Chapter 7 Levi
SEVEN
Levi
Caleb told me they’d tracked Doc to this warehouse in the middle of nowhere—it had been my idea to check it out, and part of me wished I hadn’t.
I didn’t mean to look in there. I hadn’t even meant to follow him this far, but instinct got the better of me.
When you’ve been a cop long enough, you follow your hunches, and this one led me straight here.
I didn’t know what I’d find—a surgery where he was cutting people up, maybe?
I found two SUVs and surveilled the warehouse, the place falling apart around itself—cracked windows, flickering light spilling through the gaps.
What I saw when I followed Caleb’s directions in my ear wasn’t something I could unsee, and I didn’t have the words to explain to him, or anyone, what I’d witnessed.
The guy in the chair—the one they’d brought in—was unconscious.
And another man—not Doc—slit his throat as if it were just another item on a checklist. My body locked up.
Training screamed move, shout, intervene—and nothing happened.
I stood there, lungs burning, watching, while the moment where I should’ve acted slid past and vanished.
I stumbled back and away, the taste of bile in my throat, thinking they’d spot me, seeing my life flash before my eyes.
My hands shook, caught between instincts that fired too late to matter—reach for my gun, shout, intervene—each one colliding and canceling the other out until all I could do was stand there.
I didn’t know what the fuck to do. Arrest them?
Call it in? Pretend I hadn’t seen what I’d seen?
My whole world tilted sideways, and all the years of black-and-white law blurred into something ugly and gray.
Who was the man in the chair? If I’d been earlier, could I have saved him?
Was Doc there to carve him up for his organs?
Who was the other man who’d ended a life?
Who the fuck was Doc?
By the time I made it out, feeling as though both men were hot on my heels, I could barely breathe.
I leaned against his car door, gun hanging loose in my hand, the weight of it useless there while I tried to convince myself I still had control.
As if I hadn’t watched a man die while another stood there and didn’t blink.
And then he was walking out—Doc. Calm. Unhurried. His expression unreadable, he sauntered toward me, hesitating for a second when he saw me before coming closer. The other man was in the shadows—I heard the steps, but Doc held up a hand to stop his companion from stepping into the light.
When I watched that murder, Doc hadn’t been the one touching the man in the chair.
But he hadn’t stopped the other man from cutting the victim’s throat either.
I wanted to ask a hundred questions, to arrest him, or not. To understand—but all I could manage was to breathe, steady and shallow, as he stepped closer. What the hell was going on? And how deep was he in whatever this was?
I wasn’t calling it in—not contacting Caleb.
I should’ve. Any cop with half a brain would’ve.
But something in me had locked up the second I saw the blade slice that man’s throat—some mix of shock, disbelief, and the sick certainty that if I moved, if I made a sound, I might be the next one in that chair.
I told myself I was waiting for the right moment, watching for a pattern, for an opening, for anything that made sense.
Truth was, I’d been frozen. Rooted to the spot, breath shallow, heart pounding, watching the scene unravel like a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.
And maybe a part of me—some dark, shameful part—needed to know what Doc was doing here. Whether he was part of this.
“It’s okay,” he said, but he was talking to the other man—the one with blood on his hands—not me. “This one’s mine.”
As he moved nearer, I straightened instinctively, adrenaline snapping through me.
My pulse roared in my ears. I brought the gun up, safety off, hands steady, although my heart wasn’t.
The distance between us shrank to a few feet, and I could see his face under the wash of the moonlight.
His eyes caught the light—cold and steady, but there was something else there, something that pulled at me before I could stop it, and it threw me off balance.
He was calm—too calm—as if none of this mattered.
He didn’t flinch at the weapon pointed at him, and I couldn’t move. It felt like standing on the edge of something I didn’t understand, facing a man who seemed to exist in a world I couldn’t reach.
“What the fuck was that?” I snapped, the words ripped out of me before I could stop them, raw and jagged.
My hands were steady, but everything inside me shook.
I’d seen plenty of bad things in my time—crime scenes, murders, bodies dumped in alleys—but this was different.
This was organized, clean, and intentional.
The kind of thing that didn’t end up in reports because people like Doc made sure it never got that far.
The thought hit me hard: if I wasn’t calling this in, was I halfway to becoming my dad?
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing as if he were trying to decide whether I was a threat to eliminate or just another problem to ignore.
The silence stretched until it felt heavy enough to crush me.
He leaned in, and for a heartbeat, my brain stuttered.
The space between us vanished, his breath brushing my cheek—warm, steady, too close.
I caught myself noticing the way his eyes tracked mine, how close his mouth was, and a jolt of shame hit me.
What the hell was wrong with me for feeling that spark now, when everything about him screamed danger?
Why was he so close? Was it threat, curiosity, or something worse?
I couldn’t read him, and that unsettled me.
“You just stood there,” I said, forcing the words out. “You let it happen. Who was he? Who’s the other man?”
Doc’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t want to know.”
“The hell I don’t.” My voice cracked, anger bubbling up to drown out the fear. “That was murder.”
He took a slow step closer, not glancing at the gun I still had aimed at his chest. “You need to go home, Detective.”
“Don’t tell me what I need.” My throat burned. “You think I can just walk away from this?”
He stopped. “If you don’t, it’ll eat you alive,” he said quietly. “Trust me on that.”
“Who was the man you killed?” The question came out before I could stop it. My voice scraped against the silence between us. I needed something—an explanation, a lie, anything. But Doc didn’t blink.
“No one,” he said finally, and quirked a half-smile.
It wasn’t an answer. I tightened my grip on the gun, but I didn’t pull the trigger, and he took that final step until the barrel was against his chest. My hand trembled, brushing his shirt as the metal pressed in, and I felt the solid weight of his body behind it.
The space between us was wrong—danger twisted with a pull I didn’t want to name.
His hand lifted almost lazily, fingers on my jaw, tilting my face up just enough to make breathing feel optional.
For a split second, the world shrank to that touch—his thumb against my skin, his eyes holding mine—and I didn’t know if he was testing me, warning me, or about to kiss me.
Every nerve screamed both threat and invitation.
And then his hand shifted, drawing me closer, his lips across mine in a sudden, brief kiss that stole my breath.
I didn’t stop him, and that was the part I couldn’t explain away.
I let it happen anyway. It wasn’t tender—it was a test, a warning, a spark of danger that left me reeling and unsure if it was dominance, manipulation, or something real.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped, the words catching somewhere between fury and disbelief, every instinct screaming to shove him away, but my body betrayed me.
For a single, shameful second, I leaned into the kiss before jerking back, shocked at myself—at the lingering heat and the rush that made me want to do it again.
Part of me still wanted to believe there was more to him—that Doc was morally gray but wasn’t capable of what I’d witnessed. That murder was all on the other guy.
The killer.
But standing there, looking into those eyes as he pulled back from that kiss, I knew better. There was no remorse, no panic at having the barrel of my gun pressed to him. Calm acceptance. Dead-eyed.
He looked down at the gun, then back up at me. “Are you going to shoot me?” he asked, quiet, steady. Not mocking. Not afraid.
I should’ve pulled the trigger. Every rule, every moral line I’d ever sworn to uphold as a cop told me to do it.
But I didn’t because the other side of me—the part that believed rules didn’t always fix the world—forced the cop side down.
My finger froze, muscles locked, and God help me, I needed to understand him more than I wanted to stop him.
“I’m going to arrest you,” I said.
He took another breath, “No, you’re not.”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry as sandpaper. “Who was that man?”
He tilted his head, studying me the way he looked at a patient—calculating, distant. “There isn’t a version of the truth that you’d find acceptable,” he said.
“Try me.”
He cradled my face again and placed another kiss on my lips.