Chapter 18 #2
I said my goodbyes and then hung up. I knew I might possibly be putting the nails in Levi’s coffin when it came to Ronan, since Daisy would be forced to tell Ronan what she found, but I was desperate enough to hope I’d get some much-needed answers from the footage.
I settled back in my seat to wait and let my thoughts drift to this morning.
It had taken several minutes to rouse Levi from the nightmare that had held him in its grip and my heart had broken all over for him in those minutes.
He’d actually spoken a couple of sentences during the dream, as if he were living that moment all over again.
I’d heard the name Jed a few times as well as Ricky…
proof that the memory had most likely been about the attack on Seth and his parents rather than the brutal rapes he’d suffered at the hands of his brother and the inmates in the prison shower.
I wanted to curse the whole situation. I’d finally fallen in love for the first time in my life and I’d also managed to become a part of a family after losing mine, but the two things were incongruent. I could have one or the other, but not both .
Though, in truth, I’d already lost my new family because I couldn’t keep my unspoken promise to them.
I’d always believed in the strength of family.
It was something that had been instilled upon me even as a small child.
Although it had just been me, my parents and my sister, we’d been an extremely tight-knit family and losing them all at once had been something that had changed my entire outlook on life.
I’d been so focused on my career in the military, that I hadn’t always considered life beyond serving my country.
But Amani had been my second chance and I’d never loved anything or anyone the way I loved that child.
I’d been terrified at the prospect of being a father, but I’d muddled my way through the nighttime feedings, lack of sleep and constant fear that I’d miss something vital in her development.
I’d been fortunate that I’d had the financial resources to be a full-time parent to my daughter, because even without a job to worry about, I’d still struggled to keep up with the responsibility.
But I’d been paid back in spades.
Events like the first time Amani had called me Daddy and catching her when she’d taken her first tentative steps had made every change in my life worth it.
But in the blink of an eye, it had been snatched away.
I’d railed at God for the cruel twist of fate He’d thrown into my path for the second time in my life.
Although I was grateful I still had my child, deep down in a part of my soul that I refused to even consider, lingered that question that I would never to give voice to.
My focus was on the here and now and I still had my daughter with me.
Cruel twist of fate or not, I knew I wouldn’t wish for anything different, except maybe that the man upstairs hadn’t brought Amani’s birth father back into the picture.
I’d never been a religious guy, but I was starting to wonder if God liked his little moments of fuckery. Because he apparently hadn’t found enough entertainment in torturing me with my daughter’s uncertain fate; no, he’d gone and added Levi to the mix.
Sweet, tormented Levi who’d suffered more in his life than anyone I’d ever known.
It was shitty enough that God had decided my loyalty to my new family needed to be tested, but to let me fall in love with someone I could never be with was the ultimate cruelty, second only to the half-loss of my child.
My phone buzzed, jerking me from my pity party. I checked the text from Daisy.
Four external cameras. North, south and east cameras working, west camera offline. Footage attached from east and north cameras.
The east camera was the one facing the entrance to the store, the north faced the employee entrance. Which meant the one offline was at the back of the store where the dumpsters were kept and deliveries occurred.
I hit the first video attachment. The picture wasn’t as clear as I would have liked, but I could make out Levi when he came into the frame as he returned a grocery cart to the long line of carts outside the store’s entrance.
Someone approached him from behind and while I couldn’t be sure it was T, he had the right build and hair color.
Levi turned and ran into the man and they exchanged words.
I couldn’t tell if there were bruises on Levi’s face.
The image also wasn’t good enough to see his expression, but Levi’s body language showed his tension as he turned and walked with T towards the side of the store.
It looked like T was holding his arm, but I couldn’t be sure.
I switched to the next video and saw T and Levi walking past the employee entrance and out of the view of the camera. Frustration coursed through me as I realized they were going to the back of the store where there’d be no video footage.
The last video showed Levi walking back towards the front of the store with a guy I didn’t recognize. Again, I didn’t have a good view of Levi’s face so I didn’t know if there were bruises or not.
I texted Daisy a quick thank-you and then tossed my phone in the cup holder.
I’d hoped the video would offer proof that T had assaulted Levi, but all it had done was make him look guiltier.
At least, that’s how Ronan would see it.
I knew in my bones that T had done something to Levi at the back of that store, but I was in the same position I’d been an hour ago.
With orders to kill a man who didn’t deserve it, but no way to prove it .
The ironic part was that Ronan wasn’t behaving any differently than me. I, too, was going on emotion and instinct when it came to protecting the man I loved.
As darkness fell, the store closed and all of the employees left.
I was tempted to go knock on the employee entrance and force Levi to talk to me, but I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
Not while I was still struggling with how to proceed with everything.
Since my car was now one of the only ones left in the parking lot, I moved it to the street where it wouldn’t stand out as much, but where I could still have a good view of anyone coming or going.
My phone rang and I saw Ronan’s second-in-command’s name come up on the screen.
“Hey, Memphis.”
“Hey. I need to see you.”
My gut tightened. This couldn’t be good.
“I’m on a job,” I said.
“I’m sending someone to cover for you.”
I wanted to tell him no…that I wanted to keep an eye on Levi myself, but I knew that wasn’t an option. “Who are you sending?”
“Dante.”
“Okay. I’ll head over to your place as soon as he gets here.”
I hung up and contemplated the turn of events. There was only one reason that I could think of that Memphis would want to talk to me.
It didn’t bode well for me…or Levi.
Headlights appeared in my rearview mirror about fifteen minutes later.
I got out of my car and walked to the plain navy blue sedan.
For all his flash off the job, Dante was the consummate professional on it.
He lowered his window and brushed back the dark curls that had a tendency to fall in his face. We bumped fists.
“Memphis give you background info?” I asked.
“Yeah. Levi Deming, 24.” Dante motioned to a file folder sitting on the passenger seat. I wondered how much he really knew. Fear curdled through me as something occurred to me.
“Can you step out for a second?” I asked, since I didn’t want to have this conversation through a car window .
Dante did as I asked.
“How much do you really know?”
The other man studied me for a moment and then leaned back against his car, folding his arms.
“I know that whoever this guy is, he’s important enough that I had to leave my fiancé alone in bed on the one night we’ve had together in weeks,” he said coolly.
I ignored his comment and strode around to the car’s passenger side.
I opened the door and grabbed the file folder and flipped through it, the light from the interior dome light enough to let me see the contents.
It was just Levi’s arrest record and his picture.
Nothing more. But that didn’t really mean anything.
I tossed the folder back on the seat and shut the door before going back to the driver’s side.
I stepped close to Dante and said, “You and I have always gotten along, Dante. But you go near him,” – I motioned to the store – “and that won’t be the case anymore. Do you understand me?”
Threatening Dante wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but if my hunch was right and Ronan had lost faith in me, I needed to be sure Dante understood the stakes.
Dante’s jaw tightened for the briefest of moments, proof that he didn’t like the warning I’d issued, but then, to my surprise, he relaxed his posture.
“Look, Memphis just told me to sit on the guy until you get back. I don’t know what the fuck is going on or who this guy is to Memphis…
to you.” Dante paused before saying, “I just want to get this done so I can get home to my man, so get out of here. He,” – he jerked his head towards the store – “is in good hands. I promise.”
I searched Dante’s eyes for any kind of lie, but didn’t see any sign of deception.
I nodded and forced myself to go to my car. The drive to Memphis’s house took about twenty minutes. I was greeted at the door by one of his lovers, young Tristan Barretti.
“Hey, Phoenix,” he said as he gave me a hug.
He held me for a long time and I knew why.
I’d been tasked with guarding him when he, Memphis, and their other lover, Brennan Devereaux had been struggling to figure out their relationship.
I’d grown particularly close to Tristan, had even told him things about Amani that I hadn’t told anyone else.
“Hey,” I said. “How are things?” I asked as I followed him into the house.
“Good,” he said with a broad smile. “How’s Amani?”