Dom #2
In him, I had found someone I didn’t have to pretend like with everyone else, and I had found someone worth fighting for.
Levi had never been big, although apparently, he hadn’t stopped growing at seventeen.
So it had felt normal for me to be the one to keep him safe from threats.
Of course, he didn’t like the idea of anyone taking care of him, and so I had always been careful not to put it that way.
Not that he was stupid, hell, he was probably the smartest person I knew before Micah came along, and even then, it would be a contest between them once Micah got a little older.
Hell, once upon a time, I would have never guessed Levi would end up where he had after fifteen years, and yet he had. His moral center had always been reliable when we were younger, and I couldn’t help but wonder how the hell we had gotten to the point we were—
Straightening, I glanced at the person coming through the door and blinked. “Seriously?”
Micah looked around, confused at my tone. “What?”
“Stay here,” I said as I stood and made for the entrance before I was noticed.
He glanced my direction, and then Levi’s eyes widened, and his attention snapped to me.
I saw his lips part in surprise. Grinning, I hurried over before he could make up his mind whether or not it was a good idea to take off or stay.
I could see him look over his shoulder before I watched him let out a heavy sigh.
“Well, well,” I said with a grin. “Imagine finding you here.”
“The real question is why you are here,” he grumbled. “I knew...I thought this place was safe.”
“From running into me? Hell no, come on, join us,” I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him. A stupid thing to do, dealing with someone who was part of one of the country’s biggest criminal families, but this was Levi. He wasn’t going to do anything other than grumble and complain...I hoped.
“I don’t...who is that?” he asked warily as we approached the table, and I gestured toward the bench.
“This is Micah, my nephew,” I said, and watched as Levi looked between me and Micah, who stared back in curiosity.
“Which one?” Levi asked, grimacing and taking the seat. “Mason?”
“Ew,” Micah said. “Who is this?”
I snorted, taking a seat next to Levi, who stiffened when he realized I had chosen to sit with him rather than Micah.
“This is Levi. He and I started being best friends when we were just a bit younger than you are now. He moved away when we were seventeen. I ran into him again recently, so be nice.”
“My mom’s name is Moira,” Micah told Levi, still looking like he didn’t quite know what to make of him.
Levi glanced at me, a question in his eyes. “I...see.”
“Wanna guess who his dad is?” I asked with a grin.
“Who?”
“You remember that grumpy guy Moira was dating in secret so Mason wouldn’t find out?”
Levi blinked. “I do...I can’t remember his name, though.”
“Jace.”
“Ah, right.”
“Who’s been dating Mason for the past three years.”
Levi’s eyes widened. “Wait, your brother? The one who had essentially what counted as a blood feud with Jace?”
“One and the same,” I said with a laugh.
Levi squinted. “What in the...I would never have predicted that.”
“We didn’t predict it either. I mean, we’re used to weird shit in our family, but we weren’t ready for Mason to meet his old rival and suddenly decide, ‘Hey, that’s the guy I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
’ And so far, they’re making a pretty good go of it; they’re still weird as hell together, but once you get used to it, you forget they used to hate each other. ”
“Was it really that bad?” Micah wondered, and Levi let out a little bark of laughter.
“I used to spend a lot of time around your family,” Levi explained at Micah’s bewildered expression. “Like...a lot.”
“Were they like Dad’s parents? Is that why?”
“Uh—”
“Jace’s parents were pieces of shit,” I explained. “Beating, neglect, going hungry, all that.”
“Oh...that explains a lot,” Levi said with a frown as he fidgeted with the wrapped silverware in front of him.
“No, for a while, all I had was my mom. And she had to work very hard to take care of us. So it was either spend a lot of time at home or be somewhere else. My mom was...overjoyed when she realized I’d made a friend, and after she met your family, she was even happier when I started spending time with them rather than at home. ”
I smiled at the memory of Levi’s Mom meeting the whole crew for the first time.
She had tried her best not to be taken aback by the hotel when she’d first come in, but she hadn’t succeeded all that well.
It hadn’t helped when she went to the private dining room we used for family meals, but it had quickly eased when all of us began to show up.
Matty dragged Marcus in while they tried to wrangle all the kids to the table, where they probably hoped everyone would be on their best behavior.
It was pointless, but she had tried her best. Levi’s Mom, however, had watched the entire circus with wide, curious eyes.
That was all she had needed to see that large family in a hotel or not, we were a normal family overall.
That dinner had been all it took to get Levi’s Mom to be more than happy to let Levi come and stay with us whenever she wasn’t home.
It was a great relief for her, not just because Levi always struggled to make friends, but because she’d worried about him, his safety, and what he was doing with his time.
“My mom actually used to work at this place,” Levi said, looking around. I wasn’t surprised to see a shadow creep over his features as he frowned. “I’m surprised it’s still standing, actually.”
It had been the place that had claimed his mother’s life.
The shitty owner and his buddy in the government had helped to keep the place open and a death trap for far longer than it should have.
Levi had been...well, saying he’d been devastated by her death was an understatement.
I remembered how furious and wounded he’d been, furious that her death had been preventable, and wounded beyond words that he’d lost the one parent he had known and trusted his entire life.
Sure, he’d had us, but that wasn’t the same as the person who had birthed him, raised him, and loved him to that point.
..something I could understand completely.
His true anger stemmed from the fact that no legal action had been taken against the owner and his friend.
I had never gotten the whole story, but if he could get away with keeping the place a total dump and a hazard to life and limb, I suppose he could avoid legal trouble.
As far as I knew, at the time, the worst he had suffered was a fine that had probably hurt, but was nothing compared to the life of a wonderful, loving, and amazing human being who left her son behind.
“Why?” Micah asked. “Is it that old?”
“No,” Levi said, frowning at the back window. “It was...poorly run. This place was far too dangerous to open, and it...well, this is where my mother died.”
“Oh,” Micah’s eyes went wide, and for a moment, I felt a twinge of concern.
I loved the kid to death, but lately he had taken his ‘speak whatever is on my mind’ tendency from childhood and cranked it up to max ever since puberty had started flowing its insidious way through his system.
“I’m sorry, why would you come here then? ”
“I...came to see what had taken its place,” Levi said with a scowl. “I never expected that it would stand so long. Truth be told, I hoped to piss on the ashes...metaphorically speaking.”
“Literal wasn’t good enough?” Micah asked, and I watched as Levi’s scowl softened, his lips twitching.
“I suppose that would have been enjoyable as well,” Levi admitted.
“Well, the current owners run a pretty tight ship from what I’ve heard,” I said with a shrug.
“They heard what happened with the last owner, and wanted to shake off the old image and bring in something...better. I mean, it’s still a greasy spoon, but considering it was also once a giant death trap, I guess that’s an improvement. ”
Micah cocked his head. “What happened with the old owner? Prison?”
I shook my head .”Honestly, I don’t know. When I saw this place still standing years ago, I came in to see if that asshole was still running it like it was a Saw trap waiting to happen, but found new staff, renovations, and new owners. I talked to one of the servers at the time, Wanda—”:
“She still works here?” Levi asked with wide eyes.
“Now and then,” I told him with a smile. “She’s not as quick as she used to be, but that’s what happens when you’re over eighty. She remembers you by the way.”
“She remembers my mom.”
“And you. And she was the one who told me everything I know now.”
“Of course she did, that woman always picked up the latest gossip and gave it to the people she trusted...which included me when I was eight for some reason.”
“Well, she probably just liked you.”
“Perhaps.”
“It’s nice to see that she’s still around and kicking. Although I think she could have found a better place to work.”
Micah frowned. “So the old owner just...ran off? Caused a bunch of problems and disappeared? That’s ridiculous, where were the cops?”
“Letting him get away with it,” Levi told him, his dark mood returning. “He had connections, and he was able to talk his way out of trouble on a technicality that shouldn’t have existed.”
“So he gets off and runs off?” Micah asked with a scowl. “That’s stupid.”
“It was stupid,” Levi said, stealing a fry off my plate.