Chapter 7 Levi #2
I yanked away from him, scowling hard. I shoved him back, fury snapping through me, the sound of boots scraping on concrete.
“Stop fucking touching me,” I snapped, voice rougher than I intended, rage and confusion fighting to take over.
I didn’t only shove him this time—I went at him, fury boiling over into motion.
I hit his chest, shoulder first, sending him back a step, then another.
He caught my wrist before I could swing again, grip like iron.
For a second, we struggled—bodies colliding, boots scraping the ground, my gun useless as he clasped my wrist. He had half a head in height on me, and a weight he clearly knew how to use.
I twisted, using his momentum to push him toward the car, but he didn’t fight the way I expected; he absorbed it, redirected it, until it felt as if he was controlling the fight without ever throwing a punch.
The air between us burned, rage and adrenaline blurring into something messier. I hated that I could feel the solid heat of him, the strength in every movement. We locked eyes—me panting, him infuriatingly composed. Then, to my disbelief, he chuckled, a low sound that crawled up my spine.
“Done?” he asked, twisting my wrist, angling my elbow back enough to trigger the release reflex.
Pain jolted up my arm, and the gun clattered to the ground before I could stop it.
He stepped back then, composed, as if it had all been effortless before kicking the gun my way, indicating I should pick it up.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, jaw tight, refusing to answer.
My gaze never left him as I crouched, scooped up the gun, and straightened.
Every muscle was coiled, waiting for him to move, for another strike, another push.
But Doc didn’t move. He stood motionless, eyes locked on me, assessing every twitch as if he was waiting to see whether I’d lunge, run, or break apart right there.
“You want to know about the dead man?” he asked after a pause.
“Yes.”
“He sold a man who was under my protection for parts. Now, it won’t happen again.”
I shook my head, trying to piece it together. “Are you saying he sold Kyle Rourke for his organs?” I pressed, stepping closer, voice sharp. “Was he the one who dumped Rourke’s body? Work with me, Doc. Anonymous tip, that’s all I need—let me close this case for Kyle’s family.”
Doc’s expression hardened. “No.”
Temper flared in me. “Why do you want this buried so bad? Did you order the body dump? Is this on you?”
Doc’s gaze flicked away. “Why do you want it solved so bad?”
“Who carved up Kyle Rourke? Who left his body out there like trash?”
“I’m dealing with it.”
“Killing people is your fix?”
He didn’t even blink. “It wasn’t me who killed him.”
I wanted to believe there was more to him—fuck knows why—some plan, some hidden reason—but the stillness in his face told me there wasn’t.
Had he overseen murder before? Had he ordered it?
Would he do it again? Was there a reason for what he’d done that would make it make sense?
And why the fuck was I compelled to see the good in him?
The thought hit like a punch to the gut—Why was I looking for humanity in someone like him?
He was no different from the monsters the Cave had hunted down, a killer with too much blood on his hands.
Shame burned in my chest. What the fuck was I thinking?
“Did he deserve to die?”
“Who?”
“Jesus Christ! The man you just killed.”
“As I said, I didn’t kill him, and yes, he sold a human,” he said, a faint, amused tilt to his lips.
Silence filled the space between us, his face inches from mine, breath mingling in the charged air.
For a heartbeat too long, I thought he might close the distance again.
The air felt charged, too warm, too close, and for a second I couldn’t tell where fear ended, and something else began.
I couldn’t tell which of us was more dangerous—the man who stood by as someone killed without flinching, or me, who didn’t step in and stop a murder.
“You should go home, Detective.”
“Why? So, you can dump this body, too?”
There was that disappointment again. “Because if you stay, you’ll start to understand,” he said. “And once you do, you won’t come back from it.”
“Cut the cryptic shit.”
He shrugged and turned his back on me, hesitating for a moment and then rounding his car to the driver’s seat.
“Good night, Detective.”
I stood there long after Doc disappeared into the dark, the sound of the engine fading to nothing. My hand still gripped the gun, because fuck knows who that other man was and whether he answered to Doc or was out to eradicate witnesses. I’d seen too much.
I got into my car, and the drive back to the Cave felt endless, headlights carving through the black, my mind replaying the scene over and over. The blood. The calm. The kiss after.
By the time I reached the Cave, dawn was bleeding into the horizon.
I sat in the parking lot, engine running, and stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror.
I’d been there. My body had decided before my badge could.
That made me complicit. It made me part of whatever Doc was.
The Cave didn’t murder people—they hovered on the morally gray line, sure, especially recently, but why did I just stand there? Why didn’t I arrest Doc?
I shut the car off, jaw tight, and stepped into the chill air. Inside, the Cave was silent aside from the hum of computers—no one here overnight.
I took my seat—the only desk without a computer, not sure where to go next. I don’t know how long I sat there, but Killian was the first into the office, suited and booted, probably ready for court.
“What happened?” he said immediately.
I shook my head, and he made coffee, then we sat across from each other, the weight of the night pressing down between us. I told him everything—how I’d seen a murder, how I’d done nothing, how Doc had been there and I’d still done nothing. I couldn’t meet his eyes when I said it.
Killian leaned back, studying me as if he were trying to decide whether to be judgmental or concerned. “You saw it happen,” he said slowly. “And you didn’t stop it.”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “It was over before I even understood what I was seeing. And part of me—” I hesitated. “… shit… if the dead man really was the one who sold Kyle Rourke for organs, then was it justice?”
Killian didn’t say anything right away. He stirred his coffee, expression unreadable. “You’re wrestling with it,” he said. “That’s something. But don’t confuse justice with satisfaction. One is about balance. The other’s about easing your own guilt.”
“So, what the hell am I supposed to do?” I snapped, then let out a shaky breath.
Killian sighed and glanced toward the window.
“You know, I see accountability differently since Jamie came into my life,” he said.
“I’ve been on the other end of it—cops, lawyers, judges—everyone thinking they were right, while Jamie and the others just want to keep their loved ones safe.
It changed me. Makes me see shades of gray most people pretend don’t exist.” He looked back at me.
“Is that what’s happening here for you?”
“Fuck no! I’m a cop, Killian.”
Killian waved at our wall, where the list was—a gallery of people we were researching to bring down for crimes for which they were unlikely to be prosecuted in the normal ways. “You’re doing good work, Levi,” he murmured. Then tilted his chin. “We all are.”
I sighed. Most of the people on our list hid behind layers of corporations and offshore accounts, laundering money and funding organized crime.
White-collar predators who’d graduated from financial schemes to something much darker—trafficking, slavery, and exploitation.
The kind of people who used their money to stay invisible while making fortunes off human suffering.
I didn’t answer because maybe he was right, and that scared the hell out of me.
“Understanding it doesn’t absolve you, Levi.
It just means you don’t get to lie to yourself anymore,” he said quietly.
For the first time, I wondered if trying to get Doc to reveal what he was hiding was about justice—or if I was trying to understand the part of myself that hadn’t stopped the killing.
I wrestled with that thought until it settled like lead in my chest. Then I said it out loud, to hear the words, “I’m no better than him.”
“Who?”
“Doc.”
Killian frowned. “What do you mean?”
I stared at the scuffed floor between us, fighting the urge to change the subject, shove it all back down where it lived. I was so damn tired of carrying it.
“My dad,” I said.
Killian blinked. “This is nothing like what that fucker did.”
I’d been sixteen. My dad was on the task force that was supposed to look into a cluster of suspicious cases—fast-tracked organs donated, donors who didn’t match the usual profiles.
There’d been whispers someone was feeding a private network off the back of gang hits and overdoses.
Rumors circulated that the cops were turning a blind eye to what was happening.
Killian knew all of this. My dad and what he’d done, the way my brother died because of that. Fuck, this was the reason I was even here as part of the Cave.
“He told me I didn’t understand how the world worked. That no one could fight everything. That you had to pick the battles that won’t get you crushed.” I swallowed hard. “I told him I’d never wear the same badge if that’s what it meant.”
“And yet…” Killian gestured at me. Detective. Cop.
“Yeah. And yet.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “You know I joined to prove I wasn’t him.”
I thought of the pit in the hillside, organs gone, eyes taken. Of Rourke on the table. I stood there and did nothing at the warehouse, a man dying in that chair.
“We’re doing a good job,” Killian said, as if he thought I needed reminding.
Maybe I did.
“I’m standing in the same kind of mess,” I said.
“Organ dumps, cartel money, dirty hospitals, maybe in the mix. The old guard probably thinks I’m compromised because of him.
And last night, when that guy was bleeding out in the chair, I froze.
” I met Killian’s gaze. “Tell me how that’s not the start of the same story.
” The worst part was that a small, hated part of me understood why my father hadn’t stopped either.
“Jesus, Levi, you’re not your dad.”
The elevator chimed before I could answer, and we both turned as Caleb and Sonya came into view—conversation over. Or at least parked. The past shoved back behind glass while the present kicked the door in.
I waited until they had their coffees, and then the four of us sat in a loose circle around the table.
It felt like the old days—back when the Cave had been nothing but an idea scribbled on napkins, four of us chasing justice outside the system.
I was almost glad Jamie and Lyric weren’t there; this was the core team, the ones who’d started it all, before everything got messy and complicated.
But looking around at their faces—Caleb’s tired eyes, Killian’s guarded calm, Sonya’s clenched jaw—I wasn’t so sure any of us were untouched.
Maybe the fractures had been there all along, and now they were starting to show.
I told them everything. The warehouse, the body, the man in the chair. The other guy with the knife. How Doc had stood there, silent, watching it happen, and how I’d frozen.
No one interrupted. Sonya’s expression was tight, Caleb’s hand hovering over his keyboard as if he wanted to start pulling data already. Killian stayed quiet, letting me get it all out. When I was done, the silence was thick enough to choke on.
“Jesus, Levi,” Caleb muttered. “You saw that happen and walked away?” Was he judging me? He had every right to judge me when the guilt was eating me from the inside.
Sonya winced. “Levi—”
“I’m no better than my dad.”
“Bullshit,” Killian muttered.
“Yeah, bullshit,” Caleb snapped.
“Agreed,” Sonya added.
Caleb’s expression softened in that way he hated anyone noticing. “And Doc killed this man?”
“No, he watched. He said the person who was killed tonight sold someone—I assume he sold Rourke—who was under Doc’s protection.”
Killian huffed, his eyes steady on me. “Doc is the last person to feel responsible for anything. This has to be more about Doc hating it, making him look bad?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? He said the man who was killed a few hours ago sold Rourke to someone else, and if we have any chance of finding the person who carved up Rourke for his organs, then I need to know who Doc really is.” I paused. “There’s more.”
“What?” Killian asked. He likely thought that, having heard the story twice, he’d had everything covered, but I’d left one part out.
“He kissed me. I kissed him. I don’t know.”
Silence, and I waited for the team to clutch their pearls, but Sonya shook her head, and Caleb huffed a laugh. Only Killian reacted.
“Don’t get too emotionally invested,” Killian warned.
I waved a hand. “Like you didn’t with Jamie?”
He did that half-shrug thing, meaning he’d seen my point, and then silence.
“I’ll see what I can find on the victim,” Caleb murmured. “And push harder on what’s out there for Doc.”
“I have to work,” I mumbled, not sure where I’d get the energy from. Somehow in the space of one night, my world had changed, and I didn’t like it one little bit.