She thought a lot about his eyes. They were pretty eyes for a man. A ruthless intelligence shown in them as he looked her up and down, sizing her up. They were strangely bright, too; so bright that they almost glowed in the darkness of Pandemonium's lounge, like a cat's. Cobalt blue, she thought. His glowing cat's eyes gazed at her coolly, like he was deciding on whether or not he was going to do...something with her. What exactly that something was, she couldn't decipher—but she wanted to provoke him into making a choice. As soon as she had found her spot at the bar, she felt him looking at her, and a dangerous thrill ran down her spine. Who was this strange man staring at her, like she was a puzzle he was trying to understand? She felt like she had seen him before, perhaps in a magazine or on television somewhere, or maybe they had met briefly in the past and she just couldn't remember.
He had what she guessed was about a day's worth of stubble growth on his cheeks, accentuating the sharpness of a jawline that already looked like it could cut glass. A small, horizontal scar crossed the bridge of his nose; another ran from the top of his lip to his nostril. He was a rough-looking sort of man, like he'd had his fair share of brawls, but he was well-dressed and elegant in a black suit—almost kingly—and that dichotomy made him... interesting. She touched the tops of his knuckles, which were smooth but heavy beneath her fingertips. Strong hands, she knew. Hands that could kill, and without much effort, either. He's dangerous, she told herself, her heart skipping a beat. But he was sitting next to her, talking to her, letting her touch him, and she was exhilarated. She felt powerful, because she knew she was playing with fire by teasing him, and that knowledge thrilled her.
She thought a lot about his dark hair, and its singular tuft of gray at his right temple, and how she wanted to run her fingers through it, just to see what his reaction would be. Would he be quiet and stoic? Maybe he'd try to be at first. She'd wanted to do it then, at the bar, while she was quite certain he was putty in her hands, but her phone started ringing in her purse, and she knew then that playtime was over.
Her roommates were looking for her; no, worse—her mother was looking for her. Her roommates, she could ignore; her mother, she could not. So Stella made an excuse and left him, Logan Black, that dangerous man, at the bar, with a little breadcrumb for him to follow if he so wished. When she got home, she wasn't surprised to find her panties soaked. Both of her roommates were passed out: one on the couch, and the other on the beanbag chair. She thought about calling a boy over; Henry was obviously still interested in her, and he could be fun, maybe, if he removed the giant stick lodged up his ass...but she didn't want to play with his emotions. And she didn't want to deal with the backlash from her mother, who worked with Henry every day since he'd been promoted to detective. And, let it be known, that had Henry lodged that massive, massive stick up his ass after said promotion, and that well-lodged stick made him boring and annoying to Stella.
She went to sleep instead, and in the darkness of her dreams, she thought a lot about Logan Black. She thought about how his strong fingers would feel inside her; how the scar on his lip would feel leaving feverish kisses against her skin. She thought about how she would bind him, and have him at her mercy—a powerful, dangerous man brought down to his knees before her. Then she saw him wearing a platinum crown, sitting on a throne of human skulls. He looked at her, a little kinder than she'd seen him look at her before, and he motioned for her to sit next to him on a gilded throne of her own.
Instead, she climbed onto his lap, earning her a pleased gasp of surprise as she straddled his hips.
"You're having some...interesting fantasies, darling," he said, curling her hair around his fingers. The way he looked at her—it was both him, and not him.
"I like to be in charge," she said, the lust that dripped from her voice startling her.
A wolfish smile crossed his face. "That's what I love about you." His hands moved down to her hips and he pushed up against her. Through the fabric of her clothes, she could feel his hard cock, and she grabbed his shoulders in response. "Take charge," he said, like it was a challenge. His eyes gleamed, mischievous and predatory, and he leaned forward, kissed her cheek. "Ruin me," he whispered into her ear. In response, she kissed him, hard. Her hands threaded through his thick hair, and he moaned into her mouth, shivering. "Ruin me," he repeated when they broke apart.
The sound of her cell phone ringing woke her up, only for there to not be anyone on the other end of the line.
"Stella you're pretty quiet this morning. Still hungover from last night?"
"Yeah," she said, looking at the call history on her phone. Had it been him who tried to call her earlier? "A little bit."
"You get a hold of your ma?"
"Nah. Texted her; she hasn't responded. I think she had a press conference this morning. She's fine. Just overprotective, y'know?"
Her roommate, Natalie, nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. "I still don't know how she found out we were at Pandemonium."
"Yeah, well, there's nothing she can do about it. Not like it was illegal or whatever for us to be there."
"Yeah I know," Natalie said, taking another sip. "Your mom is kind of scary though. I don't want to be on her bad side, is all I'm saying."
"Don't worry about it. It's a front. Oh, speaking of the she-devil—" She put the phone to her ear. "Hello, birth-giver."
Natalie stifled a chuckle and sat back on the cheap IKEA couch that took up a majority of the space in their tiny living room.
"Stella, sweetie, you know I asked you not to go to that place."
Stella thought about being coy, but decided against it. Her mom already knew she'd been to Pandemonium, no point in denying it. "Mom, it's the most popular club in the city right now."
"Yes, and it's in the most dangerous part of the city, too."
"Yeah, well, nothing bad happened so could you, y'know, leave my friends and I alone?"
A sigh on the other end of the line. "I worry for you, Stella. The worst kind of men in this city know who you are, and that's exactly where they congregate. God forbid something were to happen to you—I don't know what I would do. And it was a school night."
Stella sipped on her coffee and shrugged her shoulders at Natalie, who looked incredibly amused. "Mom, I'm fine, we're fine—" she stopped talking, hearing other voices on the line speaking to her mother. "Who's talking to you? It sounds like Henry. Mom? Mom—"
"A baby? Jesus. Stella, I have to go. Something just came up. We'll—we'll talk later."
"Is everything okay?"
"No. Double homicide...there's a baby involved. I can't speak more on it. I'll call you later. Be safe. I love you."
"Love you too."
The line disconnected.
"That last part looked grim, Stell." Natalie was sitting with her legs crossed now, finishing the rest of her yogurt and cereal breakfast. Stella's stomach growled uncomfortably. She was hungry, but how could she eat now after hearing that ?
"My mom said there was a double homicide. One of the victims was a baby."
"Shiiiieeeeetttt."
"Yeah."
Stella hugged her arms around herself. Not a lighthearted way to start the morning. She remembered sneaking into her mother's office one day, when she was really little, and seeing the photos of a woman who'd been murdered. The details of the photo eluded her now, but she remembered being scared and screaming; she remembered her mom rushing into the office, picking her small body up, and comforting her as she cried. Her mom dealt with this kind of darkness on a daily basis. No wonder she's such a hardass.
She thought about Logan Black, and his cold blue eyes, and felt a twist of disgust with herself that she had found him attractive at all. God, and she gave him her number! What the hell was she thinking?
"You okay? You got pretty pale on me all of a sudden."
"I'm just feeling stupid, Nat."
"What's up?"
"Last night at the club, when I snuck off from you and Marie, I met a guy…"
"...Yeah, and?"
"And I gave him my number. I don't know why. I was just, I don't know, flirting, having fun, I guess. And he was sexy."
"Okayyyy...I gotta be honest, Stell, I'm failing to see the problem here."
"I don't think he's a good dude, is the problem, Nat."
Nat pulled her wild blonde hair into a loose bun. She was thinking hard now, considering the words Stella told her. "I mean, was he weird? Did he pressure you into giving him your number?"
"No...not at all. He just seemed…" Stella searched for the right word; couldn't find it. "I don't know. Rough, I guess?"
Natalie snorted. "Well, yeah. He was a man at Pandemonium."
"Yeah…" Stella got up, shaking her head. Her stomach was growling again; she really needed food instead of just coffee. "I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into things. That call from my mom kind of spooked me, I guess."
"Listen, if he calls you or messages you and he's creepy, just block his number."
"Yeah…"
"You don't seem convinced that's a good strategy, sis. Mind telling me what his name is, if you even got that far?"
"Logan Black," Stella said, pouring herself a bowl of cereal.
"No shit. Really?"
"What?"
"Stell, c'mon. How do you not know who Logan Black is? Dude owns like half the city! Your mom hasn't mentioned him at all?"
Now Stella was getting frustrated. Was she supposed to know who he was? Her mother's world involved murders and sex crimes, and other horrible things Stella really didn't want to think about. "No. My mom and I usually try to avoid the specifics of her job, Nat. Why should she care who he is?"
"Well, he's the owner of Pandemonium, for one. As awesome as the place is, you know it's shady." Yeah, Pandemonium was definitely shady...but then again, so were most clubs. She looked at the clock: 9:30. She was going to be late for class.
"Look, forget I said anything."
Natalie shrugged, moved to put her dirty dishes in the sink. "Just block him when he calls you and put him out of your mind. Or don't. Up to you."
"Thanks, Nat."
"Anytime, sis. I'll get those dishes when I get back from work. See you."
"See you."
She thought about Logan Black a lot that day in class: how he seemed so familiar and yet so alien. She thought about how...easy it was to flirt with him, how she didn't feel self-conscious about it at all; she felt strangely free around him. Their flirtation reminded her of a dance, and he reciprocated her advances and quips in kind. Still, she was nervous about him potentially calling her. There was no doubt he was dangerous, especially now that she knew he was the owner of Pandemonium. Did she want to block his number? Yes...and no. She was curious about him, despite her better judgement. She felt sexy around him. Desirable—and that was a heady thing to feel. Desirable and sexy like she was a woman, and not the boyhood crush of Henry...or the quick fuck of some college boy she'd met on Tinder.
While the professor was lecturing on the concept of villainy in Richard III, Stella was busy googling Logan Black, and she wasn't finding much. A few newspaper articles here and there about property and company acquisitions, some wild estimates about his possible net worth, and his perennial bachelor status, but nothing to suggest anything particularly nefarious. No birthdate or birthplace listed, either. It seemed he was good at staying out of the public's mind. He had no social media accounts as far as she could tell, not even a LinkedIn, which even her mom—tech dinosaur and terrible with literally all things involving the Internet—had. She did manage to find a photo of him in some kind of military uniform, and he looked a lot younger in it, like he could have been a teenager. He wasn't smiling in the picture, but his stern expression didn't take away from the youthfulness of his face. Babyfaced as all hell, to be quite honest. He looks like a freaking kid, she thought. God, he looked the same age as her little brother, who was just turning fifteen in a couple of days.
"Who's that young devil on your screen, Stella?" That was Dan, an old Marine vet finally getting his degree. He didn't usually sit next to her, but today they were paired for close readings of Richard III. Close readings which she didn't help him with because she was distracted by googling info on Logan Black. Oops.
"Uhh, he's..." she mumbled, blushing. "Uhhhhh…."
"Looks fresh out of boot in that portrait. Hard to believe most of us come in with baby faces like that. He didn't break your heart, did he? You've been staring at him for a while."
"No, no. I only just met him. Only doing a little bit of internet sleuthing is all. Innocent, lighthearted stalking."
Dan chuckled. "Tracking. I'm going to tell you right now: he's not worth it."
Stella laughed quietly, trying to hide from the professor's annoyed gaze. "You're probably right, Dan."
"Miss Porter, I trust that you and Mr. Hood are staying on topic, yes?"
"Yes, Prof. Foster," she said, biting the inside of her cheek. "Just discussing the themes of nature versus nurture present in the text."
"Ah-ha. Please try to stay on topic."
Dan pushed his notes to her with a good-natured smile. "Here, so the prof doesn't get too mad."
"Thanks, Dan." After that, she was finally able to focus enough to help Dan out, though she still thought about Logan Black. He didn't seem that shady anymore, though she felt like she knew even less about him. Who are you? she wondered. In her mind, she saw his bright eyes burning in the dark.
Logan checked his watch: 12:15. Toothfairy was fifteen whole minutes late for their meeting, which meant that either A: someone had killed the man, or B: he was intentionally trying to be disrespectful. Neither one of them were acceptable.
Logan fiddled with his lighter, fighting the incredible urge to smoke. He sat indoors on purpose to keep from lighting one up, but the fact that Moreno still hadn't arrived yet made his cravings nearly unbearable. Just as he was about to leave, the door to the cafe opened, and he saw Ricky Moreno step through the threshold and take the seat across from him.
"You ain't JJ," Logan said, leaning back in his seat. "How ya doin', Rick?"
"Bien, y usted, Logan?"
"Oh meeeee…I'm just peachy. Where's your brother?"
Ricky removed his sunglasses, took a sip of water. He was moving strangely, like he was nervous or scared, and Logan noticed that he hadn't brought any bodyguards with him.
"Dead," Ricky said after he finished his drink. Well, that's certainly unexpected.
"My condolences. I'm assumin' that you'll be takin' over the family business now, is that correct?"
"No." Ricky shook his head. "I'm getting out."
"Riigghhhtt. So...why did you come here to meet with me?"
"An angel spoke to me."
"An angel." Ricky had always been a little...off, but this was getting into some territory Logan admittedly wasn't fully prepared to deal with.
"Sí," Ricky said. "Or maybe it was a demon."
"Okay, I'll bite. This thing, whatever it was—it told you to speak to me?"
"My mother, she's Mexicana, did you know? From the Yucatán."
Logan blinked. "First you're talking about angels and demons and now you're talking about your mama. Rick, I'm havin' a helluva time trying to follow what you're sayin' right now, pal—"
"Most of the people there, they're cristianos now—católicos—but in the old days, they worshipped the old gods. My mother used to tell Juan and I stories about these gods when we were growing up in Guatemala. She said we'd be like the Hero Twins who vanquished the gods of death, Hun-Kame and Vucub-Kame. Of course, those were just stories, little things to get us through our days. But then an angel spoke to me, and I realized they weren't just stories; they were real. The gods are real, all of them, and I see you for what you are, kindred of Hun-Kame."
Then smoothly and without hurry, Ricky pulled out his piece—a simple, small glock—and pointed it at Logan. Gasps erupted in the cafe; a woman screamed and promptly fainted.
"C'mon, what are you doin', Rick?" Logan's bodyguards were at the counter, waiting for his signal. They hadn't pulled their guns out yet; didn't want to make the guests freak out even further. "Put the gun down, Ricky. There's a woman in here with her baby. Let's not make a huge scene."
"It makes so much sense now," Ricky said, pressing the barrel of the gun against Logan's forehead. The metal was cold; Logan's throat went dry. "So much sense why El Viejo called you 'Hades,' all those years ago, so much sense why you just wouldn't fucking die—" The shot rang by Logan's ear: loud, sharp and deafening, and Logan pressed his hands to his temples to ease the sudden vertigo that hit him.
A sick cackle ripped out of Ricky's throat as he stood up. "Puta madre, even point blank? I wanted to see if you bleed like the rest of us, but nothing hits you. Pues, ni modo. I'll see you in the Underworld, Hades, in the court of Hun-Kame."
"Ricky—"
The blood that hit Logan's face was a warm, pink mist that stank of iron. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air, and the sound of screaming children rang loudly in his ears. His heart pounded hard in his chest and his hands shook violently; the adrenaline pumping through his veins made everything look as if it were happening in slow motion. He saw the Grim Reaper walk towards Ricky's lifeless body on the cafe floor, and heard the young man 'tsk' in disappointment. Then the Grim Reaper noticed him watching, winked, and disappeared.
"Boss, you all right?"
"Yeah, Nikolai," Logan said, his words sounding sluggish to his own ears.
"Police will be here soon. We go now," Nikolai said, trying to pull him out of the booth.
"We need to stay," Logan said, struggling to get his words out. "Cameras in the cafe. Will be suspicious otherwise."
"But, Boss—"
"You weren't involved, Nikolai. If they try to pressure you about anything else, lawyer up. You know the number for Dom Bufalino."
Logan heard sirens: one ambulance and at least two police vehicles. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, feeling some of the tension leave his body. His Rolex, he noticed, was covered in blood.
"Sir, you can't smoke in here—"
Of all the days he tried to quit...
"A man's just blown his brains out in your establishment and you're worried about me smoking?"
"You can't smoke in here." The owner was rattled; too rattled to be reasoned with. Just trying to find some semblance of control in an impossible situation.
"Very well," Logan sighed. He walked outside just as the police and ambulance were pulling up.
"Sir…?"
"I'm fine. Man you'll be wanting is in there," Logan said, lighting up a new cigarette. Annoyingly, his leg was starting to bother him again.
"How did I know I'd see you here?"
"Hello, Henry." Logan didn't bother to glance at the boy. Detective Henry Olsen had been a thorn in his side for about six months now, always chasing whatever lead he could back to Logan and his business dealings. So far, nothing had panned out for the young man: any and all evidence he found was circumstantial and never enough for a judge to grant a warrant. It made the kid salty and reckless and a miserable pain in the ass to deal with.
"Think you're going to get away with murder in broad fucking daylight now? Don't count on it, fucker."
Logan didn't answer him, just continued to smoke his cigarette. He rubbed his thigh as it began to burn. He pulled out his phone, turned on the camera's reverse function, and saw he was covered in blood. Fucking soaked. His suit was irrevocably ruined, too. He sighed again, leaning against the window of the cafe. He could see it now: press everywhere. Last thing he wanted was his name on the lips of every news anchor in the city. Bad for business.
He pulled out his planner from his back pocket: nothing else important on the docket today, which was good, because he had a feeling his day was about to get a good deal longer. He texted Johnny, let him know what was going on.
"Mr. Black, I'm going to need you to come down to the station with me to answer some questions."
"Are you arresting me, detective?" Fuck, this was his third cigarette in the last fifteen minutes. He really, really, really needed to slow down.
"No. I need you to answer some questions."
"At the station."
"Yes."
"Very well, Henry." Logan dropped his cigarette to the ground, smashed the small butt with his foot. "Lead the way."
