58. Bay
FIFTY-EIGHT
bay
Got You On My Mind by NF plays off Levi’s radio as we make our way to the hospital to see Dad.
It’s only one of the things he and I have planned today. We’re a few days out from having to find a new place for me and the girls before Sheriff Muncy’s fat ass kicks us out and Vivian probably burns our place down. Levi also wanted to drive around and look at a few places that he had in mind that we might be able to afford.
He’s going to move in with us too to keep the house safer and since I know Dad is his dad too, it only feels right. There’s no point for him to be away from us.
Even if it drives both Torin and Reeve insane.
Not that I think Torin needs much else going on, but he’s off his rocker right now and I’m terrified that he’s up to something.
“So, Matteo…” Levi starts, badly I might add, because he couldn’t just warm me up to this topic. “You wanna pull the trigger or me?”
“I want the video first.”
“And that’s going to do what exactly?” Levi cranes his head to look at me, but I’m already peering out the window and away from his judgment.
Nothing.
I’m not going to punish or scream at Torin for not believing me. I’m pretty sure I acted similarly when I found out Reeve and whoever entered my home to kill Dad.
Mind you, I didn’t have a gun waving around, but Torin used to violence and immediate answers.
I just don’t know how this is all going to add up and play out.
The only thing I have been experiencing is the opening of a new wound that got pried open to bleed out again.
And now I have to open a new one with the new information I’ve learned from Reeve.
“Did you know I was Penn Northcott’s granddaughter?”
I feel the air in the car tense off the last word and Levi’s gaze on my body. “Who told you that?”
“Reeve.” I can’t look at him because I’m afraid I’ll see the truth, so I wait for him to openly tell me. But even then, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, because it means I’m a player in this game, whether I was acting like one or not.
“Roger was supposed to tell you, Bay,” Levi mutters. “Not me. This was all supposed to be laid out. None of this was supposed to be a secret.”
“Why?” I glance over at him, needing his green eyes to comfort me in the way he knows how. “I can’t stay here.”
His brows crash before he steals a glance at me from the road. “You wanna bail?”
I’d never leave him.
In fact, I’d never abandon South Shore without Levi and my family at my side. But this…it’s getting too much, and I don’t know who else knows.
“Let’s just go.” You’re gonna leave Reeve behind and Torin? After everything you’ve done. “I…I can’t do this.”
Levi’s inked hand reaches across the front to clasp my hand in my lap and laces his thick fingers with mine. “I got you, Astor. No more staying with Torin in rooms alone. He’s gotta be fucked up right now.”
My interest is piqued that Levi would know, and it’s just another level of how much I don’t know around here. “They were close?”
“I remember them runnin’ together when I was younger. When Judah was in The Landings. He went by Lennox, though. Somehow, he got tangled up with Matteo and that was that.”
“I didn’t know they were linked up. Why didn’t you tell me that I stabbed Torin’s brother?”
“What the fuck was that going to do?” he counters back simply. “Make you more paranoid?”
More than likely.
However, I could’ve been privy to it.
“I could’ve prepared for this,” I counter.
I could’ve not fallen in love with Torin…maybe.
“Did you know there was a video of you and Judah?”
“No.”
“Then it looks like you were kept in the dark like everyone else. And…it wasn’t my call to blurt out the information because Roger was supposed to do it. We argued about it, but he made good points. No need for you to be walking around, waiting on someone to figure out that you are the entire heir to the Titan throne.” My stomach practically begins to gut itself. “I don’t know how Judah figured it out…but you have the power to thrive in this illusive, underground organization, so maybe he was afraid you’d hand it right over to Emilio.”
“Why the hell would I do that? He killed my mother .”
“He’s a Wildes, Bay,” Levi says, as if that explains it all. “I can’t say they’re the most rational human beings in the world.”
True.
I just hoped Torin wasn’t like them.
“It wasn’t like I walked around with a number one fan of Emilio Wildes shirt on.”
Levi chuckles a little. “Yeah, well…look where paranoid gets you.” I glance back out the window because it’s eating me alive right now. “So, about Layla and her band of bitches?—”
“Drop it,” I issue out with another thought. “I’ll get her ass when I see her at school.”
“Not when it has the possibility of getting you kicked out. How do you think I pulled that shit off in high school?”
“You fucked the principal.”
Levi smirks, and I instantly want to smack the back of his head. I recall the rumors and how the guys at school praised him for a full week after that one. “Assistant principal.” My arm snaps out and my palm bats at the back of his skull, earning me a deep laugh from Levi on the other side of the car. “I was just correcting you.”
“Who the fuck fucks the assistant principal?”
“Someone that would get his ass beat by Roger if I didn’t pass high school.” I lift my shoulders because he’s not wrong. “What did you tell the girls about the house?”
I blow out a heavy exhale and grimace. “Bugs.”
“Good one. Now, what are we tellin’ the old man when he finally wakes up?”
“It was infested beyond repair?”
“Try again,” Levi chortles. “Something like the foundation shifted and cracked.”
“Why, because your big ass walked in the house and sunk it into the ground with your muscles?”
Levi chuckles and reaches out to push at my shoulder to get me to shut up. “You’re a fucking asshole, Astor. Do you ever shut up?”
“No, and I learned from the best.” I lift my chin proudly. “You taught me everything I know.”
“I regret it every single fucking day of my life.”
“I think it was because you always wanted someone to push around.”
He scoffs. “Since when do you let anyone shove you around? Have you met yourself?”
“Yeah, I wish there were two of me. That way, when I got tired of you, I could hang out with myself.”
Levi shakes his head with a ghost of a smile on his lips, when my phone buzzes in my lap. I power the screen on and just about keel over in absolute, pure, unmistakable dread and horror.
“Turn the fucking car around,” I bellow out, seeing Levi flinch a bit from the loudness of my tone. “ Now .”
“What the fuck?—”
“They took the girls.”
Levi slows the car down and does an illegal U-turn without any other information. “Who? What are you?—”
“Child protection services…they took Ellie and Mae from me.”