Chapter 8
Phoenix
“Come on in,” Ronan said as he opened the door wider for me. I hadn’t seen Seth’s car in the driveway, so I suspected we were alone. Which made sense since Ronan likely didn’t want his husband around when I gave him my first report on Levi Deming.
It had been a week since I’d begun trailing Levi and while I’d given Ronan a couple of brief phone reports over that time period, I hadn’t shared a lot of details with him since I was still in the information-gathering stages of my reconnaissance.
Normally, I had no issue with these kinds of briefings, but nothing about this case was normal. And I wasn’t relishing what I was about to do.
Lie.
No, not about everything.
But there was quite a bit of information about what I’d been up to the last week that I would need to leave out of my report because I just had no explanation for what I’d been thinking.
Starting with the rides I was continuing to give my target.
To work.
From work .
Hell, I was supposed to pick him up this afternoon to take him to St. Anthony’s for our shift tonight.
And I had absolutely no explanation whatsoever for the insanity that had taken over me three mornings ago when I’d been waiting for Levi outside the grocery store.
To say he’d been stunned to see me was an understatement.
But right after I’d taken in his look of shock, I’d watched his lips pull into a soft smile that had punched right through to my heart.
I’d seen Levi smile when he interacted with the soup kitchen guests, but it was nothing compared to the beautiful expression that had stolen across his features that morning.
Or after I’d asked him if he wanted to go to breakfast.
He hadn’t even hesitated to say yes, which had surprised me. He’d been nervous at first as we’d sat down in this little diner just a few blocks from his work, but as we’d started to dig into our food, he’d begun pelting me with question after question about myself.
Questions I’d had to skirt around or answer with half-truths.
Like what kind of work I did that would allow me to be sitting on the curb waiting for him at five o’clock in the morning and spending my evenings volunteering at a soup kitchen.
My response about being a consultant in the security industry seemed to have satisfied him well enough that we’d moved on to other topics. Safe ones like what kind of movies we liked and what we did for fun.
Typical date conversation.
Except it hadn’t been a date.
Not really.
Because I couldn’t be dating a man I was supposed to kill.
“Have a seat,” Ronan said as he motioned to the same chair I’d been sitting in a week earlier when I’d gotten the assignment. I’d been so certain then of what the outcome would be.
But now…
“Daisy ran the name you gave me. One guy fits the bill,” Ronan said as he handed me several pieces of paper.
I’d told him about T after Levi had let the name slip a few days ago.
I hadn’t been sure the information would be enough to learn anything useful about the man who’d assaulted Levi, but as I reached for the pages, I knew the alias had been enough.
“His name is Hugo Larson. He’s done time for assault, breaking and entering and drug possession. He’s got an older brother named Gunnar who’s doing life at WSP, the same prison Levi did his time at. The brother is in for murder,” Ronan explained.
I nodded as I studied the rap sheet in my hands. I didn’t see anything about T being a pimp, which meant what I’d seen in the alley with Levi hadn’t been about prostitution. The fact that T and Levi shared a connection through T’s brother wasn’t a good sign for Levi.
“So, you didn’t hear anything else when you heard Levi call the guy by his name?” Ronan asked.
My insides tightened at the question. I hadn’t told Ronan about Levi performing oral sex on T or that I’d intervened. I didn’t have a good explanation as to why I’d left that detail out.
“No,” I said as I lifted my eyes and looked directly at Ronan. If I kept my eyes down, he might figure out I was lying.
You just need more time to figure things out, the voice in my head reminded me. It did nothing to ease my guilt, though. This man had given me purpose after I’d lost everything. He’d let me be a part of his family.
Did I really want to risk losing that for Levi? For a man I knew without a shadow of doubt had participated in a brutal crime that he’d never had to pay for?
Ronan drummed his fingers on the desk. “So, all he’s done is go to work, home and this soup kitchen thing?” he asked.
I nodded. “He sticks to the same routine. There hasn’t been any sign of T since the encounter in the alley.”
Ronan’s jaw was tight as he nodded. I could tell he was frustrated. I found myself holding my breath as I waited for him to speak.
What the fuck would I do if he said to pull the trigger anyway? The fact that Levi was consorting with a known criminal was potentially enough for Ronan to decide the young man’s fate .
“Keep on him,” Ronan finally said, clearly unhappy with his own decision.
I nodded and quickly stood. “I’ve got a stop to make before I head back there…he’ll be heading to St. Anthony’s in a few hours.”
Ronan nodded and his gaze softened. “How’s she doing?”
I merely shook my head because he knew the answer to his own question. The answer wouldn’t change anytime soon…or possibly ever.
“Seth and Tristan were talking about stopping by for another visit soon.”
Another round of guilt went through me even as warmth flooded my system. “She’d like that,” I murmured. “I’ll call you if there’s anything new,” I said in a rush as I hurried to get out of there.
As I made my way towards the front door, I shook my head.
I couldn’t lose this. I just couldn’t. They were my family. Levi was no one to me…he was a job and nothing more.
I ignored the inner voice calling me a liar and left the house. I hated myself for the brief hope that went through me that maybe today would be the day Levi finally proved to be the man he’d been that night seven years ago. But on the heels of that thought came that damn inner voice again.
Liar.
“It’s my turn to pay,” Levi said as he dug out his wallet. “And don’t think I don’t know what you did yesterday,” he said with a shake of his head.
“What?” I asked innocently as I took a sip of the little bit of coffee remaining in my cup.
“You waited until I went to the bathroom to ask the waitress for the check,” he scolded.
I smiled at that. We’d been having breakfast together every morning at the same diner since that first morning I’d picked him up after work and I’d somehow managed to pay the bill each time, but Levi had insisted the day before that he’d pay.
Since I could tell from the young man’s worn and limited wardrobe and less than ideal living conditions if his shitty, run-down apartment building was anything to go by, I knew money wasn’t something he had a lot of.
I watched as he carefully counted out the money.
His eyes lifted to mine briefly and I saw his cheeks color in embarrassment.
I wanted to tell him he had nothing to be embarrassed about, but I suspected it would have the opposite effect and humiliate him even more.
It wasn’t something I’d started to notice until this past week as I’d spent more time in Levi’s presence.
I’d first picked up on it in the kitchen as we’d been preparing dinner.
Whenever Levi had to deal with a measurement or counting something out, like how many spoonfuls of an ingredient to add, he took an inordinate amount of time to do so.
I’d made the mistake of interrupting him once while he’d been in the process of adding flour to a bowl for the cake he was making for dessert and he’d been forced to start over.
At first, I’d thought maybe he just had memory problems, but as I’d watched him more and more, I’d realized it was more complicated than that.
He struggled with anything that required more in-depth thought processing.
I knew he could read because I’d seen him reading recipe cards, but he seemed to struggle with things that weren’t clearly spelled out.
Math, especially, proved difficult for him.
Father O had brought him a new recipe to add to the menu’s lineup, but the recipe had been designed for a single family, so Levi had needed to quadruple the ingredients to make one of several batches of the food for the soup kitchen guests.
I’d watched him struggle through trying to figure out the new amounts, but he’d refused to ask me for help and I hadn’t wanted to let him know I was aware of the issue, so I’d made an excuse about wanting to switch jobs with him since I was having trouble with getting the flavor just right for the sauce I’d been preparing.
I suspected he had some kind of learning disability, but I hadn’t asked about it.
“I like when they put the tip amounts on the bottom of the check,” Levi murmured as he studied the check and then looked at the money he had left in his hand.
He’d already put down enough cash to cover the cost of the meal, but not the tip.
I could tell from the cash he had left, he had more than enough to cover it, but from the way he was looking back and forth between the bill and the money, I knew he was having trouble figuring out how much to leave.
His eyes shifted back to me briefly and I saw the shame there.
I watched as he quickly took the rest of the money in his hand and dropped it down on the pile of cash he’d already left. It was almost a fifty percent tip.
“Mine was good, how was yours?” he asked, his voice a little higher than normal. I watched him flip the billfold closed, but before he could slide it to the edge of the table, I put my hand over his to stop him.
“Do you have your phone with you, Levi?” I asked.
He swallowed hard and nodded. My guess was he knew that I knew what he was struggling with.
“Does it have a calculator?”