Now that’s the kind of leadership I can get behind. Without asking a question I do as I’m told, and by the time I’m back my dad is organizing the cameras that the guys had unhooked at the table.
“Where’s Logan?”
“He went for a ride.”
I stick my head out the window and see that the van is gone.
“What the hell just happened?” I ask, still a bit in shock while still also just trying to follow Logan’s orders. There’s just something about strong leadership, discipline and orders, that removes the stress of thinking, that centers me, and takes all my troubles away like I’m a little girl just playing a game.
“Nothing happened. End of story. We forget this ever happened.”
“What about you and Logan?”
My dad freezes, looking up at me but saying nothing.
“You’re still mad at him?”
“We forget that ever happened too.”
14
Logan
The next day
“You turned them in?” she asks incredulously from my arms as we sit on the couch watching TV, taking a down day after everything that happened yesterday.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Yeah, I mean that’s not your style.”
“Maybe I have a new style,” I counter.
She shoots me a cocked eyebrow so I elaborate.
“Little one, you’re right. The old way would be to take them somewhere and bury them so deep they wouldn’t be found for centuries. But then I got to thinking…if I just break their kneecaps and rough them up and then drop them off at the police station, they’re going to be locked up for life. I kill them, that’s, what? A half a day of pain tops. They go to jail with body parts that work, that’s a lifetime of misery. Not to mention if they ever get out, which they won’t because I know the prosecutor, they’d be short-lived because no way are they coming near you again.”
She says nothing.
“Don’t get me wrong, baby girl. I’m your protector through and through. But they step outta that place, ever, and I end them.”
“I’m just surprised you didn’t already do that.”
“Do you wish I had?”
“No. I’m tired of…whatever it is exactly that you and dad are mixed up in.”
“As am I, which is another reason why I put those low lives in jail. By doing so I don’t start a feud with anybody, and that also allows me to exit all my operations with a nice eight figure payday.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Enough to put a house full of kids through school, which was another reason I didn’t off those two guys. Things are different now. I’ve got someone who’s going to look up to me, someone I need to be a different kind of man for, someone our little one can be proud of,” I say patting her stomach gently.
“You really think I’m pregnant and you really thought this through, didn’t you?”
“To the very end, and by end, I mean the end of this chapter of my life…and the beginning of the next chapter. As a matter of fact, it’s not even a chapter, it’s a book. This is a totally new story and it starts with the two of us.”
“I like the sound of that.”