Page 88 of Thirst Trap
Cold air. Concrete. A low machine-hum stitched into my ribs. Then screens,rows of them, floor to ceiling. Creams Tower lobby. Boardroom. A street corner café. An alleyway I’d passed a hundred times.
“What is this?” I breathed.
“My office,” he said, stepping into the blue glow. “My real one.”
I followed, heels clicking, stomach knotted. One feed showed Logan moving like a fever. Another, Penny’s apartment: empty, lit, a glass abandoned on the counter.
My chest tightened. Not just because she was gone. But because I knew what she meant to him. Penny steadied Logan the way I steadied Lucas. Different storms.
Same gravity.
“You’re watching her,” I said, skin prickling.
“I watch everyone who matters,” Lucas said. His eyes cut to mine. “Everyone who could hurt us.”
“…Including me?”
He stepped closer, the shadow swallowing me whole. “Especially you.”
I should have run. Instead: “Show me. Show me everything.”
He stared like he wanted me to flinch. I didn’t.
“I love you, Lucas,” I said. Too raw to dress up. Too true to take back.
His jaw clenched, panic flashing behind his eyes. She doesn’t know what it means to love someone like me.
But then he broke. “I love you too.”
Maps lit. Feeds multiplied. His empire bled across the wall.
And still, I leaned in and kissed him, certain of one thing: if Penny was Logan’s anchor, I was Lucas’s.
He showed me the shadows he owned.
I gave him a place to put his heart.
Chapter 53
The Bait
Logan’s voice cracked through the intercom. “Got something.”
I snapped the feed onto the wall. Warehouse district. Dockside. Camera 317.
Shadows moved across corrugated steel. Guards stationed like chess pieces.
Then,a flash of dark hair. Dragged. Defiant.
“Penny,” I said, the word coming out like a blade.
Maddison gasped beside me. Her nails bit into my arm, but her eyes weren’t just on Penny,they were on Logan’s feed, the way his whole body went rigid.
“They’re using her as bait,” Logan growled.
I saw Maddison’s reflection in the glass. Pale. Silent. But I knew what she was thinking. She knew Penny mattered to Logan the way she mattered to me. If Penny didn’t come back, Logan wouldn’t just spiral. He’d burn the city to ash.
“The Goldsmiths,” Logan added, voice like gravel. “Crates are stamped GSS. They’re behind this.”
