Dom #5
“Fuck,” I muttered, thinking that covered things quite nicely as I knocked back the rest of the drink and set it down. “For someone who always hated to be the center of attention, that uh—”
I actually didn’t know what to say. On one hand, it was a horrifying thought, standing here talking to someone who was basically running one-third of a criminal empire.
Were it anyone else, I would have been quietly searching for the exits and trying to figure out if it was better to call the cops now or wait until later.
Anyone who could get that high up in a criminal family was uh.
..well, they were someone you didn’t want to get on the bad side of.
There was going to be plenty of violence, brutality, and efficiency around.
But this wasn’t just someone, this was...this was Levi, right?
“What’s going through that head of yours?” he asked, and while I could tell he was going for a wry, maybe even a little jaded tone, there were cracks in that mask.
In fact, he looked like he needed to sit down and take a deep breath, maybe even a good nap... for a few days. “I was just...I keep thinking, are you you?”
“Last I checked,” he said, and this time he managed the wryness he’d attempted the first time.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “We’ve already talked about how things have changed for us, and how things have stayed the same. So what’s changed...and what’s stayed the same?”
“God, I wish I knew,” he said, and suddenly the mask faded away, but considering how tired he looked, maybe he just didn’t have the strength to hold onto it.
“I’ve been doing this for so long, and I’ve been this person for so long, I just..
.I don’t know what to think sometimes, Dom.
Not about myself, not about my life, and I was fine with that before.
But you just had to be this stubborn ass that wouldn’t let me have a moment of peace. ”
“Really?” I asked in surprise. “You’re going to blame me?”
“Yes,” he said with a snort, but there was no bitterness or judgment in his voice as he turned to look out the window.
“Because I should be thinking about running this operation, that I have a goddamn war with Los Muertos brewing, and instead...I’m thinking about what sort of man you’ve become.
I’m thinking about how much my mother would hate the life I have now, and how much she would be over the moon to know that you wouldn’t leave me alone the moment you got the chance to bother me. ”
“Los Muertos?” I asked, and I didn’t think I actually went pale, but it was goddamn close.
It was a name that made people worry even more than The Family.
At least with The Family, you could count on an old-world charm and the sort of code of honor and respect that people thought the old-school mafia had.
That came from movies and shit, but in the real world, The Family was a lot like that.
They didn’t have a problem doing all the fucked up, illegal things, but you could at least count on them not to destroy everything in the process, and from what I’d heard, if you kept your word with them, they would do the same with you.
Los Muertos though? Those were the definition of monsters and demons in the skin of people.
Anytime I heard their name, it would be a war crime if it were done elsewhere in the world.
Kidnapping, torture, maiming, rape, trafficking, just about everything awful one person could do to another, Los Muertos did as a matter of course.
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes. “And again, you are to blame.”
“What the fuck?” I exclaimed, reeling back. “How the hell are you going to blame me because you’re overworked and because those fuckers are here?”
“I’m not blaming you for those things in the way you think,” he explained with a snort.
“I’m blaming you for Los Muertos because you were the one who drew attention to the fact that their activities in my city have caused chaos, unnecessary destruction, and death.
I realized that if I was going to get this city under my control, I needed to deal with them quickly.
Of course, I probably wouldn’t have cared about them while I tried to get my resources together, until later.
But ever since you said something, the thought that they were causing trouble in the city you’re living in, the one you grew up in and had fallen in love with.
..bothered me. So I went out of my way to confront them and try to get them under heel and now.
...well, now I’m going to have to do it the hard way. ”
I continued to stare at him, shaking my head. “Your city, huh?”
He eyed me sourly. “And I blame you for how exhausted I seem because, goddammit, I’ve been exhausted for years, Dom.
I knew it, and no one else ever knew, not those who worked with me, or for me, and definitely not Augustine.
Then suddenly you are a presence in my life, and I find myself showing the cracks, and everything is dragging me into a pit of exhaustion and weariness that I’ve been holding off for years. ”
“Not really sure how that’s my fault,” I muttered. “You say I’m a ‘presence’ in your life, but I don’t see it. What ‘presence’ I have is so goddamn small I feel more like your stalker than your childhood friend.”
“I don’t imagine there’s much of a difference,” he said with a snort.
“What?”
“Nothing. But you’re making my point for me.
You barely have a presence in my life, and that’s already been enough to make me start slipping.
Suddenly, I’m not operating the same way as before.
Suddenly I’m worrying about you, what’s going on in your head, and what you think and feel rather than doing my goddamn job properly. ”
I looked away, not sure how to feel about that accusation.
It didn’t feel like anything I said or did should have mattered much to him.
He’d been living his life just fine without me, and he’d clearly been doing well at whatever.
..accountant stuff he’d been doing. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him that Augustine wasn’t the sort to waste time and energy, especially on trying to make someone feel better about themselves.
If he had that job, as important as it probably was, then he’d earned that job and had been good at it.
Not that it surprised me, Levi had never done anything without throwing every inch of himself into it.
He didn’t do anything half-assed. It was a fucking shame that it had to be criminal, but fuck, that was where he had ended up.
And if he was doing well, that didn’t happen because Augustine went easy on him.
So, again, we came back to...what was this person before me? And why was he suddenly caring so much about what I thought—
“What the fuck is that?” I asked as I watched him bend to set the glass down, and the shoulder of his shirt slipped slightly, revealing a bandage.
“What is what?” he asked as he straightened, eyes going wide when I got close to him. For a moment, he flinched, and I wondered how many people he’d let get close enough to touch him.
“Oh, you can cram that shit up your ass, I’ve seen you naked, I’ve been in you while naked,” I said, grabbing the collar of his shirt and jerking it aside with a growl. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s called a bandage,” he said, pulling his shoulder away from me and...did he just slap my hand? “Quit grabbing at it, it’s still tender.”
“Is this from the bullshit that happened yesterday?” I demanded.
“Bullshit?”
“Yeah, the explosion at the warehouse downtown.”
“I see someone keeps up on the news, but that was a gas leak last I heard.”
“The fuck it was! Or are you trying to say gas explosions happen around you all the time?”
“A lot of gas explosions happen around The Family. Among other accidents.”
I sat on that for a second. “Please tell me you didn’t blow that warehouse up and pay to have it covered up as a gas leak.”
“No,” he said, taking his glass over to the cabinet, pouring himself another heavy drink.
“Los Muertos blew it up with explosives they apparently had with them when they came to meet me. A meeting where, as I said, I attempted to get them to leave my city and stop terrorizing its people. It seems their idea of a polite refusal is to set off bombs. I then made sure any reports on the explosion would paint it as an accident rather than the work of gang fighting.”
“Seriously?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around that.
I mean, sure, that was absolutely something a crime lord would do, but at the same time, this was.
..Levi. I’d watched him cry at his mother’s funeral, I’d held him at night for weeks afterward so he wouldn’t go to sleep thinking he was alone. Now he was...bribing cops?
“My work in Cresson Point is centered around three key points. One being to regain control of the region for The Family, that much should be obvious,” he said, and I raised a brow when he swallowed the entire drink in a single gulp.
Watching his throat bob while he did it was distracting and a slightly disturbing realization.
“Secondly, it is to make sure I do not draw the heat that is still burning in Portland down here to my doorstep. And third, I want to achieve both of those things while at least maintaining, if not increasing, stability within the city. The last thing anyone needs is for the people of this city to think there’s a gang war between The Family and Los Muertos. ”
“Yeah, sure, because that’s not what’s happening or anything.”
“Yes,” he said slowly as if I was the one being slow.
“But when that happens, people get incredibly nervous. And when they get nervous and worried, they do things they normally wouldn’t.
Look, part of it is that I don’t want to create unnecessary stress if it can be avoided.
The other is that that sort of attention is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. ”
“How practical of you.”
“I also don’t want people to be worried.”
“How nice of you.”
“Dom.”
“What?”
“If you’re going to be an ass, feel free to leave.”
I threw up my hands. “Look, I don’t even know what I’m doing here in the first place. You seem not to want me around, you didn’t even want to tell me about you getting hurt, and it’s obvious that even if you hate your job, you’re going to keep doing it.”
“Yes, because there aren’t millions of people, billions even, who hate jobs that they keep doing.”
“Forget it,” I said with a sigh, rubbing my face.
“And you’re...” he stopped and stared out the window. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why I want it to continue since it’s just adding more trouble to my life, but...what you’re doing here is reminding me who I was...making me feel human again.”
That stopped me short. “I...what does that mean?”
“It means...stay here for a while?” he said softly, and I realized it took a lot more out of him to say that out loud than he wanted to admit. “Let it just be...you and me?”
Damn him.