I doubt very seriously it’s the death of our parents that makes us a good fit. Our official record is clean, but it wouldn’t be too hard to discover that the reason my parents’ corner store was rarely robbed is because thieves always paid in black eyes and bloody noses. Levy wasn’t shy about defending himself and always had my back, to be sure, but at the end of the day, I was the one with the bloodiest knuckles. I never had to dole out a lesson more than once.
Levy picks at a hangnail. “Guess you know everything about me then. I’m the free-spirited brother who smokes pot, writes poetry, and is one traffic ticket away from losing my license, and Bram’s the stick-in-the-mud rule-follower.”
With a few notable exceptions.
Charlie and I exchange another look before he answers.
“First of all, Levy, you smoke Delta 8, which is probably still legal in Texas, and according to Hedy, aside from your terrible driving skills, you are the one most apt to follow the rules.”
His head snaps up at that. “Have you not met my brother?”
“I dunno. Haveyou?” he tosses back.
Charlie refocuses on me. “You never really were the rule-follower, were you?”
Levy always thought the accident changed me, and maybe it did, to an extent. But it didn’t change methatmuch. I drop my chin to my chest, wondering if he’s about to tell my brother about Nacho. Thankfully, he goes in another direction.
“During your tenure at the hospital, you facilitated the escape of undocumented workers. You engaged in insurance fraud to ensure coverage for patients who otherwise wouldn’t have qualified. And the night the son of a local state representative was beaten outside of a Baylor dorm, you went to the ER claiming sparring injuries to your knuckles. I could go on about your time in the prison system, Dr. Barlowe, but that should be sufficient.”
Dread pools in my belly as he verifies that he’s definitely aware of Nacho.
While I’m over here wondering if he’s about to blackmail me, Levy is boring holes into the side of my head.
“Bram?”
I stare out the window, watching the dark countryside fly by. Finally, I explain, “I couldn’t let those people get lost in the shuffle. I couldn’t just check a box and let the system do what it was going to do.”
“But you beat up…that was Matt Greene’s son.”
“He’d brutally raped one of my patients and was a known threat to the campus. Nothing was done about it.”
“You could’ve been caught.”
“I was quick.”
Levy blinks at me like he doesn’t even know me, but Erik snorts into a closed fist.
“I was quick,” he repeats, laughing openly. “Your interaction with Mr. Greene lasted less than thirty seconds, and the dude ended up with a cracked orbital bone, a collapsed lung, and a ruptured testicle.”
I swallow thickly, looking down at my hands, feeling Levy’s eyes on me.
“Like you did with Ria’s stepbrother.”
I lift my chin and send him a sharp nod, and understanding fills his eyes.
“So…Bram was the one you wanted for these missions,” Levy says, the hurt impossible to hide in his voice.
Charlie shakes his head, turning to look at Levy directly. “No. Both. According to my contact, you’re better at de-escalation, more about the community involvement, better with technology, and your fighting technique is cleaner.”
He returns his attention to the road, and Erik continues. “It’s the balance between the two of you. I’ve seen it only once before, with my cousins. Anders is the unhinged one, Odd is the reasonable one, but they’re both assassins when it counts.”
“We’re not assassins,” I spit out, wondering if they view me as the unhinged one. Turning to Levy, I grab his wrist. “I’m not a killer. I swear it.”
His eyes hold something I’ve never seen from him. Distrust.
Charlie speaks up. “He’s telling the truth, Levy. When you two approached us about going on missions, my first thought was that I didn’t want killers. I wanted guys who could get their hands a little dirty. Who could work with our reintegration teams to figure out how to minimize trauma during this process. Not that we’d intentionally put y’all in a sticky situation, but if you found yourselves in a fight, you’d be able to defend yourselves.”
I’m relieved that Charlie seems willing to let the Nacho thing go, at least for now. It also fires up the fucked-up pride I have in making Nacho mine, regardless of the consequences.
