49. Bay
FORTY-NINE
bay
“Everything is fine,” Levi assures me on the other end of the call, not taking an ounce of anxiety from my veins. “I promise. I’d tell you otherwise.”
“Would you, though?” I mutter, not fully convinced that my best friend would save some of my sanity if shit went sideways.
Tonight was a shitshow, something I’m used to starring in, but as soon as I got home after Cairo dropped me off, I had to call Levi to make sure he was alright.
“I would.”
Right.
We’re doing the whole survive-together-and-neither-one-of-us-will-be-dead thing.
“You’re talking to me,” I state, pacing my backyard like a freak because I can’t sit still, and I didn’t want to wake up the girls. “So, I’m assuming it didn’t go well.”
Levi inhales. “No. Dudes didn’t talk. I got nothing.”
“I’m not surprised. They either don’t know a thing about it, or Matteo has that much mental power over them?—”
“We’ll get the video, Astor. Don’t worry about it.”
“And you allowed Cairo Black to be there.”
It’s not a question, though, I’m curious as to why my bestie is becoming more lenient with him.
“Oz asked.” I open my mouth to press on the matter, when Levi tacks on, “He knows how I feel about it. But he asked. So, I gave him leverage.”
Ask nicely and you shall receive.
“Let’s just say that out of all those guys, I’m glad he’s the one you married.”
“What?”
My best friend chuckles a bit and dare I ask? “Lev…I think we should call this off.”
“Why?”
I rock my head back and forth even though he obviously can’t see me. “Too much…Matteo said things?—”
“Don’t let him get inside your head again,” he grumbles back. “It’s bullshit.”
“He’s not bullshitting, Lev. He’s desperate. And that kind of shit is dangerous.”
“Astor…” He allows a few beats to go by before muttering, “If something happens?—”
“It’s not,” I quickly cut in. “I just don’t want the extra risk. And for what? It doesn’t matter if I clear my name, it does nothing.”
“You wanted it. You asked Black?—”
“Right, I asked Cairo. Not you.”
Levi’s silence is deafening, but I don’t fill it in with anything. I’ve made alliances with Wharf Bay, and I’m keeping Cairo at arm’s length. I sucked him off because I wanted to, there was nothing more to it.
“You won’t give me a straight answer,” Levi directs calmly. “I don’t know if we’re leaving or staying.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I answer honestly. “Dad fought for this town, and it kills me to leave it. But at what cost if we stay? You? The way you’ll just go out and…I don’t even know what you did tonight. I have zero clue if you killed those guys or?—”
“I didn’t,” he says. “Ozzy did.”
My blood instantly runs cold because I had this gut feeling… There’s something off with that guy. “And you trust him.”
“I do.”
I still don’t get it.
He’s never been a contender. Not a friend or a foe. The only thing that links Levi to Ozzy is that they’re related.
That’s it.
“Is that enough?”
Levi sighs. “I don’t know, but for right now, it’s good enough for me. He shows me the lengths he’ll go. I didn’t even need to lift a finger tonight. All I did was talk.”
“Just…for the video? All that?—”
“All that,” Levi confirms. “Because it’s what you wanted. I would’ve gone a different way, but Ozzy liked this one. It riled De Leon up. He’ll make a mistake and move it.”
“He will?”
“I think so. And Ozzy will follow.”
That’s one way of doing it, I guess.
“When are you coming back home?”
“Soon,” he replies. “I’m picking you up pizza.”
My lips heave. “God, I love you. You know exactly how to cheer me up.”
“I know plenty of ways that will cheer you up, Astor. The advantages of knowing your crazy ass.”
“Lucky you.” I begin to pivot for the house. “However, if you didn’t—” A dark figure suddenly forms in my way, and I suck in a breath, my heart slamming into my chest as my brain quickly catches up to itself.
The back flood light barely catches him, but he’s there, nonetheless.
“Motherfuck— Ozzy .” I’d ask him why he’s lingering there, but I’m never going to get an answer out of him.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” Levi says. “You two talk and?—”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Levi laughs because, yeah, what the fuck does he think this is? “Alright, well, you talk, and I’ll be home soon for you to make heart-eyes at me.”
“I can’t wait,” I drone, pulling the phone away from my ear and hanging up while Ozzy slowly pulls himself into some of the light. “Sometimes I think you’re the smartest of them all. Keep giving me heart attacks, and maybe, you’ll succeed with one of them taking me out.”
No apology is offered as he stops within a few feet of me, all tattoos and a baggy black shirt that doesn’t show off a spec of anything.
“Are you okay?”
As he stares at me, it’s unnerving as all hell.
I can never fully read what’s going through his mind. I don’t know if he hates me, believes I’m a pain in the ass, or frankly doesn’t give a shit.
All I know is that he’s good at being quiet.
“You are capable of one-word answers, aren’t you?”
A beat goes by before he answers, “Yes.”
“Good, so then I’ll ask you again, are you okay?”
“Yes.”
That makes me feel better as I pocket my phone into my jeans and clasp my hands together.
“I heard you didn’t get anything.” Ozzy adverts his gaze, appearing unhappy about that prospect. “It’s okay. I’m not looking to prove my innocence anymore. It’s over.”
His dark blues slice back to me.
“I need you to understand,” I tell him. “As much as I… I don’t know the right move here. My father stayed in South Shore and protected it. He ruled over it or whatever. I’m not a leader. I don’t want it to fall to Emilio. But I can’t lose anyone else.”
Ozzy dark eyes continue to burrow into me, but I feel at peace and oddly satisfied that he came to see me.
That he cared enough to come find out what I wanted.
“I’m scared,” I admit, and it’ll be the last time I say it out loud. “There are too many people with my head in the middle of a target. And I wouldn’t care so much about it if I didn’t have the girls. Levi can take care of himself. As much as I don’t want him where he is…I understand it’s his place.”
Crickets chirp around us, and I’m not sure if he wants more or if he’s soaking everything in right now.
However, there are some answers I need, because if he and I are going to team up as good ol’ husband and wife, I require him to be open and honest with me. Even if it’s only with a few words.
Slowly descending to the ground, I sit on my butt in the middle of the yard and cross my legs together. It seems to be some sort of safe requirement where it shows Ozzy I’m not trying to get a one-up on him, and when I’m in a vulnerable position, he seems to speak a little more to me.
“I fear we’ll never get that tape from Matteo,” I continue. “And, in turn, Torin is never going to forgive me. Reeve loathes me, and he has every right. I just don’t want him to kill himself over me or any stupid decisions that I made.” I glance up at him, finding him already peering down at me. “I don’t think I can pull this Emilio shit off either.”
When he doesn’t answer, I begin picking at blades of grass to occupy some of my mind and to give me something to do.
“I don’t want you getting into predicaments that are going to get you hurt. I don’t know what you’re capable of, but…frankly, I don’t know whose side you’re on.”
“Yours.”
I lift my chin upward. That one word…it batters away all doubt which is amazing because I barely know him. Yet, he doesn’t seem like a bullshitter in the slightest.
“You don’t speak to me,” I argue lightly. “I can’t side or relate to someone who… Is it hard?” He cocks his head to the side, and I’m hoping he doesn’t take it as if I’m insinuating that he’s slow. “I mean, do you just not like talking?”
He nods.
“Mhm…” I tear my focus away from him before he steadily sits in front of me and mirrors by position, crossing his legs together and keeping a comfortable distance between us.
His darkness and secrecy do something to me, but I’m not completely sure what it means. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m bluntly in love with pain and heartache or if it’s something else.
Obviously, he has history with Vivian, and I’d love to know that story, but I’m not going to get it out of him.
“What would you do?”
I’m used to the silence that follows, and I wasn’t expecting an answer. Talking out loud to someone, a person who doesn’t speak much, is oddly therapeutic.
“Come with me,” I mutter, my voice barely audible to my own ears. “Leave this shit behind.”
“You can’t.”
My eyes close automatically at his denial of running away from this place. What I’ve been constantly going back and forth on for what seems like forever.
“Why?” I press, but offer nothing else.
I need a new perspective. Someone on the outside.
Someone Levi trusts.
Someone I want to trust.
Looking up, Ozzy stares at me with zero emotion. “I need you.”
And I do.
Because I’m lost.
I love South Shore, but I hate it.
I love it because it was Dad’s.
I love it because I grew up here, and it’s all I know.
And I hate it because it’s close to Emilio, and my father died here.
Ozzy’s dark blues continue to hold mine, making it look so easy when words to me are.
We’re opposites in that sense.
However, I need something—anything—to show me how he’s going to get us somewhere on the right page.
He leans forward, causing my joints and muscles to tense, but I don’t move. And I anxiously watch him close the distance between us.
His exhales become heavier, his body shaking as if he’s freezing his entire ass off, but I don’t stop him. I want to see what he’s going to do to make me believe him once and fucking for all that I’m protected, and he’s with me.
However, watching him have a mini-freakout while I sit here and do nothing is hard. I saw him on the ground by the pool. I saw the frantic terror in his eyes when Vivian was around not even touching him.
And that’s what he’s trying to do with me.
I think.
Make him do it.
Bay, hasn’t he done enough? He brought back Ellie and Mae.
“ Stop ,” I clip out before he suddenly grows still, his lips but a shuddering breath brushing shakily along my lips and chin. “Hand.”
I slowly raise mine, and Ozzy falls back a little, glancing down at my spread fingers as I do my best to calm down.
This is the most fucking intense thing I think I’ve gone through next to almost drowning with Torin. Everything about Ozzy is profoundly unhinged.
He’s not normal.
He’s shattered and broken. He hasn’t had an ordinary life, and he’s been betrayed.
By a woman, no less.
One I hate.
“One second,” I murmur. “Please…”
Sluggishly, Ozzy raises his palm and extends his fingers. He begins to hyperventilate a bit, causing my body to mimic his actions.
We’re not fucking, but if you didn’t know what we were doing, it would sound like we are.
Ozzy quickly presses his hand to mine, and while it’s there, it’s gone just as quickly.
And, if I thought I was confused before.
I’m fucked now.