Chapter 217

Ella

The house felt eerily quiet after the sound of Logan’s car and its screeching tires faded away into the distance. This wasn’t like the Logan I knew; he was usually so calm and collected, and always seemed to have things under control.

Why was this fortune so important to him that he was acting like this?

Still reeling from Logan’s outburst, I found myself mechanically preparing a cup of coffee, the events of the morning playing over in my mind like a broken record. Just before he had left, he had said these parting words: “You don’t know what it’s like to be the lesser of two children. To be unloved by your own father.”

Was that what this had really been about all along? Was he vying not for the money, but for his father’s approval?

I almost scoffed out loud at myself; of course this was what it had always been about. I had seen it that very first night that we went to that dinner party together, and I had known it ever since. I guess I had just been too caught up in my own turmoil to remember that, all along, Logan was just a hurt little boy looking for a parent who loved him unconditionally.

Ema, just as taken aback as I was, was contemplative. “I think he’s grappling with a lot right now,” she mused in the back of my head. “His entire effort, his struggle for acknowledgment, seems to have been in vain.”

As I sipped the hot tea, almost burning my tongue, I knew that my wolf was right. It did seem like it was all in vain. All of the turmoil, all of the danger, all of the struggles and tribulations had taken him nowhere.

At the end of the day, Logan had been fighting a losing battle from the beginning. Maybe his father had never once intended to give the fortune to Logan. Maybe the stakes had been rigged against Logan since the day he was born. After all, the house always wins, right?

“I just don’t understand why he’d lash out at me,” I said inwardly as I finished my cup of tea and grabbed my bag off of the floor. “I tried to show him how this is an escape for him. We could be together, if only he’d let this damn fortune go. We could both get out of this hell.”

“Ella, you and I both know that it’s not that simple,” Ema scolded. “And besides, he could say the same thing about you; let’s not forget what happened last night.”

I wanted to retort, but I knew that Ema was right. Logan and I were both battling our own demons. There were certain things that neither of us would ever be able to understand about the other.

But perhaps we could try.

However, I knew it was no use trying right now. Logan was likely out driving around to clear his head, and I had my own plans to clear my head. Despite how exhausted I felt, I decided to head to the office anyway.

It was Saturday, and the streets were eerily quiet as the driver took me to the office, the morning sun casting long shadows on the pavement.

Arriving at the office, the building was almost deserted, a stark contrast to the usual weekday hustle. I welcomed the solitude; I needed some peace and quiet after everything. Once inside, I headed straight for my office and let out a soft sigh as I plopped my bag down on the table.

Muttering under my breath about what I needed to do today, I dug into my bag for my cell phone; only to realize that, in my tired state this morning, I had forgotten it at home. My burner phone was in there, but not my usual phone.

“Oops,” I whispered, letting out a soft chuckle. It didn’t matter, though; it was a relief to know that Marina couldn’t listen to me or track me today.

However, as I immersed myself in work, the soft click of heels on the office floor caused my heart to begin to race. The thought of Marina showing up unannounced was the first possibility that crossed my mind, and I bolted up from my chair, rushing over to my office doorway to see who it was.

My shoulders relaxed instantly when I saw that it wasn’t Marina, but rather Sarah. I let out a soft sigh of relief. Her presence was both surprising and oddly comforting.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Sarah said with a gasp, clutching her heart and stopping in her tracks when she saw me. “Ella, you scared the hell out of me.”

I let out a light chuckle as I realized that I hadn’t turned on any of the main lights when I had come in. “Sorry,” I said. “What are you doing here, though? It’s Saturday.”

“I was about to ask you the same thing, Ella,” she said with a laugh. “I just wanted to come in and get a head start on some of these cases. I didn’t have any plans, so…”

I smiled, appreciative of the company. “Yeah, I wanted to do the same. The quiet helps me focus.”

Sarah nodded. “Coffee?” she asked.

She didn’t need to ask me twice. Together, once Sarah had dropped her things off in my office, we made our way to the break room and brewed some coffee. It was bitter, but it was nice to share a cup with my friend as we headed back to my office.

The rest of the office, usually a nonstop hum of activity and noise, was peaceful this morning, the quiet punctuated by the occasional hum of the air conditioning and the distant sounds of the city waking up.

Working alongside Sarah, I found a semblance of normalcy here. As the morning wore on, I found myself gradually relaxing, the weight of the concerns with Logan temporarily lifted by the concentration required for my work.

However, the calm was abruptly shattered when Sarah reached for a particular file amongst the stack on my desk. “I need that form for the Johnson case,” she said.

“It’s somewhere in that pile,” I said nonchalantly, waving my hand toward a stack on my desk. I was too absorbed in my own work to retrieve it for her, and we had become comfortable enough with each other to not worry about rifling through each other’s desks.

But it was mere moments later that I realized my mistake.

“Hey, Ella?”

The way that Sarah’s voice trembled caught my attention. I looked up from my laptop screen to see that what she was holding in her hands was distinctly not the form for the Johnson case—in fact, it was something else entirely.

It was my dossier on Logan, and she had it opened in her hands.

Sarah held the file up, her eyes wide with surprise and intrigue. My own eyes widened, and I slowly stood, my hand trembling. But before I could take the file from her, she pulled away, taking a step backwards as recognition dawned across her face.

“What… What is this, Ella?”