I watched as Augustine absorbed that information, his stiff posture slipping into something a little more intrigued. “You...found a way to make them back off then?”
That was one way of putting it. Levi had given me an overview, not just of today, but of the past few months. I understood now that the two men who had died were the ones who had been causing trouble for Levi from pretty much the beginning. That part I more or less knew because Levi had told me about Los Muertos trying to make an attempt on the city. I also knew Los Muertos had been trying to kill him, but so far all they had managed was to get me badly hurt...and kill me, technically...apparently.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information that I had died three times, so I was going to wait until my head made up its mind.
Levi had found a way to make it so the Los Muertos not only left but wouldn’t try to retaliate. I wasn’t exactly sure how that had happened, but it was tough to find a hole in his argument when he was speaking with confidence, and his face had been covered in blood because of a wound he’d taken in my place.
“My actions against them pushed them back hard enough that they have been reeling,” Levi explained in a measured, calm voice. It weirded me out to think he had been pretty much talking the same way when he’d been standing there, holding the detonator to a bomb that had torn half the damn building apart, and had probably been the same way when he’d gutted that guy too. “Enough that it drew attention, and I had a meeting with them. After...negotiations, I can speak with confidence that they will not be coming back to the city for quite some time. It seems we can thank not just me, but Eliza for that.”
Augustine was subtle, but I thought I saw his mouth thin for a moment. “And what does she have to do with this?”
“I think it’s time you let go of your pride and paranoia when it comes to Eliza. The hell she has been putting Los Muertos through in the south has stretched their resources. It seems they thought that, with William Senior’s loss, this was the perfect chance to take advantage of the chaos and gain a foothold. It would mean cutting Eliza off from the direct support of the rest of The Family, and hem her in between two of their fronts. It was a gambit made desperate by her efforts, and a lost one because of mine.”
Okay, it was weird as hell to realize how cool and collected Levi could be in the face of death and chaos, but it was downright fucking spooky to watch Augustine seem to retreat into himself as he thought about what he’d just been told. And only because it was the same way that Levi would draw inward when he was thinking hard. Which I could explain away as something they shared because of the time they spent together, but no, Levi had been doing thatbeforehe’d ever spent time around Augustine.
“Giving Eliza too much would tip the balance,” Augustine said slowly.
“Are you worried others might think you’re showing favoritism, or are you afraid Eliza will take the inch and go a mile?”
“Both.”
“Stop trying to squash her at every turn and sneering at her for wanting to prove herself. Shehasproved herself, and if you’re too blind to see it or too arrogant to relent in the face of the obvious, you will deserve it when she either unseats you herself or brings internal division the Family will never recover from.”
I slid my gaze to Augustine slowly, seeing that Will was watching the older man, though with far more fear than mywariness. I wasn’t ever going to know enough about the internal politics of The Family to say whether Levi was making a good point, but damned if it didn’t sound like one. It also sounded like the kind of advice Augustine had probably never received, at least not since he’d taken over The Family. And he wasn’t exactly the sort of person who liked it when someone balked at him.
To my surprise...and horror, Augustine gave a small smile. “I almost find myself willing to let go of everything you’ve done over the past couple of weeks.”
“What,” I asked in a flat voice before I could think.
Augustine opened his hands in what was probably his version of a shrug. “Anyone with any sense, at the head of something as large and important as The Family, must be on the lookout for those who would take their place. I had been hoping it was Levi, but some things were...lacking. I needed someone intelligent, capable, effective, and who knew their place. But also someone capable of speaking up when something must be said, and while he had shown signs of it in the past, this is the first time he’s spoken to me plainly, as though we were...not equals, but that he wasn’t afraid of me because he knew he was right.”
I rubbed my face. “Are you telling me that after all he’s done, you’re happy that he just said you were being stupid?”
“No one is above making mistakes, and the more intelligent or powerful a person is, the more dangerous their mistakes are,” Augustine said, this time actually shrugging. “I cannot afford to make mistakes, not many at least. He just called out something I had put on the back burner for years, and has made me realize that he is indeed correct. Eliza is no fool, emotional and touchy in her pride, but none of us is without our flaws. It is time I start giving her the respect and the resources someone of her caliber deserves.”
“But it’s not enough,” Levi said with a cold smile that I liked even less than his control in the face of death and disaster.
“No,” Augustine said. “You found your own footing as I wanted, and then promptly went rogue. That it was done for his sake, rather than because you believed you were doing what was necessary, is what truly seals the deal. Succeeding to succeed, not to save the life of some childhood boy toy, that would have saved you. But I cannot have others thinking that is acceptable, and I can never trust that something like that will not happen with you again.”
“True,” Levi said, and I stared at him in shock.
“Could we maybenotpiss off the crime lord who will happily murder all of us because we irritated him?” I asked.
Levi ignored me, save to reach out and take my good hand in his while staring at his father. “It’s funny, I expected you to ask how I managed to convince them to back off.”
“Los Muertos?” Augustine asked, and when Levi nodded, he shrugged. “I may not be able to trust your stability in the future, but I see no reason why you would lie to me. If only because you would know that succeeding in driving Los Muertos off wouldn’t be enough to save you.”
“True, I would have no reason to lie to you,” Levi said and let that hang there.
Augustine frowned, his head tilting ever so slightly. “What did you do to make them back off?”
“I told them a truth...not the full truth, but they need not know that.”
Augustine’s eyes narrowed, and although I didn’t know what was going on, I could sense the trap. “What truth?”
“That, because of a vast amount of money and connections I’ve been sitting on for ages, I was able to work it so that The Company has a standing, conditional contract, or three contracts more like.”
Augustine didn’t move. “Continue.”
