34. Ava
AVA
I always liked looking at the city from afar.”
Levi glances over at me from the other side of his car, the faint glow of the dashboard casting sharp angles across his face. His expression is unreadable, as always — a locked vault behind glacier-blue eyes.
After we left Gran, we went and got cheap fast food and soda that’s probably laced with chemicals.
Now, we’re sitting up on the overlook above the city.
The food is delicious and there’s a calm I’m not used to hanging in the air.
For the first time in my life, I feel . .
. normal. Like an average twenty-something-year-old out with her boyfriend for a midnight snack.
Sure, he’s not my boyfriend, and sure, there’s the distinct crushing feeling of dread always at the back of my mind, but for once, it’s not so loud. For once, leaving Gran, I don’t feel like I’m leaving behind a piece of myself.
“Just a bunch of buildings,” Levi murmurs, leaning against the car door like he’s trying to disappear into the night. “I’ve always preferred the forest.”
“The silence,” I say, more to myself than to him.
He doesn’t respond right away, but then his voice drops even lower.
“Yeah . . . the silence.”
We sit like that for a while — two figures parked on the edge of the world, suspended above the city lights. From up here, everything seems quieter. The chaos is distant, softened into something almost beautiful. But I know better. I know what kind of ugliness hides behind those golden windows.
Like whatever’s on Levi’s mind. He’s been quiet since we left Pleasant Oaks, and I can’t help but worry it’s too much for him.
My life, my problems. This contract. Maybe the end is close, and I’m just too na?ve to recognize when it’s time to walk away.
“It’s because of your childhood,” I say after a long moment. I glance at him, half-expecting his walls to go up. But I need him to know, I see him. That I understand him, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. “That’s why you prefer the forest. The silence.”
Levi doesn’t answer right away, but when I look over, I find him already watching me. There’s something soft in his eyes — not quite vulnerability, but whatever comes before it.
“I feel the same way.”
He turns away, focusing again on the lights below like he’s trying to read something in the distance.
“The cabin was always my place when I needed to get away,” he says finally. “Still is.”
A quiet falls over us again, heavier this time. I shift in my seat, heart drumming with the weight of what I want to say next.
“Your father . . .” I begin, the words cautious, careful. “He wasn’t a good man, was he?”
Levi goes still. The kind of still that makes your skin crawl, like something just slipped under the surface.
“If you’re asking if he was an abusive prick? Yeah . . . He was.”
I shake my head, picturing William Cross in his younger years—bitter, sharp-tongued, hollowed out by his own hatred. If he was that cruel as a dying man, I can’t imagine what he was like in his prime.
“Can I ask a question?”
Levi doesn’t respond. I take a breath, nerves trembling in my chest. His silence stretches a beat too long before he answers.
“Yes.”
I brace myself, trying to make the words come out right.
“How did you . . . survive him?”
Levi’s eyes flicker —not in anger, but something deeper. Something like disbelief.
“I’m just asking because he was cruel even when he was sick. The things he’d say to me when I cleaned . . .” My voice catches. “I can’t imagine living with him when he could use his fists.”
He breathes out through his teeth, slow and deliberate.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Guess I was just too stubborn. I’d take the beatings, and when I didn’t make a sound, it just pissed him off. So . . . he’d go harder.”
The image pierces me like glass — Levi as a boy, silent through pain he didn’t deserve. My throat tightens, tears stinging in the corners of my eyes.
“That’s horrible,” I whisper.
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. As if it hadn’t shaped every piece of who he is.
“It was life. For as long as I could remember.” He pauses, jaw tightening. “I think he hated me because I looked like him. I reminded him of everything he couldn’t stand about himself. And he couldn’t tolerate being wrong. Ever.”
I stare at him, seeing that boy — all inky black hair and frosty blue eyes, and my heart threatens to crack open.
“I could never understand why Mom stayed with him.”
“She knew?”
He shrugs. “Some of it.”
A swell of rage rises in me. Not just at the man who hurt him, but at the woman who let it happen. Who saw and chose to look away. I don’t care what reasons she had—fear, money, love. None of them are good enough.
If my child was being abused, there’s nothing in the world that would stop me from protecting them. Even their father.
Levi shifts, eyes narrowing just slightly, as if he can read my mind.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ava.”
I meet his gaze. It’s hard and sharp, but I see what’s behind it — the part of him that still wants to believe she did the best she could.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“About?” he asks, voice lower now.
I shrug. “What it would be like to have a normal family.”
“What—two parents?”
“Two loving parents,” I correct.
Levi says nothing.
“Having a loving family doesn’t make life perfect,” I go on, “but it makes things easier. At least you’d know someone had your back.”
He turns to me then, the shadows on his face deepening.
“People leave, Ava. No one is permanent.”
My chest aches. Finally, I understand the contract—the boundaries, the rules. This distance he insists on keeping. It isn’t coldness. It’s fear. He’s been abandoned so many times, he’d rather push people away than risk being left again.
“What about just one person who understands you?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
The silence that follows feels louder than anything else.
I surprise us both when I rise, my breath catching as I shift over the center console and slide into his lap.
Levi doesn’t stop me. He leans back slightly, his eyes trailing up my body like a flame tracing a fuse—slow and hot.
When our gazes finally collide, something unspoken passes between us, electric and weighty.
Then I see it—just a flicker, but it’s there. The subtle bob of his throat as he swallows. A moment of vulnerability, as if I’ve touched something deep inside him. Like he’s fighting the urge to give in.
Like I could have anything I asked for, anything at all. All I have to do is say the words.
“Don’t you want someone to love you unconditionally?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper as my hands trail down his chest.
A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Not all of us are so lucky, baby girl.”
He says it like it’s a fact of life. Like he’s already decided that kind of love isn’t meant for him. His eyes—ice-blue and to my peridot green—search mine.
The air in the car feels alive, humming with something neither of us dares to name. A quiet moment stretches between us, and then—
“You—”
But I never get to finish.
His mouth crashes onto mine, cutting me off mid-thought, mid-breath. And just like that, my world tilts. Heat blooms through me, scorching and all-consuming. His kiss is rough and hungry, like he’s starving. Like this kiss is the only thing anchoring him to the present. To me.
And I realize—this is dangerous. I’m in too deep. I’m slipping into something I swore I’d avoid. I told myself I wouldn’t fall. That I couldn’t afford to. But how could I not?
Levi Cross is like the first breath after nearly drowning—gasping, desperate, necessary. He’s fire in my bloodstream, oxygen in my lungs, a lighthouse in the dark. He’s every daydream I clung to as a scared little girl, wishing for someone, anyone , to keep me safe. To choose me.
He’s everything. And he doesn’t even know it.
His hands trail down my back, firm and possessive, before gripping my ass and hauling me closer.
He groans into my mouth—a low, guttural sound that shoots straight through me.
There’s a tremble in his fingers, a tension in his body that says he’s holding back more than he’s letting on.
He clutches me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear, like he’s already lost me once and won’t survive losing me again.
I roll my hips over him, sighing softly at the friction.
“Goddamn, baby,” he rasps.
When he drags me flush against his chest, his kiss deepens. Hot. Desperate. Like I’m the only thing that’s ever made him feel alive.
“Ava . . .” he breathes, lips ghosting down my jaw and to the soft skin of my neck.
“Yeah?” My voice is hoarse, trembling. The windows are fogging up from our breath, our shared heat turning the car into a cocoon.
“I . . .” His voice cracks on the word. He falters. I lean back slightly, fingers brushing the scar etched into his bottom lip—the one I’ve traced in my dreams more times than I can count.
“I know,” I whisper.
His eyes lock on mine, dark and unflinching, and for a moment I swear I see every wall he’s ever built start to crack.
There’s a softness there—raw, unguarded—that makes my breath hitch.
The tension shifts—still charged, but different now, sweeter and heavier all at once. He exhales like I’ve just knocked the wind out of him. His thumb traces the curve of my cheek, lingering before sliding down to the corner of my mouth. I kiss the pad of it, tasting the faint salt of his skin.
Levi leans in, so close I can feel the heat radiating from him, his breath fanning over my lips. “Whatever happens, you’re not alone. You know that, right?”
My heart beats unsteadily in my chest, my mind at war with itself.
“When will you realize the same thing?”
I lean forward, pressing my body flush against his, while his hands roam. The movement draws a low, involuntary groan from his chest—one that vibrates straight through me.
He kisses me again, slower this time, deep and deliberate, like he’s savoring every second. My fingers thread into his hair, tugging just enough to pull another sound from him—half growl, half plea.
“You drive me fucking crazy,” he mutters against my lips.
“And you like it,” I breathe.
He grins—sinful and tender all at once—before pulling me back into another kiss, one that feels like a promise and a warning tangled together.