Chapter 16
Two days before they planned to hit the Southwest site, Levi made his move.
Seth was alone when it happened. A stupid mistake, he knew better now, knew isolation was vulnerability, but he'd needed air.
The safehouse walls had started to feel too close, thick with the scent of other people and the weight of all the things he and Zain weren't saying, and he'd slipped out the back door for a cigarette he'd bummed off Nate.
The December cold bit into him immediately. He'd been warm for a few weeks now, warm and fed and sleeping in a real bed, and his body had already started to forget what the other thing felt like. Dangerous, that. Forgetting.
He lit the cigarette. Inhaled. Let the smoke burn down into him like a small, controlled fire.
"Didn't expect to find you here."
Seth's whole body went rigid.
The voice came from the mouth of the alley.
Casual. Friendly, almost, friendly in the way that had always preceded Levi's worst ideas.
Seth turned and there he was, skinnier than the last time, which shouldn't have been possible.
Sunken cheeks, twitchy hands, eyes that moved too fast and focused on nothing.
In his twenties and looked forty-five. Still wearing the same army surplus jacket he'd had three years ago, the one with the broken zipper he'd never fixed.
"Levi." Seth's voice came out flat. Calm. Calmer than he felt. "How'd you find me?"
"I got friends. People talk." Levi stepped closer. His hands were in his pockets, which meant they were on something, a knife, a phone, nothing good. "Been looking for you, man. Heard you were dead."
"Not dead."
"Yeah, I can see that." Levi's eyes moved past Seth to the safehouse door. Measuring. "Nice place. Who you running with now?"
"Nobody."
"Bullshit. Nobody sets up in Corktown without backing." He rocked on his heels. That manic energy, the kind that came from whatever he'd put in his veins that morning. "Look, I didn't come here for trouble."
"Then why are you here?"
Levi licked his lips. The gesture was reptilian. "You remember the people who were looking for you? Before you... went away?"
Seth's stomach dropped. "You mean the people you sold me to?"
Levi had the decency to look uncomfortable. Briefly. "That was business, man. Nothing personal."
"They kept me in a cage for four months." Seth's voice didn't crack. He was proud of that. "They chained me to a workstation. They broke my ribs. Nothing personal."
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I was in a bad spot. I owed people. You know how it is."
"I know exactly how it is. You traded me for a fix."
Levi's eyes hardened. The pretense of friendliness fell away like a dropped mask.
"Those people are still looking," Levi said. "Mercer's people. Word got out you survived, and they're not happy about loose ends. I can make that problem go away."
"For a price."
"Everything's for a price, Seth. You know that."
"And if I don't pay?"
Levi's hand came out of his pocket. Not a knife. A phone. He held it up like a weapon, which in a way it was.
"Then I make a call and tell them exactly where you are. And whoever these people are you're staying with, they'll have a very bad night."
Seth stared at the phone. At Levi's twitchy, desperate face. At the boy he'd once known, fifteen, sixteen, both of them living in doorways and stealing from gas stations and thinking they were invincible because they had nothing to lose.
Now Seth had something to lose. That was the problem.
"How much?" Seth asked.
Levi named a number. It was absurd, more money than he'd probably ever held at once, number you throw out when you know the real payment is going to be negotiated down to whatever crumbs the other person is willing to throw.
"I don't have that."
"Then find it. You've got forty-eight hours."
"Or what?"
"Or I make the call." Levi backed toward the alley entrance. "Don't be stupid, Seth. Just pay up and I disappear. Clean and simple."
Nothing about Levi had ever been clean or simple.
He was gone before Seth could respond, melting into the Corktown dark like the shadow he'd always been.
Seth stood in the cold and smoked his cigarette down to the filter and did not go inside to tell Zain.
Not yet.
He needed to think
He thought for six hours. Then Zain noticed.
"What happened."
Not a question. Zain was standing in the doorway of Seth's room at midnight, arms crossed, reading Seth's face with the focused attention of a man disarming an IED.
"Nothing."
"You've barely spoken since this afternoon. You skipped dinner. And you're sitting in the dark." Zain hit the light switch. Seth squinted. "Try again."
Seth could have lied. Should have, maybe, handled it himself, kept Lakefront out of it, kept Zain out of it. But Jack's words were still rattling around in his head: He looks at you like you're a complication. And Nate's: If you hurt him, I'll sedate you.
These people had given him something he hadn't had in years. Not just safety. investment. They'd invested in him, and if Levi's threat was real, that investment was at risk because of Seth's past, Seth's connections, Seth's weakness.
He told Zain everything.
Zain listened without interrupting. His face did the thing it did when he was processing, went still, went blank, everything pulled inward like a door slamming shut. When Seth finished, the silence stretched for ten seconds. Twenty.
Then Zain's fist hit the doorframe.
The sound was sharp. Wood cracked. Seth flinched, and hated himself for flinching, because this wasn't fear. He knew the difference between violence aimed at him and violence aimed at the world.
"That piece of shit," Zain said quietly.
"He's desperate. He's not thinking straight."
"He's threatening you. He's threatening us." Zain's voice had gone cold. Not angry-cold, operational-cold. The voice that preceded action. "He knows where the safehouse is?"
"He knows the area. Not the building, I don't think."
"That's not good enough." Zain pulled out his phone. Typed. "Ghost needs to sweep for surveillance. If Levi's been watching, there might be devices."
"Zain. "
"And we need to move up the timeline on the Southwest op. If Mercer's people know you're here... "
"Zain." Seth stood. Crossed the room. Put his hand on Zain's wrist, the one still holding the phone. "Stop planning for thirty seconds and look at me."
Zain looked at him.
"This is my problem," Seth said. "Levi is my past. My mess. I don't want it becoming Lakefront's war."
"It became our war the night we pulled you out of that warehouse." Zain's eyes were dark, intense, focused that Seth had only seen during ops. "You're not alone in this. Not anymore."
The words landed somewhere deep, below the ribs, below the armor, in the place Seth had been protecting since he was fifteen years old.
"I can handle Levi," Seth said.
"I know you can. That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
Zain's hand turned under Seth's. Their fingers interlaced. Zain looked down at their joined hands with an expression that on anyone else would be wonder, but on Zain was more like surrender.
"The point is I'm not letting you handle it alone."