Trapped in Hate, Drawn to Love

Chapter 7

-ARIA-

When I stepped into Logan's office that morning, he was hunched over his laptop, face taut as his fingers hammered the keys. Two days off, and now he clawed back hours he swore were lost, though he'd spent them glued to his phone, pinging me every fifteen minutes.

"Shut the door," he said, not bothering to look up.

I set my iPad on his desk and sat across from him, waiting for the king to decide I existed.

Logan froze, clicked once, then finally lifted his gaze. He looked better than he had a couple of days ago, though the shadows under his eyes were still there. I wondered if he was sleeping at all, if anyone at home was even trying to take care of him.

Why do you care, Aria? The man wrecked your parents' lives. He should be choking on glass, not sipping chicken soup.

"We're acquiring a large group of warehouses in New Jersey," he said, leaning back in his leather chair.

"Really? I thought you had enough distribution centers in the Northeast. Where's the address?" I opened my iPad, stylus ready.

"Marie will give you the info," he replied, his gaze hawkish, unblinking.

He wore a black shirt and a dark gray suit, no tie. The color made his green eyes stand out. His hair wasn’t styled as perfectly as usual, just a touch of dishevelment. The looseness made him more imposing, more dangerous. And it looked good on him.

Well, everything looks good on that man.

"And do you want me to run due diligence before you close the deal?" I asked, making some notes.

When I looked up, his eyes were locked on me. He loved using his stare to rattle people, make them squirm. Like he could peel you open and read whatever he wanted.

Not me. Every time he tried, I kept my chin up and met him head-on.

He dragged his teeth lightly across his bottom lip, a tiny gesture. "No need. My internal team already handled it."

He dragged his teeth lightly across his bottom lip, a minute gesture. "No need. My internal team has already taken care of that."

I stopped writing, waiting for the task he would hand me. Logan didn’t care for people eager to please, talking nonstop. It irritated him to no end.

There was a bald guy from a law firm tied to Mars Logistics. He kept sending Logan invitations to Lakers games, offers to sail on his boat, baskets of outrageously expensive wines, and more. For a while, I thought he had a thing for Logan, but the truth was simpler: the man was desperate for contracts. Logan had had enough of the man and cut his firm off completely.

"I'm using Holbrook Real Estate to handle the sale. They're the largest real estate company in the country, and their CEO is an old friend of mine. We went to Harvard together."

Did he murder his competitors, too?

"Okay. I'll contact them. Did you get the contract already?" I asked, jotting down the info.

Logan rocked his chair back. "No. I want you to draft the contract for me first. Use one of our old ones as a reference and make it ironclad."

"Got it."

Then he leaned over his desk, and the leather chair creaked. His green eyes darkened a shade, and his voice dropped.

"But the deal isn't closed yet. You can't tell anyone about this, Aria."

"I know, I know. Another of your secrets protected by the NDA your little padawan signed," I mused, setting my pen magnet to the side of the iPad.

Logan's mouth twitched, but he didn't smile. "Stop with the Star Wars reference! I'm serious, Aria." He paused, his voice dropping a notch. "Not even coffee talk with the airheads from marketing." His voice dropped even lower. "We could lose the deal if this information gets out."

I raised a brow. "You don’t trust your own people?"

"I trust no one," he said flatly. "That’s why I’m still standing."

He was handing me the perfect chance to ruin him. One disclosure, and the vultures would circle. His profits gutted. His market shares rattled. My head swam with the possibilities.

It could be my first step towards his ruin.

"Logan... Don’t worry, you can trust me." I summoned my perfect smile, the one I used when I pretended I was studying in my room, then slipped out to a party while my parents slept.

He steepled his fingers over the table. His hands were large, strong, calloused from the workout he’d pushed through that morning before coming to the office.

His gaze was sharp, but there was something else beneath it. Something wild.

I didn’t know why he was looking at me like that. Was he getting sick again? Anyway, I didn’t like it.

His phone started to ring, and he dismissed me with a glance before taking it. I rose from the chair and headed for the door.

Before I crossed the threshold, Logan turned and covered the receiver.

"Aria," he warned, voice silken. "I hope you do right."

I nodded and moved away.

On my way to my office, I stopped at Marie’s desk.

"Logan said you have some files for me," I told her, my voice low. "New Jersey."

She yawned, stretched, then pulled a manila folder from her drawer. "This is all I have."

She looked at me with a bored expression for a beat before setting her eyes on her monitor once again. Apparently, Logan didn't have the talk about confidentiality with her.

I took it from her, the seal Confidential pressed across the lid, and darted back to my office.

Later that afternoon, seated behind my desk, I opened the folder and skimmed the contents. Addresses, maps, pictures, valuations—all neat, all valid.

Back in my office, the silence pressed in, and Logan’s warning replayed like a curse: Don’t tell anyone. The perfect chance to ruin him. The perfect chance to watch him bleed. The starting point of my vengeance.

Still, something about the way he said it snagged at me. I brushed it off.

My parents had been the most boring people in the world. My father, born in Germany, was raised to follow rules to the letter. He immigrated to the States to study and met my mother in college. That man never crossed the street if the light was red, not even on an empty road.

And my mother... God, she was worse. She couldn’t even kill a bug. She used to open the window just to toss the mosquitoes outside.

So the idea that they were drug dealers was absurd. Even stranger was the way they "killed themselves," found hanging in their cells. All of this before the trial, before they could have a chance to uncover the truth, to prove their innocence.

The whole story never made sense. And in the middle of my grief, I discovered their main contracts were tied to Mars firm. Logan hadn’t just bought my family’s assets when the bank declared bankruptcy; he swallowed their business in a matter of months.

No one suspected a thing. The big, bad wolf stood above everyone, untouchable.

There were other competitors in the market. Smaller than Mars, smaller than my parents' company, Dirschl Logistics. But if I slipped this information to them, they’d have a weapon. A huge advantage over Logan.

I opened a search page on my computer. From the list of competitors, I chose one. The CEO of a transport operator working mainly on the West Coast. He’d done business with my parents a few times, and it is rumored that he is financially struggling. He would profit immensely from expanding east.

I glanced at the closed door of my office before typing his number on my cell phone.

My pulse thudded in my ears, but I took a deep breath before I pressed the dial.