Focus, Nat. You know him. Just try to focus.
“Put the weapon down and let her the fuck go!” Logan appeared the back doorway. His image was blurred and partially obstructed by the blood that had gotten into her left eye, but she didn’t have to see him clearly to know what he looked like.
Hard, chiseled features marred with a hatred for the man pressing the gun against her head. Strong, taut muscles holding his own gun steady, and a trigger finger itching for the first hint of an excuse.
“You don’t want to do this, Albert,” Logan spoke to the man holding her back against his front.
Albert…Albert…Alb—
“All I want is that fucking file!”
No. It can’t be.
The sound of tires skidding to a stop on the road out front registered, and Natalie assumed the cops had arrived. Still trying to process the fact that Albert Schwartz—herboss—was the Albert currently holding her at gunpoint in her own home, she tried to get some answers.
“M-Mr. Schwartz?” Natalie spoke to a man she couldn’t see. “W-why?”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen! None of this was!”
“So tell us how itwassupposed to go,” Logan spoke more calmly now. “Tell me who’s in charge of the trafficking scheme. I’ve got connections with the SPD. I can make sure the D.A. knows you cooperated.”
He’s friends with the D.A.? Since when?
“I can’t!” Her boss yelled near her ear. “He’ll kill me if I tell you!”
Rather than get upset or yell, Logan simply gave a slight tilt of his head as he asked Schwartz, “And what do you think I’m going to do to you, if you so much asthinkabout hurting her more than you already have?”
He took a menacing step closer, and her boss pulled her along as he took a step backward.
“I said, stay back!”
“You won’t hurt her.” Another step. “Not if you want to live.”
“I don’t want to, but—”
“There’s no ‘but’here, Al. You try to hurt Natalie again; you die. It’s that simple.”
Logan inched close as Schwartz responded with yet another matching retreat.
“Just give me the folder, and I’ll go.”
“It’s not here,” Logan shared truthfully.
Her boss clearly didn’t believe him. “I know she took it with her!” That gun barrel was shoved painfully against her temple’s delicate skin. “Dennis saw her take it!”
The panicked man realized his mistake a moment too late.
“See Al?” Logan actually grinned. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
“D-Dennis Atkinson put you up to this?” Natalie wanted to know for sure.
“I…I never said that.”
“Didn’t have to.” Logan shook his head. With his pistol still pointed directly at Albert Schwartz’s head, he took another step toward them as he warned her boss again.
“Last chance, Albert. You let Natalie go and drop the gun, and I will personally see to it you get into Witness Protection.”
The gun at her temple eased away. Not fully, but enough she felt a slight relief from the change.