer’s lips, and he’s palming the handle of his baton in a way that’s making Logan’s heart hammer in his chest.
He looks down and closes his eyes, jumping when he hears the cell door slam shut. He glances up, terrified that Wilson has locked them in together, but the officer is on the other side of the cell door, walking away.
Logan breathes a sigh of relief and sits down on the metal bed jutting out from the wall. There’s no mattress or blanket, and his ass goes numb from the chilly surface after a few minutes.
It doesn’t matter. Logan needs to sit and get his bearings, and the numbing cold doesn’t bother him. The fact that he’s dizzy, that his head hurts, and that he hasn’t received his phone call yet—these are things that bothers him.
Gingerly feeling the side of his head, Logan traces the contours of a sizable lump. His fingers come away covered in sticky dry blood. Hoping he doesn’t have a concussion, Logan lets his hand drop.
There’s nothing he can do but wait.
***
It takes almost nine hours before Logan gets his phone call. Apparently, or so the female beta escorting him explains, there was a glitch in the computer that made it look like he hadn’t been brought in yet.
Logan suppresses a snort. Like he’s going to believe that. They haven’t fed him either, and Logan is almost pleased. If they were serious about charging him, they would do things more by the book, wouldn’t they? Or maybe, he wonders with a depressed grimace, they’re so confident in their case that they don’t even care.
At least Officer Wilson is nowhere in sight. The beta escorting him, Carol Bite according to her nametag, is professional and sternly polite, and it’s a nice change from Wilson’s sneering contempt and outright mistreatment.
“You’ve got five minutes,” Carol says, standing back and watching as Logan picks up the phone. Logan is just glad that he knows Merchant’s number by heart.
The phone rings twice before Merchant picks up.
“What?” Merchant’s voice is rough and short, his harsh tone making Logan jump in his seat.
“I… hello? It’s me. Logan…” Logan stutters, rattled by how angry Merchant sounds.
“Logan? Why are you calling me from the station?” Merchant’s voice goes from icy to concerned like a sw
itch has been flipped. Logan breathes a sigh of relief.
“I was arrested,” Logan says. He takes a deep breath and explains. “For industrial espionage, and I think maybe resisting arrest, but I don’t know…” Logan takes a breath, his voice suddenly small, “He smashed my head against the wall.”
Logan wants to take the last words back. He knows that there’s nothing that will get an alpha as amped up as someone hurting, damaging, or taking what’s theirs. Logan hadn’t meant to play on Merchant’s alpha instincts, at least not intentionally.