Dom #7
“Don’t mind Mason, he’s just discovering that he actually cares and worries about his family,” Matty said with a chuckle. “He’s not dealing with it very well.”
“He’s right to hate me,” Levi said, eyes riveted on the blanket like he might find an answer in its stitching.
Matty sighed, reaching out with her other hand to gently grip his chin and pull him up so he was forced to look at her. “Did you really do all the things you said you did?”
Levi’s chest shuddered, but he spoke clearly. “Yes.”
“The good, the bad, the foul, and the noble?”
“I did the—”
“All of it?”
He swallowed hard and long before answering. “Yes.”
“And did you do all that for my family...for my son?”
“Yes.” That came out instantly. “And yes, I love him. I’ve always loved him, and no matter what, I’m always going to love him.”
“You know how hard the future is to predict and how cruel life can be, so don’t make promises you can’t keep...but then again, love is a stubborn thing, and it endures even if it doesn’t always take the form we want it to take.”
“I know.”
“And the men who did this to you, to Dom?”
His eye blazed for the first time, a sick, chilly pleasure shining bright to remind me that no matter what happened or how long it took, there would always be that vicious killer in him. “Dead, but not before I made sure they knew just how badly they fucked up by coming for him.”
“And...you’re not in The Family?” she asked, moving along easily as if the glimpse into the monstrous, brutal side of him didn’t faze her a bit.
Then again, I had watched her go to bat for each of her children over the years.
It had left me with the distinct impression that she would do anything for any of us, no matter what it cost her.
Maybe there was a monster in every person that sprang into existence the moment they became a parent, but it was chained and trained by love.
So perhaps she understood what it meant to feel the call for blood when she watched someone she loved suffer.
“No.”
“And won’t be going back? No matter if you and Dom don’t work out?”
“Never.”
She smiled. “Oh, sweet child, you’re free. I hope you understand that, and if you don’t, I hope you understand it soon. And no matter what your reasons, even if it was just a consequence of trying to save everyone, especially Dom—”
“No, it was everyone.”
“But especially Dom,” she said, smiling when he didn’t answer immediately.
“That’s okay, expected even. But even though you did it mostly for him, you did it.
Not me, not even Dom, you. Maybe you were stuck for years because of something you chose when you were young and full of more pain than you knew what to do with.
But you were given the chance to make a different choice, and you did it without hesitation.
You found a way out on your own, never forget that. ”
Levi stared at her, and I could see him struggling to find words, but failing, as a tear threatened at the edge of his remaining eye. “I—”
“Just as someone can choose evil in a moment of weakness, so can someone find strength and choose good...and you chose love and freedom,” she told him firmly.
“Your mother...Lana would be so proud of you. And before you argue, I’m a mother, and I knew her as best I could back then, and she loved you as fiercely as I love my own.
So I know she would be proud of you because I’m proud of you. ”
It was the final blow, and I watched as Levi’s face collapsed, his eyes closed, head bowed forward as he let out a sob.
I moved forward, but Matty was faster, wrapping him up in her arms and bringing his face to her chest as she hugged him tightly.
I was left to stand there, tears leaking from my eyes as I stared over her back at Marcus, who had tears of his own while he rubbed her back.
“It’s okay,” Marcus mouthed to me, but it wasn’t necessary; I knew it was okay, not totally and not in a way that was going to feel that way for a long time, but yeah...it was okay.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there, suspended in a moment of shared grief, love, and hope. Eventually, Levi’s sobs petered off, and Matty backed up, Marcus handing over a box of tissues for Levi to rub furiously at his nose.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cry like that,” Levi said, his voice rough before blowing his nose and wincing. “Ow.”
Matty snorted, wiping a stray piece of hair off his forehead. “I think you’ve been drowning in grief and loneliness for too long, Levi. It’s time you got to cry at least in part because you’re happy and feel loved. And you are loved, keep that in mind.”
“God, stop,” he whined, and I winced at how pitiful he sounded.
Between that and his repeated emotional display, he was going to be insufferable for days.
I was already having to count how long it would be before I could get him to ‘face’ my family after tonight.
Between almost getting them killed, them bringing him hesitantly into the family, and him crying in front of most of them. ..shit, it could be next year.
I was going to need Matty’s help.
“Now,” Matty said, with a sniffle of her own. “There’s still so much that has to be dealt with, but that can wait for another day. It can wait, because we’ve got time now. But what you don’t have time for is the next family dinner, which is this Sunday. And you’re going to be there.”
Levi’s eye went wide. “But that’s in—”
“Four days,” Marcus added with a smile. “But seeing as how you’re unemployed now, I can’t imagine you have a schedule that will prevent you from showing up.”
“But—”
“Uh uh,” Matty said, patting his hand. “None of that, I won’t hear any of it. If I have to show up and bring you myself, and remind you that you put me through a world of hell over the past couple of weeks to make you show up, I’ll do it.”
“She can wield guilt like a warhammer, don’t push it,” Marcus warned him. “Just be a good boy and show up.”
“And that’s the sign of a well-trained husband,” she told Levi as if she wasn’t just as bad when it came to Marcus. “Take notes.”
“I’m already wrapped around his finger,” I said with a shrug.
“He went to war and threw away his whole life to save you,” Marcus said with a snort as he helped Matty off the bed. “I think the feeling is mutual.”
“I’d do it again and again and again,” Levi said with a sigh. “That goes for all of you.”
Matty peered down at him with a curious smile. “I always thought it might be Moira...but are you going to end up being the protector of this family if I should die?”
Levi’s eyes went wide. “I will make to you the same promise I made Dom.”
“Err,” I said, wondering if now was really the time to whip out the killer persona.
“Can you keep it?”
“Yes.”
“Then go on, make it.”
“I promise that those who would hurt you...or yours, will die screaming in the attempt.”
Matty stared at him for several seconds before looking at me, giving a bemused smile. “How strange. To see the nervous, little twig of a boy grow up into a man who, in another circumstances, could scare the living bejesus out of me.”
“He means it,” I said, thinking of the brutal state of the one man’s corpse, and the ugly satisfaction on Levi’s face when he’d watched the other man die.
“Oh, that’s why I said it,” she said with a laugh. “But he means it for the sake of my family, so it makes me feel protected. I had better see you on Sunday, eight sharp.”
“She means it,” Marcus repeated as he walked with her, arm in arm.
“God, how long do you think it’ll take before he stops acting so meek and more like himself?” Matty asked as they walked out. “It’s so weird to have a well-behaved child.”
“Give it time, he’ll be giving you hell like the rest of them.”
“Thank God for that.”
I waited till the door was closed before sitting down again. “How do you like that? From monster to family protector in a matter of minutes.”
Levi stared at the blanket. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Yeah? Well, Augustine deserves to be stuffed into a burning tire full of glass and rolled down a bumpy hill into a lake of acid, but people don’t get what they deserve,” I said, and felt better when he gave a choked laugh.
“Now there’s a mental image,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “What was it Milo said? Looney Tunes? Now that’s a Looney Tunes way of dying.”
“I never said he should die from it, I’d prefer he didn’t. Give him time to think, long and hard.”
“Brutal...I should have told them I’ll still have to deal with Augustine. It feels like I’m still lying to them.”
“You’re working with him on the details to get free of him and The Family.
Telling them that is just going to set Moira and Mason off again for no good reason,” I said, sliding my arm over his shoulder and pulling him against me.
It was a testament to how exhausted he was that he didn’t resist, just let himself be pulled against me and lay there comfortably.
“I guess they have a right to be doubtful, suspicious.”
“Maybe. But they don’t need to go out of their way to keep reminding you of it either.”
“All of this doesn’t feel real,” he said softly, his hand falling into my lap and holding my thigh. “It feels like a dream. But it can’t be a dream.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never dreamed of anything like this before. Even at my most miserable, when I regretted my choice from years ago, I never let myself dream of anything else. I was stuck, and all I could do was try to improve my situation, not change it. But this is—”
I closed my eyes and fought the rising tide of emotions choking my chest. I couldn’t imagine how absolutely, heartbreakingly alone he had felt for so many years.
How he had given in to the choice he made at seventeen and given up on ever having anything good and loving in his life.
How he had smothered and buried even the hope, the dream of something different, something better.
He had turned his back on the idea of love and family, so he had filled it with success, efficiency, sex, and the occasional creature comfort.
“Well, it’s not a dream,” I told him finally. “It’s real. All of it.”
“I don’t know what to feel about that...or what to do.”
“What you’re going to do is get some rest. And then we’re going back to your place, and we’re going to exist..
..and recover. Maybe it’ll all hit us before Sunday, or maybe it’ll still feel weird and dreamlike.
Maybe it’ll happen later. Maybe it’ll hit me first, and I’ll lose it, or you’ll break down first. But we’ll have each other when it happens.
And then it’ll happen again and again, and we’ll be there for each other.
But the important thing is that we take each day for what it is and just.. .be.”
“Just...be,” he said.
“Okay, it sounds stupid as hell when someone else says it aloud, but—”
“No, no...I can’t remember the last time I could just...be,” he said, sounding mystified by the very idea. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Do you want to figure it out?” I asked him softly.
“If you’re there? Yes, please, yes.”
“Then we’ll do that. Together.”
“They accepted me. Slowly, a little bitterly in Mason and Moira’s case, but they accepted me.”
“They did.”
“And you...you came for me. Saved me.”
“You saved me. It’s what you do when you love someone. And we’re going to keep doing that. Not all the time, and I sure as fuck hope not in the same way... but in other ways. Little ways.”
“Like when it hits you that you fucking died?”
“Mhmm, or when it hits you that you were willing to blow yourself up to save us when you could have had this instead.”
“When you realize that maybe it’s time for a career change?”
“And when you realize that the family really does love you.”
“Sounds hard.”
“Probably gonna suck like hell sometimes.”
“But we’ve got each other.”
“Damn right.”
“Good.”