Chapter 10
TEN
Levi
“She’s not just Abbott Schaefer’s daughter. She’s Corey Craig’s wife,” I explain to my brother as I drop into the chair across from him in his office.
“Wife? You told me she was a fucking nun!” Grant’s brow arches skyward as he sits up straighter, his palms flat on the desk.
“She hated him that much, I guess. She said they have a deal that she can live out the rest of her days at the convent. But if she left, he’d kill her and anyone who helped her leave.
” I speak about it as if it’s a third-party business rather than a woman I know involved. I’m still reeling from the information.
“Live at the convent? Why not just divorce her?” Grant sits back in the chair across from me. He takes a sip of whisky to dull his irritation.
“Ego? Power? The connection to her father, I assume.” I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, but I will. I just need some time to adjust to the changing roles Zephyrine and I have found ourselves in. Not to mention the fact I haven’t slept in way too goddamn long.
“If he’d sell her off to a man like that…” Grant’s face darkens.
Corey Craig is the used car salesman of the underground world, wrapped in dangerously thin skin.
He fancies himself old money while barely having enough of the new kind to fake it.
He’s poached a few clients of ours. The kind that are too impatient to do all the layers of paperwork and deal with the standard wait time to keep their money squeaky clean in the laundry.
Corey should be dead for the way he does business, but he’s got an unhealthy love of bombs, a deranged attachment to brutal violence, and enough connections higher in the food chain that he manages to survive year after year like a cockroach.
Imagining Zephyrine as his wife makes the sandwich I had on the plane threaten to resurface.
It’s revolting that her father ever considered him an option, let alone forced her into it. The convent makes perfect sense now.
“It explains her disappearance. Why she never comes home.” I’m rambling because my mind is imagining the feisty little nun in the hands of a man like him. I want to break every finger he’s touched her with slowly and methodically. Take each nail and—Grant’s voice interrupts my daydreams.
“If Abbott and he are working together, we have a bigger problem than we imagined. Who knows how many people he’s in bed with or what we’re up against when we start turning rocks over.”
“All the more reason we have to put an end to it sooner rather than later.” I’d like to put an end to him. I don’t need her to tell me what he’s done. I can guess. The thought of him being alone with her is more than enough for me to sign his death warrant.
“I suppose it makes her all the more valuable.” Grant mulls the thought.
“She’s valuable. She knows Abbott’s business. Corey’s. She might know things she doesn’t even realize are valuable. Rowan thought you and Hudson would want to kill her.” I scoff at the idea in retrospect.
“Kill her? No. Not unless we have to. Ransom might be an option though. We might be able to get the relics back for her.” Grant takes another draw off his glass.
“She doesn’t seem to think ransom’s an option. She warned me as much.” I think back to the way she swore up and down that she had no control over her father.
“What do you think?” Grant pins me with a serious look.
“I think I don’t know enough yet. I need more time with her. She trusted me at the convent, but now, well…” I shrug my shoulder and tilt my head to the side. “Now it’s a little more complicated.”
“Understandable.” He takes the last swallow of whisky and sits up in his chair. He studies me before he asks the last thing I expect. “You fuck her yet?”
“No,” I snipe at the question.
“Why not?” His brows knit together as though it’s confusing to him. “She’s not Dakota—no one is. But she’s not hideous. It wouldn’t be a hardship for you.”
“It seemed unnecessary.” I grit the words through my teeth. I don’t like the idea of Grant assessing her like that, even though I know damn well he doesn’t have eyes for anyone besides his fiancée, Dakota.
“Have you been this grumpy with her? She might like you better if you kept your mouth busy with other things.” He smirks.
“Noted,” I reply tersely.
I’m trying not to imagine the picture he’s painting. It might make her like me more. Worse, it seems it'd be likely to make me want her more than I already do if I hear her saying anything in praise of my real name instead of Father Levi’s. Best not to tempt fate.
“The more attached she is to you, the better. And now with the husband? The more compromised, the better.” He's matter-of-fact.
My brother puts business first in everything, and normally, I’d be the first to agree. But in this case, it feels callous and cruel to use her. She's been a pawn for two men already.
“Do you hear yourself? How would you feel if someone talked about Dakota like that?” I push back.
He levels me with a dark look before he speaks again. He doesn’t have to answer that question. He’d murder any person who even so much as thought something vaguely of the sort. His fiancée is the center of his universe and has been for longer than he’d like to admit.
“This was Dakota and Charlotte’s idea, remember?” he presses.
“Yeah, well…” I shift in my seat.
“Well, what?”
“I’m not cut out for the undercover agent shit. You want me to hack a system for information or kill someone, I’m your guy. I’m a blunt instrument. I’m not a fucking Romeo.” The unease of the idea creeps up my throat.
“That out of touch in the romance department?” Grant laughs, and it takes some of the tension out of my shoulders.
“Why don’t you ask Dakota or Charlotte for help then?
You’re the only one Zephyrine knows well enough that she might spill something.
You said you were making progress. It seemed like you knew her well enough after all that surveillance you were doing.
I assumed—” He stops short, and his eyes shift.
“You’re not in love with her or something, are you? ”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Just because you’ve lost your edge doesn’t mean I have.
” I’m not in love with her. She’s a con artist and a liar, but the more I learn about her past, the more I see reason in the choices she’s made.
The more she makes sense to me. The more I feel for everything she’s gone through, and I don’t want to be another painful memory for her.
“Of course I want answers from her. We all do, but I don’t plan to manipulate her to get them.
There’s no reason to. She’ll cooperate if she understands it’s the right thing to do. I just need time to show her.”
“Rowan said you were cagey on the flight. He thought there was something going on under the surface there.” Grant’s watching me closely. Rowan certainly doesn't play favorites. I'll remember it on the next job.
“I was cagey on the flight because we had to abruptly shift course and drag her back to Colorado. After I pulled her out of a lake in the middle of the night. After she tried to poison me, and then I had to subdue her. Then search her room and carry her out of the convent. Drive all the way to Munich like a bat out of hell and then explain to his fucking highness Rowan that everything was fucked to shit. I was exhausted, and nothing was going to plan. I was restrained given the circumstances.” I summarize the twenty-four hours that led us here, and even my head spins recalling it.
“Poison you?” He drops his interest in anything else, and concern mars his face.
I left that part out of our earlier discussion when I was on the flight. No sense in letting her know she’d gotten a very rare upper hand on me.
“She drugged me. Tied me up. Crawled on top of me. She’s a wicked little thing when she’s committed to it. Bit me too. It was not a fun evening, and one I’d rather fucking forget, all right?” I’m irritable all over again just thinking about it.
My brother’s face transforms from worry to amusement.
“You sure? Sounds like your kind of fun.” He leans forward on the table, grinning and swirling the last drop of melting ice at the bottom of his glass.
“Don’t fucking start,” I warn him with a sideways glance for all the good it does.
“Were you not giving her what she wanted, and she decided to try to take it?” He clears his throat to stop a laugh.
“She realized I wasn’t a priest and was worried I was one of her husband's or father’s men. She was trying to torture it out of me.”
“How did she do that?” He frowns.
I let out a frustrated grumble and then raise my shirt to expose the bandage underneath.
“Burned me with one of those things they sprinkle holy water with. Heated it up in the incense burner. It’d be clever if I wasn’t on the receiving end of it.”
A laugh tumbles out of my brother’s chest as he tries to suppress it, pressing his fist to his lips. He clears his throat again, but the look on his face betrays his amusement with all of it.
“Now she really sounds like your type,” he remarks, studying the bandage for a moment before he looks up at me, his eyes glittering with the accusation.
“Fuck me. I regret telling you any of this. I don’t have a type.”
“Well, if you did, it seems married runaway nuns with a penchant for torture would be up there on the list.” He gives me a pointed look. “You sure you can manage her?”
“I’ll manage her just fine. My way. I just need some time. A little sleep.”
“You’ve got days. Maybe hours. If what she says is true…” His brows raise, and he tilts his head. “Corey and the governor will be a handful.”
“We’ll need more men on the ranch. At the casino.
Did you contract any of the men I suggested while I was gone?
” I’d rather discuss the practicalities of security.
That’s what I’m good at, where I shine. I could keep the ranch and casino safe if we focused on maintaining awareness and security levels.
“The MC is on board. I’m in talks with the merc group out of Colorado Springs you recommended before you left.”
“Good. We’ll need all hands on deck. What about the extra digital security?”
“I hired the security team you asked for. They’ve installed cameras, and they’re working on getting your little drone army together. This new shit makes me nervous. Especially knowing what you’ve been able to do in the past with it,” he remarks, recalling the time I hacked into a rival’s system.
“Well, let me handle it. I’ll meet with them and get things online as quickly as possible.
” I’m antsy to do something more than babysit.
Distance from Zephyrine would probably help with all of my newfound proclivities.
If Grant knew the depth of some of them, he’d probably insist I take a break.
Or fuck her to get her out of my system.
“The nun first. The rest is secondary to her when you’re the only one who has a chance in hell. Put your priest uniform back on if you have to, and confess her. Whatever it takes.” Grant’s tone brooks no disagreement.
“Sure thing,” I grumble. I want to argue, but the strategy is pragmatic.
“Where are you keeping her?” He’s suddenly interested in the minutiae of my plan.
“The honeymoon cabin. I’m not breaking that news to Ramsey and Hazel.
Figured you could do that for me.” I smirk, thinking about him having to get his ass reamed for our takeover of our little brother’s wife’s guesthouse.
At least one thing I don’t want to do will be off my plate.
At least I could celebrate small victories.
“Hazel’ll hate it,” Grant laments.
The honeymoon cabin is a new extension of my sister-in-law’s bed and breakfast. I gave her my old hunting cabin, and she fixed it up, making it the perfect remote retreat for a newlywed couple who wanted to get away from everything.
In my world, it was the perfect isolated interrogation spot.
It's high on the mountain where we can keep a solid perimeter and prevent an easy escape.
Hopefully, I can get everything I need out of her before we take our next step. I need to know what we’re dealing with. I doubt Hazel wants her property used as a prison, but I’m not sure what other options we have. So just like the rest of us, she’ll have to come along for the ride.
“If Zephyrine’s right about her husband, it’ll buy us some time if he tries to come find us. The casino and the inn are too public. Her father will at least put out an APB once he finds out. One wrong turn where she bumps into a tourist who recognizes her from TV or a helpful local…” I explain.
“It’s smart. What would be smarter is if you get as much out of her as quickly as you can, and we don’t have to worry about these kinds of details.
Something we can use to go on the offensive instead of continually walling ourselves in down here.
” Grant’s like a caged lion, pacing back and forth, eyeing the options around him.
He’s usually more levelheaded than I am, but he wants blood for what happened to Dakota.
“I agree. I’ll deliver on it. You know me well enough to know that.” This is the part I’m good at; I can do this much.
“Good. Another whisky before you go?” Grant nods to my empty glass, but I don’t have a chance to answer when my phone rings loudly, bursting the otherwise calm, stately atmosphere of my brother’s broad executive suite.
I glance down, and it’s one of our guys. Specifically, it’s the one I left in charge of Zephyrine.
“Yes?” I ask impatiently, standing up to pace. I can’t imagine this is good news.
“She’s made a run for it,” he admits. “Obviously, there’s nowhere she can go, but she could hurt herself.
We’re on her trail. I knew you’d want to know as soon as possible.
” Jack’s voice is patterned by his heavy breathing and the sounds of his boots pounding the ground as he follows her through the woods.
“Fucking hell. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep an eye on her.” I'm glad I tagged her while she was asleep. It will make this part easier at least.
“Will do.”
I stuff the phone back into my pocket and glare out the window for half a moment before I turn around. This won’t help my case. But I’m surprised when I see an amused grin instead of anger on my brother’s face.
“Trouble with your ward?” My brother’s terrible at hiding his humor.
“I’ve got it handled.”
“Try to avoid getting tortured this time,” Grant calls after me.
I shake my head and slam his door behind me like I did when we were kids.