But it didn’t change the truth sitting like a stone in my gut: I’d kissed him because I’d wanted to.
And that was dangerous.
The numbers on the spreadsheet I’d opened blurred, my concentration slipping each time the thought of him surfaced—his breath on my lips, the tension between us, the way he’d leaned in as if he didn’t realize he was doing it.
I told myself to pull it together. To focus on the money transfers, on keeping the supply lines I had open, to movemoney into the dozens of accounts I had. But nothing stuck. The moment I recalled the ghost of that kiss, the rest of my world slid sideways.
“This is bullshit,” I muttered after typing the same account number for the third time.
A more intelligent man would have listened to Novak, who’d made it clear that Levi was a problem to be handled, cleaned, erased. But whenever I tried to picture it—the distance I should’ve kept, the coldness I’d lived by for years—it was replaced by that one breathless moment when we’d kissed. I had crossed the line first, and I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
And the worst part? I wanted to do it again.
Obsession.
Lust and want were bleeding into parts of me I didn’t want touched. Levi wasn’t only a distraction; he was a disruption, the kind that loosened the screws holding the rest of my life together. And the worst part was knowingexactlyhow dangerous that made him.
“Fuck!”
I closed the financial window and switched to a different tool—a backdoor exploit I’d paid for that gave me access to the LAPD’s outdated GPS. It didn’t take long to find Levi’s unmarked unit pinging from a lot in Silver Lake. One call to Novak and I had an address, and extracted a promise that Levi was mine and not to be touched.
Novak growled.
I was used to it.
I needed to know whether that kiss had wrecked him the same way it had me. I needed to see it on his face. It wasn’t smart—it was reckless, dangerous—but the need chewed through my restraint. Before I could shut it down, I grabbed my keys and left.
The hallway outside what I assumed was his apartment smelled of old carpet and stale heating, with a faint hint ofcitrus from someone having cleaned earlier. It was the kind of place where people kept to themselves and didn’t ask questions, and I’d expected a detective to live somewhere more modern and put-together, not tucked away in the middle of a rundown, forgotten stretch of the neighborhood.
I tried the handle. It turned easily.
Levi didn’t leave his door unlocked, not by accident.
He knows I’m here.
I stepped inside, letting the warm air enfold me as a strange tightness took hold in my chest. This was heavier than fear, a pull low in my gut, my nerves too alert and too aware of why I’d come. A part of me wondered whether I was here because I wanted answers… or because I wanted him to make my head go quiet again. His apartment smelled of coffee grounds, gun oil, soap, and something distinctly him. The darkness was absolute; not a single lamp was on, no standby lights, nothing. The blackout was so complete it felt deliberate; the room was swallowed in darkness until the faint spill of streetlight through the blinds slowly revealed Levi’s apartment.
The door clicked shut behind me.
Someone seized my shirt, slamming me back against the wood.
My breath caught hard.
Levi’s face was half in shadows. His eyes were wide, dark, hungry, and something else—something torn.
“What do you want?” he bit out.
“I don’t fucking know,” I shot back before I could control it.
His face was inches from mine; his expression twisted with anger and suspicion. “Are you here to kill me?” he asked, grabbing my wrist where the hypodermic usually lay capped. My wrist was empty, and he frowned, then dropped his hold to grip my shirt instead, dragging me even closer.
“Why didn’t you call in what you saw?” I asked. “Why did you watch a man die and not intervene?” I tried to keep my voice level, but the truth was he was too close, too much, pushing into every crack I’d been ignoring. “What kind ofcopare you?”
I couldn’t suppress the flicker of unwelcome disappointment that hit me. I didn’t want Levi to be one of the bad ones, the kind of man who stood by and let ugly things happen. I knew men like that. I’d worked with them, bled because of them. I’d spent years stepping over the mess they made. I needed Levi to be different, to be the kind of person who didn’t belong anywhere near my world. Someone untouched by the rot I’d grown up in. Someone clean. Because if he wasn’t…
My breath caught as his following words were a rough whisper in the dark.
“A good cop,” he snarled. There was heat in his voice, and something that felt as if he’d been holding himself together for too long. I didn’t get it. He’d seen Novak kill Rufus; he’d seen me watching. What the fuck was wrong with this picture?
