46. Bay
FORTY-SIX
bay
Opening the door to Dad’s hospital room, the nurse who caught me in the hallway voluntarily told me that nothing’s changed. He’s still in an induced coma and we’re just waiting at any moment for him to wake up to access.
It was the beginning of my downhill spiral of how long that would be as I find Levi seated at Dad’s bedside. His broad shoulders and back facing me as he hunches over and just stares at him.
Softly, I close the door, not wanting to break the silent moment. Dad sleeps peacefully in the same spot he always does, and the stretch of this unknown sleep makes me on edge. The doctor said it could be several days to several weeks before he awakens.
“You didn’t need to come back,” Levi states quietly. “Doc said you were here all morning.”
I step deeper in the room and shrug, though he can’t see it. “Just hoping I’ll be here when he wakes up.”
“You’re missing school.” He glances over his shoulder at me, face placid, but I can tell how upset he is. “You know your dad would want you to be in class.”
“Then don’t rat me out.” I pull the nearby chair next to him, but still try to appease him when I say, “I can catch up online. My professors know what’s happening.”
“Your teachers are going to kill you.” He returns his concentrated attention back to Dad. “I want more for you.”
I want more for him, too.
My lips set in a fine line of a weak smile at his sentiment. “I don’t need anything, Lev. I’m happy with my family.”
The steady beeping of machines reminds me how jacked up it is now. Without our steeple—Dad—I’m afraid I’m going to fail everybody.
“You happy with them?”
My eyes flick to the side of Levi’s edged jaw lined in dark stubble. I wonder if it’s written all over my face. If my best friend can feel the electricity that courses through me and them.
“What do you mean?” I’m evading, and we both know it. I’m scared that my immediate answer of yes is going to upset him. That it’s going to make him believe that I chose them over us.
Because no matter where the next few weeks, months, or years take me, Levi will always be my rock. He will always be family.
“Which one did you pick?”
In his brain, it would have to be one or the other. First, it was Reeve. But I’m still so pissed at him right now that I say, “Torin.” That gets Levi to jerk his head to me with furrowed eyebrows. “I know.”
“You picked Baby Wildes?” I give him a curt nod. “Why?”
“You told me to get close to them,” I reply flatly. “I did.”
“I think you got close enough.” He turns his attention back to Dad. “I don’t want you to have a broken heart after this.”
What happens after this?
Does Levi expect me to drop them when Emilio goes down? Does South Shore and The Landings finally become peaceful? Will it always be the gray line that the other side can’t cross?
“Levi,” I mutter softly. “Why do I feel like you’re not telling me something?”
He remains silent, only making that unease in my gut grow. “We need to talk about something. Something you’re going to need to hold until the right time. Something I shouldn’t tell you…” He takes a heavy inhale and holds it. “Something Roger should be telling you…not me.”
“What is it?”
“With this information,” my best friend continues. “And with people knowing that you know this intel, it can screw the outcome of everything I’ve worked for. What Roger has worked tirelessly for.” His green eyes flick to me and his voice lowers. “Do I still have you, Astor? Have you picked them over me yet?”
Pain slices through my gut, and it lands aimlessly to the pit of my body, throbbing from the aftermath at what one of the most important people in my life just dropped on me.
“What are you talking about?” I reach for him, clutching onto his tatted forearm with a squeeze. “I’d never pick anyone over you.”
“I dunno,” he mutters, making my eyes burn with tears. “Where do you and I go from here? If we take Emilio down…”
“I am always here,” I stress with a hard squeeze. “I never want you to worry about that.”
“But I do.”
“Wh—” My words get caught up in my throat, but I shove away, working myself into a stupor. “Why would you think that?”
“Because it didn’t take much with their pretty words and promises. I’ve seen you mesh through tough situations, but the moment those boys flipped the script, you fell right into their trap.”
“You think I’ve betrayed you?” I drop my touch from Levi’s forearm and his jaw tightens. “I’m not about to fight with you in Dad’s hospital room. So, if you’re going through it, Levi, go take a walk.”
“That’s the thing…” Levi pushes himself up to stand, eclipsing over me with his height and turning his broad frame to fully face me. He blocks the view of Dad, his dark features boring into me like I’m an enemy and not a friend. “He’s not your dad, but you know that already.”
My teeth instantly clench together, but I still grind out, “What’s your point?”
“My point is that you risk more the longer you spend lying to me.”
“I’m not lying—” Levi bends over so quickly that I gasp as he places both of his palms on either side of my chair.
“Tell me, straight to my face, that you don’t care about them. That everything I’ve been doing for all these years to keep you safe has been for nothing.”
My brows snap together. “Lev…you know I love you.”
“I don’t think you do.”
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t do anything but settle into this new reality of what my life just transformed into. I didn’t conjure up that our plan would be our downfall.
“What do you want me to do? Do you want me to drop this whole plan right now? Do you want me to say that I lied to them, and this was all a game?”
“Can’t,” Levi deadpans. “Because then what happens with Emilio? He’ll kill you.”
“Then maybe we should just let him.”
Levi’s fingers curl into the front of my shirt and he thrusts me forward, but I already saw it coming. I already observed the fury in his eyes after I only got four words out. “You got me fucked up if you think I’m going to allow Emilio to murder you while I stand by and do nothing. I’ve protected you almost my whole life. I’ve looked out for you and held back catching a charge on Matteo because what good would I be to you in jail? You know my mom was a heroin addict, and in one of her highs, approached Roger about a son…me.”
“You’re…Roger’s son?”
“And you became his daughter after Emilio murdered your mother.” My lips part, but I hold on to the sob that’s been wanting to rip through my throat.
“Why…didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Because I know you. I know that you’d stick a knife in him on that first Friday night dinner you attended. Roger was in love with your mother. When she died, he took you and his daughter, my sister, out of town and far away from the chaos brewing when Emilio turned in Penn. Roger was gone for over a year until he was able to build up a defense for South Shore to bring you home.”
Fuck not killing Emilio myself. He took away a woman who could’ve treated me a million times better than the one who claimed she was mine.
“ When I was fourteen, Roger told me a secret. One that I was said to carry to the grave unless something shifted to where it had to be said. I don’t know if Roger is coming out of this coma or not, Bay. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Dad is going to come out of this,” I convey as confidently as I can. “He’d never leave us like this. We’re still morons.”
Levi’s lips lift a bit. “Speak for yourself, Astor.”
“It’s going to be okay.” I run my thumb over his flesh. “He’s got this.”
“Yeah,” he exhales. “Carry that hope for the both of us. I’m feelin’ a little pessimistic these days.”
“What kind of secret are you holding? You don’t have to do this all alone.”
“The secret…of who you are, what you are, and what you could do. What Judah knew.”
I didn’t want to kill you, Bay…but you’ll either ruin us all or be ruined. I’d rather save you from that.
All the crazy things he spoke about. I didn’t understand what he meant. I chalked it up as bullshit.
“Tell me,” I practically beg. “What am I?”
“You’re the ticking time bomb,” he alleges. “You’re the one person in this whole Titan bullshit who can either make or break either side.”
“You think I won’t choose you.” I stare at him, unwilling to understand why he’d believe that I wouldn’t.
I’d always chose Levi.
“I’m not saying you wouldn’t want to,” he replies. “But I don’t hold you down like that. Like I should have.”
“Like…Matteo?”
Levi quirks a brow. “You think there’s a bone in my body that would treat you like Matteo?”
“Of course not.” I hold his moss eyes, desperate for him to give me what he needs. “Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. I would give up anything just to keep you in my life.”
“Even them?”
I hate that he asked that question. That my best friend is giving me an ultimatum that I actually have to think about. That Torin and Reeve have gotten so deep under my skin that I’d die a little if I had to hurt them.
“Is that what you’re asking me to do?” I hedge. “Because I need you to be very clear with your next words on what you want from me. How I play some major role in this game I never wanted to be in.”
Levi continues to stare at me before something cracks in his brain and he pulls back a bit. “No. I’d never force you to be by my side. I want that of your own free will.”
“Then it looks like you’re fucked,” I reply. “Because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“Careful, Astor,” he warns through a deep octave. “If I didn’t know any better…I’d say you were trying to lock me down.”
I allow my lips to lift for the first time since waltzing in this room. “I did that a long time ago.” Levi snorts out his rebuttal to that, but straightens his spine to rise. “Now tell me who the hell I am.”
“Let’s wait for the old man to tell you himself.”
“How about no.”
“How about too fucking bad.”