I remember the elation I felt knowing I’d made Cynnie happy. “Yeah, that was the best part. Everything before that was hell, though. How do you stand giving her punishments all the time?”
“I don’t give Emmy punishments all the time. I rarely punish her. You’ve just seen us on the day after the biggest one. The worst one.” Logan sighs. “It’s not easy. I keep my eyes on the prize. I’m giving her what she needs the same way I do when I meet any of her other needs.”
I finish my reps and stand before I ask, “Do you hate it?”
Logan rubs his chin, considering my question. “Yes and no. It’s hard for me to see her suffer. I have to fight my instinct to stop what’s hurting her and comfort her. But I know there’s a purpose to it. She needs the structure and I need the control. It’s not selfless. It’s important for both of us. Did you feel more in control once it was over?”
“I—yeah, I did. I felt, eh, fuck, this is going to sound bad.”
“Maxie, c’mon, it’s me. I promise you I’ve been there. Probably really fucking recently.”
I take a deep breath before admitting something to my best friend that I’ve barely admitted to myself. “I felt vindicated. I felt like things were right between her and me again. That I was back on top.”
Logan grins. “That’s power exchange, mate. She fucked up the power exchange between you by ghosting you. You’ve punished her and corrected it. I’m not saying punishment fixes everything. You gotta keep an eye on the underlying causes for her misbehavior. But it sounds like you have a handle on that. A punishment should clear the slate and set things right between you. Did you give her aftercare? Did that feel good?”
I nod.
“I don’t want to get into a cycle of punishment,” I tell him. “I couldn’t do what Jack does with Sammi. That’d drive me crazy. But comforting her afterwards, doing the aftercare with the bath and everything, like Jack told me to do, that was a high, man. I felt like superman. I’m still riding that high, if I’m honest. Or I was until that fucking drone showed up.”
Logan grunts and it’s not because of the weight he’s lifting. “Manny emailed me about that. You sure you don’t want to get some cameras on the outside of the building?”
“No, I’ve got some in the windows already. Catching the drone on camera’s not going to tell us much of anything we don’t already know, which is that Ness has found me and is watching.”
“You figure they’re watching because they’re planning a physical grab or because they’re looking for leverage or what?”
I shrug. “Either. Both. Ness is an opportunistic fucker.”
“How about putting a body man on you for a while?”
“Between the security in my building and the way Manny’s got me wired, feels like overkill,” I say, which is half the truth. The other half is that a body man would interfere with what’s happening with Cynnie and that seems like a worse alternative than being press-ganged into another blackhat job.
“He’s pretty adamant about sending De Leon to England with you.” Logan’s tone drops until it’s almost sheepish. “That is, if you’re going.”
“I’m absolutely going and if my choices are De Leon or Manny’s boy and his fucking body odor, I’ll take De Leon.”
Logan laughs hard enough that his abs bounce.
“De Leon has a private plane. That’s got to be better than traveling coach with someone who believes deodorant is optional.”
I chuckle as we swap over. Puffing through my reps, I say, “Manny said that De Leon wants in. You wouldn’t consider, you know, bringing him in-in, right?”
“In-in like part of the company?” Logan asks. When I nod, he shakes his head firmly. “I like the guy better than you do but he’s not a team player. Contract work’s his lane. I’m happy to bring him in for one-off jobs but I don’t want to see much more of him than I already do. And no offense, but I don’t want him around Emmy. Or Cynnie.”
“You think he’d hurt them?”
“Not on purpose, but I think what he’s been through has made him callous. Littles are sensitive. I don’t think he’d understand why they might be scared of him.”
I snort. “Fuck,I’mscared of him.”
I expect Logan to chuckle but instead he nods gravely. “You’re not wrong to be. He’s a scary bastard. But I’ll feel a thousand percent better about you going anywhere you might be exposed to the bad guys with him at your side. I don’t suppose you have an empty unit in your building, do you?”
“No, fully rented. And don’t even think about having De Leon create a vacancy so he can move in, Lo. I’m okay about traveling with him, but I seriously don’t want his brand of psycho in my building. Fuck, there are kids in my building.”
Logan rubs his hand over his mouth. “Good point,” he admits.
“That guy’s gonna go off one day and you know it. Nuclear fucking meltdown, man.”
“I don’t disagree with you, Maxie, and I’d like to help him, but I really don’t want him near Emmy.”
