Obviously, that was his way of telling me to leave him alone.

Wish granted.

DAY 7

LOGAN

I knotted my tie and looked in the mirror.

In my black Dolce & Gabbana suit, the Martini stretch wool—one that my grandfather insisted I buy five of—a crisp white shirt, and a red tie, I was the epitome of high-society class.

Just the way my grandfather liked.

Although he preferred everyone who worked for him to wear gray, it was never my nature to truly conform, and if I did that today he’d know something was up.

I had, however, gotten a haircut and given myself a close shave.

He liked the clean-cut look.

A test smile showed that I’d brushed my teeth properly. They were white and gleaming.

I looked good enough.

Good enough to charm Grandpa Ryan, I hoped.

All he would see tonight was Logan Killian Ryan McPherson—the golden boy he had high hopes for. The man he hoped to groom to take over his empire.

That was never going to happen.

Under the appearance I wore so well, I wasn’t the man he wanted me to be. I’d never be that man. I had too much of Killian, the Killer, McPherson in my blood. And I’d never felt more like him than today. I had fire in my belly and steel in my spine.

I was determined.

Tomorrow was Friday, and I had yet to figure out why Michael wasn’t shitting his pants by now. A call placed to him from my father earlier today only confirmed that he was planning on delivering.

What—he didn’t say.

And we had no idea.

The information we’d gathered on Tommy had led us nowhere so far. I needed a backup plan. The details of how I was going to get the money to Michael were sketchy, but I’d work that out tomorrow once I had the funds secured. No matter what Patrick wanted, I knew if what Michael had wasn’t enough, offering more money would at least buy time.

Not much, but it was still time.

Disappearing with Elle was my only other option, and I knew she’d never go for it. So this had to work. Either way, it had to.

Declan had been able to track down a lead on at least one drug deal that went down at the hotel. He found the buyer, but getting him to talk, getting the details, was a different story. He was working on it.

With nothing else to go on, I had to visit my maternal grandfather in New York City. Tell him everything he wanted to hear so that he’d release his hold on my trust fund. Loosen the strings attached to it. I’d have to deliver on my promises, of course. But it didn’t matter. Selling my soul to him to get the money would give Elle the reprieve I needed to bring Patrick and Tommy down.

It would be worth it.

My grandfather would never see the blood in my eyes or the hatred in my veins. He was oblivious to anything but conformation. And besides, he thought it was for my own good for me to be like him.

How could he not see that I never would be?

What he also failed to see was that what he was doing to me was just as binding as my ties to the Blue Hill Gang.

Sighing, I buttoned my designer suit jacket.

Trust fund baby.

Blue blood.

Silver spoon

Heir to a fortune.

I was more than that but today, I would pretend I wasn’t.

Shoes on.

Watch on.

One last look and I was good to go.

Game time.

On a mission, I hopped in my SUV.

I-90 was a bitch.

I waited as long as I could to leave, but I needed turnaround time. It didn’t seem to matter if it was seven A.M. or seven P.M., as was the case, because the pavement was always jam-packed.

Exhaustion had crept into my bones and it wasn’t going anywhere, so another night of only a few hours’ sleep didn’t really matter.

It took over an hour to reach the I-84 exit.

Just as I was about to take the ramp, my cell rang. My dash lit up with a number I didn’t want to see. “Yeah,” I answered.

“We have a lead,” Agent Meg Blanchet said.

“What kind of lead?” I asked, extremely curious.

“We got that warrant to tap O’Shea’s office landlines early this morning. He got a call a few hours ago from a female, we’re guessing his wife, telling him his delivery had arrived.”

Like a crazy man, I swerved all the way into the right lane and zoomed off the interstate to turn around. “What were his instructions?”

The woman I knew as the she-devil cleared her throat. “He didn’t. He hung up without a word, like he knew his phone lines were being monitored.”

“Odd.”

“Yes, I agree. I think he switched to his cell and we don’t have the go-ahead to monitor that yet. Do you think you can contact his wife’s sister and see if she knows anything about this supposed delivery? We have a unit outside his house, and either O’Shea has slipped out of the house without us knowing or he went to bed and he’s not planning on going anywhere. The place is dark and we can’t see any movement inside.”

“He’s got a young kid—he wouldn’t leave her alone. Did you notice if Lizzy’s sister was with him?” I hated referring to Elle in that way, but the less the devil herself, Agent Meg Blanchet of the Drug Enforcement Administration, knew about what had transpired between Elle and me, the better.

Her laugh was abrupt, cold even. “He dropped the kid off at his sister’s earlier. But Logan, I would have thought you’d know the answer to the whereabouts of Lizzy’s sister before me.” She stressed Lizzy’s sister.

That’s when I knew I was fucked.

“I know you’re having a relationship with the missing woman’s sister. I’m not stupid. I just hope you’re not.”

With everything in me I wanted to tell her to fuck off, but then my father would end up in jail on the trumped-up RICO charges she was ready to pounce on. It was the ball she dangled over my head. The reason I was doing this in the first place. It was the reason she had me picked up four months ago. She’d hoped my bleeding heart over my father would persuade me to help her—and she was right.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act allowed the DEA to gather enough circumstantial information on my father for him to be formally charged for crimes not committed by him but linked to him through his assistance. The only way he would be spared from being charged was if I agreed to cooperate with the DEA and get them all the information they wanted.

God help me, Agent Meg Blanchet, the she-devil with her red hair, red shoes, and matching red lips, has been yanking my chain for way too long, and I’d just about had enough. But then I thought about my old man behind bars and knew I had to keep going. I’d done everything she asked of me in terms of cooperation—met with her at Molly’s every week to give her updates on my father’s “calls” for Patrick, or at any time she deemed appropriate. She wanted Killian, or more accurately the Mob-linked crime information that existed only in his head, to further her case against the Flannigan family.

With much hesitation, soon after the night she brought me in, I talked to my gramps. I told him she wanted names, dates, and facts—information he’d never want to give. “To be a rat!” he’d screamed.

I left there that night convinced he wasn’t going to do it, but in the end, he, like me, couldn’t stand to see my father go to prison. We both knew he’d never come out still breathing. He was weak and he’d be eaten alive on the inside. Because of this, and this only, Killian agreed to meet with the DEA and we both agreed to keep this task I’d been strapped with from my old man. He didn’t need any more bullshit to deal with.

The final provision of my agreement with the DEA, the one that would free my father, the one that I couldn’t wait to deliver, was the information on the next cocaine shipment. They wanted to witness the exchange between buyer and seller. With that, there would be enough solid proof that Patrick and Tommy Flannigan were running the biggest drug ring to hit the Boston streets in years.