Page 63 of Logan’s Way

They stood twenty feet apart, neither moving closer, the burned building between them like everything else that had accumulated over eighteen years of absence. Above them, seagulls lined the rusted rafters—scavengers that had haunted this place since the explosion, waiting for whatever death might provide.

Angus remembered those birds. Remembered Pete's voice echoing through this same empty space. Remembered the certainty that he was going to die here.

And now he was standing here confronting his brother about the very thing that had almost gotten Angus killed—the belief that operating outside the law was justified when the law failed people first.

“You came alone,” Logan said finally. No greeting. No explanation. Just observation.

“The message said to.”

“You could have brought the entire sheriff’s department. Could have coordinated with state police, federal marshals, whoever you thought could take me in.” Logan’s voice was quiet, controlled, carrying the exhaustion of someone who’d been running so long that stopping felt more dangerous than continuing. “But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t come here to arrest you.”

“Then why did you come?”

Angus looked at the burned structure, at the deliberate destruction accomplishing something he couldn’t yet name but recognized as sacrifice—the same way Pete had used fire to cover evidence, the same way this building had originally been destroyed to hide corruption. The same pattern, repeated over years: people deciding destruction was justified when it served purposes they believed were righteous.

“Because I needed to know if you were real,” Angus said. “If what I’d proven about your death certificate was true, or if I’d been constructing evidence out of grief, guilt, and eighteen years of unanswered questions.”

“It’s true.” Logan moved slightly, and Angus noticed the tension in his brother’s posture—ready to run if this conversation went wrong, ready to disappear again if being seen proved too costly. “The death certificate was fabricated. I arranged it. Paid someone who knew how to make paperwork look legitimate without leaving trails that could survive scrutiny. I needed to be dead so I could do what I’ve been doing without constantly looking over my shoulder for you.”

The admission hung between them without drama. Just truth spoken by someone who had carried it alone for eighteen years and seemed almost relieved to finally name it aloud.

“Why?” Angus asked. “Why disappear? Why fake your death? Why spend eighteen years hiding from everyone who loved you?”

Logan’s expression shifted—something that might have been pain or resignation. “Because I saw what you hadn’t seen yet. That the system fails people. That law enforcement follows rules that protect predators as much as victims. That there’s a gap between what’s legal and what’s necessary, and someone has to fill it, or people die.”

“So you decided you were that someone.”

“I decided I couldn't watch anymore.” Logan's voice remained controlled but carried the weight of years spent accumulating. “There was a kid at school. Came in one day with bruises I recognized. I told a teacher. Nothing happened. I told the counsellor. Nothing happened. So I handled it myself. And then I ran, because staying meant facing consequences for the one thing I'd done that actually worked.”

He paused. “The security work came later. Holbrook. Other places. It showed me the same pattern at a larger scale — people asking for help, getting told to wait, and suffering while the system processed their paperwork. I did what I had to do to survive. Not physically — morally. I couldn't survive being the kind of person who knew what was coming and did nothing just because doing something violated procedure.”

Angus thought about Lena Torres, about Derek Walsh returning to Weyport, approaching Lena's coworker, and then vanishing entirely before the system could act, about the pattern he’d documented that proved Logan’s way worked even while violating everything Angus believed about how justice should function. He thought about standing in this same building six years ago while Pete Hutchinson—another man who’d decided the law didn’t apply when personal goals felt justified—prepared to execute him for getting too close to truth.

“Derek Walsh,” Angus said quietly. “The man who was stalking Lena Torres. He disappeared two days ago. Relocated to be near her, then just … gone. No arrest. No prosecution. Just resolution that the system can’t explain.”

Logan didn’t deny it. Didn’t confirm it either. Just stood in the shadow of deliberate destruction and let silence carry acknowledgment that words would make too explicit.

“Did you kill him?” Angus asked, needing to know even though knowing would create obligation he wasn’t ready to accept.

“No. I don’t kill people. I relocate them. Convince them that continuing whatever they’re doing will cost more than they’re willing to pay. Make them understand that legal boundaries aren’t the only boundaries that matter.” Logan paused. “Derek Walsh is alive. He’s in Colorado now, I think. Or maybe Montana. Somewhere far enough that Lena Torres doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.”

“How?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Logan exhaled slowly. “I found out what he cared about protecting. What he valued more than intimidating his ex-girlfriend. And I made it clear that continuing meant losing it. Not through violence. Not through threats that could be documented. Just … clarity about consequences. Most men like Derek are bullies, not fanatics. When you make the cost real, they choose self-preservation.”

The explanation was simple, practical, utterly devoid of the heroism Angus might have expected. Just work described by someone who’d been doing it long enough that drama had burned away, leaving only methodology.

“Come home with me,” Angus said, the words escaping before he’d consciously decided to speak them. “To Weyport. We’ll figure this out together. Get you legal representation, work through whatever charges might come, find a way forward that doesn’t require you living like this.”

Logan’s expression shifted, grief flickering across his features. “There’s no way out of this for me. I’ve spent nearly two decades operating outside the law. The methods I use to protect people—they work because they’re invisible. The moment I’m visible, the moment I’m documented, everything I’ve built collapses. Every person I’ve helped becomes vulnerable again, because the networks I disrupted will know I can’t protect them anymore.”

“So you’ll just keep running? Keep hiding? Keep living like you’re dead, so you can do work that might be righteous but requires abandoning everyone who loves you?”