Dom #3
It was cold, efficient, and utterly without remorse.
Precisely the sort of thing you’d expect of a crime lord, but not what I expected of Levi.
Trying to make sense of it meant trying to take the crime lord I’d seen and the Levi I knew and put them together in one picture.
I had thought I’d been doing that all along, but now I knew I hadn’t.
He had always been both of those things, but where I hadn’t really seen the crime lord before, I think he had forgotten about the Levi side.
“Give it to Roland,” I heard Levi say as he entered the room. “He’ll know what I want...yes, I’m sure. Do it.”
“Something wrong?” I asked as Levi hung up.
He glanced at me, and I saw hesitation on his face before he turned away. “Just following up on business.”
“Are you being private because the good doctor is here, or because you think I’m going to freak out?”
Levi looked at me, amusement breaking the cool mask. “Good doctor? What exactly have you two been gossiping about?”
“The topic you told me not to bring up around her,” I informed him. “Turns out your dad isn’t just a prick, but a super prick.”
“Well, I could have told you that without forcing Nic to regale her story,” he said with a shake of his head as he went to the liquor cabinet. “Are you going to give him meds, Nic?”
“I don’t know,” she said as she finished the stitches and looked at me. “Will you require pain killers or do you think you can tough it out?”
“If I say yes, does that mean I can’t have a drink?” I wondered.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Levi informed me as he began to pour.
“Then fuck pain killers, I want some of that rum,” I said with a snort.
Nic finished up. “Do I need to go over the proper procedure for care and maintenance? Or remind you not to do anything that would reopen the wound for a few weeks? And considering the size of you, and how I’m sure that was no accident, yes, that includes working out.”
“Oh, God, Miller is gonna kill me,” I groaned, slapping my face and grimacing when the motion tightened my stomach. “Ow.”
“I’m assuming his trainer?” Nic asked as she took the glass Levi offered her.
“I assume so, he’s never mentioned him by name before,” Levi said as he held out a glass to me with more rum than usual.
I took it gratefully. “Probably because I’ve been on leave, I don’t have a better way of putting it. But I said that if Miller was going to do that to me, then I didn’t want to see his ugly mug or hear his annoying ass voice the whole time.”
“You...are on leave?” Levi asked, and I winced when I heard the accusation in his voice. Which was not fair, there was plenty about his life he didn’t tell me, and I was not going to feel bad about doing the same to him.
“Yeah, and it’s almost up. I’m supposed to be going back into training next week, and—”
“Next week?” Levi asked softly. “That would be the sort of information I need to know if I’m going to find a way to make this work for you.”
“I’ll just tell him I got into a bar fight. He’ll be pissed no matter what.”
“And when he asks how you got stitched?”
“I had someone who knew how to do it, shit happens.”
“You will more than likely be required to go to a licensed physician to confirm the wound is in good shape. They’ll notice someone who knows what they’re doing stitched you up,” Nic pointed out as she drained her glass.
“Fine, someone who was a medic in the army or whatever stitched me up,” I said with a frown. “You don’t have to go through extra shit just to cover things up, not all the time. I can lie too, Levi.”
“Good to know,” he said dryly.
“I’ve heard worse plans,” Nic said, setting the glass down. “But with that, my job here is done.”
“You’ll find the money in your account,” Levi told her. “Along with extra for making this a rush job. If it doesn’t cover it, let me know.”
“If there is one thing I know I can count on, it’s you being more than generous in paying me,” she said with a snort. “Just try to keep this one away from sharp objects.”
“I will do my best,” he said, and I wondered just what sort of things he was planning.
My worst fear was that this was going to send him soaring back over the line and keep me away again.
After all the time we’d spent together over the past few weeks, I didn’t think I would ever be able to go back to not having him in my life again.
I didn’t look forward to the argument that awaited us when Nic was gone, and Levi tried to push things. “How long will you be in town?”
“I have some business to attend to, but I should be around for a while yet. Why? Are you planning on having me show up again?” she asked dryly.
“I’m at war with Los Muertos,” he told her.
That was the first time I saw genuine emotion flit over her, her skin seeming to draw back even tighter, and her eyes widening. “I see. Then perhaps I will stick around a little longer. I can push to a few months, and after that...I won’t be as readily on call.”
Levi shot her a grateful smile. “That would work just fine. And I appreciate it.”
“I certainly hope so,” she said tersely before grabbing her bag. “Call me should you need anything...I hope you don’t.”
Levi raised a brow. “I will, and thank you.”
She gave a soft ‘hmph’ and left without another word.
“Feeling better?” Levi asked from his chair, dangling his drink in front of him idly.
“I’m not going to start being a big baby,” I told him with a scowl. “So don’t go worrying about me.”
Levi turned to stare out the window, his face warming as he watched the sky light up with the burning colors of sunset.
It gave color to his usually pale features, but it did little to soften the troubled expression on his face, lips thin and eyes narrowed against the glow.
I could sense something building inside him, and I waited, mostly because I didn’t know what to say.
I realized I had probably said the wrong thing, but I knew he needed time to deal with whatever was going on in that head of his.
“Today...” he began and stopped, swallowing hard. “Today was...illuminating.”
“Not the word I would have used,” I told him, still unsure where the conversation was going.
The entire mood had shifted now Nic was gone, and I didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
I wasn’t agreeing with his accusation that I turned into a big baby when I was sick or injured, but I knew I definitely wasn’t at my best.
“It proved my point. Having you in my life is detrimental. Mostly to you,” he said, and he didn’t move, but I knew his thoughts were on my stitched-up wound. “I was proved right...and there is no victory in that. Only bitterness...among other things.”
I frowned. “Don’t start down that path. I know where you’re going with this, and don’t you dare.”
“Oh? Where am I going?”
“If this is leading to some stupid ass speech about how you knew it was bad for me to be close to you and that I need to start thinking about whether or not I should stick around, you can stop right there,” I told him with a dirty look.
“Because I knew you had a dangerous life, and I figured it was even more dangerous the minute I realized why you were sent here. And then I managed to figure out, all on my own by the way, that you were in even more danger than before when you mentioned you were in a goddamn turf war with Los fucking Muertos.”
He snorted. “There’s a new name for them.”
“Levi,” I said, trying to get him to look at me and failing. “I’m smart enough to know that being around you isn’t exactly good for my health. And I’m not just saying that because I’m sitting here with a new scar, either. I knew it from the beginning.”
“Really?” he asked dryly. “From the moment you saw me on the street and chased me down like a lunatic?”
“Eh, people around that area know the family that owns that hotel is a bunch of weirdos.”
“Not what I was getting at.”
“I know. And no, I guess I wasn’t really thinking about the danger of trying to hunt you down.
I had the time after you took off like a bat out of hell to realize what it might mean.
But even if I didn’t know from the first time I saw you, or didn’t understand what it meant trying to talk to you, I have figured it out since.
And this? This is confirmation. It’s confirmation that I was right in how dangerous I thought it would be. ”
“And you’re still going to insist on trying to be a part of my life,” he said with a weary sigh, draining his glass and setting it on the nearby table with a hard thump. “Because you don’t understand.”
“Alright, you know what? I’m starting to understand that you’re...kicking yourself for what happened,” I began, and his head snapped toward me, eyes blazing.
“Gee, I wonder why that might be?” he snapped.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this position.
I can’t even decide where I failed the most. Was it in not refusing to let Augustine send me to this place?
I’ve never been good at refusing him when he gets pushy, even though I no longer fear him as much as I used to.
Perhaps it was in not finding a way to push you away again, or my weakness at giving in to you even when I knew how dangerous your involvement with me would be.
Because I do know, I’ve lived this life for a decade and a half, I know what it means.
So I don’t know if I should be sorry, angry, or just plain bitter because this is my life, and I let go of control at a time when I needed to hold as tightly to that control as I could. ”