“You and I are going to have a long talk about doing things on your own,” Matty told me.
“Or the cops,” Kayden complained from the back. “Seriously, Dom. I get Mr. Mob Boss not wanting to get the cops involved, but man, your man has kept us running around like chickens with our heads cut off, and you couldn’t even let us back you up?”
“You better not mean Jace,” Mason said with a frown. “He’s not active duty, remember?”
“He can still crack heads if he needs to.”
“Fuck off.”
Matty ignored them. “They do have a point.”
“It happened the way it had to happen,” I said. I couldn’t be sure because there was still too much I didn’t understand, but I knew enough to know that dragging anyone else into the messwould have been a disaster, and it had been close enough as it was. “I’m sorry I scared all of you.”
“But not that you did it,” she said, clearly not looking to see if I was going to agree or not as she looked at Levi. “And you? You made a promise to my family, a couple, actually. One of them you clearly didn’t fulfill since you’re here with my son.”
Levi winced and then hissed, his hand twitching like he wanted to pull away to put it on his face, but gripped the blanket instead. “I made three promises, the two important ones I fulfilled. Dom wasn’t exactly letting me keep the last one. You’re safe. All of you.”
“Uh-huh,” Moira said with a frown, and I could see Mason frowning doubtfully. “You’ve kept important stuff from us before. Why should we believe anything you say?”
“The people attempting to kill me, and willing to go through the people around me, will not touch you,” he said with complete confidence. “And that goes for those in the Marelli Family as well. In fact, you are safer than just about anyone in this city at the moment, and most people in this country. You will not be touched, or the consequences of their bloodlust will, uh...cost some very important people their lives. And those people very much wish to hold onto their lives.”
“And you?” Mason asked coolly, and I glared at him. He stared back, not ashamed in the slightest that he wasn’t relenting even though Levi had clearly been through the wringer. I didn’t know where this protective older brother shit was coming from, but it was getting on my nerves.
Levi laughed. “Do you really think Augustine would let me stay in The Family after everything I’ve done? If he had, it would have left him with two choices. Either be honest about what I did right and what I did wrong, or try to bury everything so no one would find out. The former would be showing favoritism, which undermines his entire persona. The latter wouldn’t have held upforever, and not only would it have undermined his authority, but it would have made everyone start coming up with their own explanations, explanations he wouldn’t be able to influence that could snowball out of his control. After I started my...plan, I was never going to return to the fold.”
I stared at him, knowing damn well there’d been a lot more he’d planned never to return to...like my life, for instance. Life in general, actually, and while I could appreciate his desire to protect me and my family, that didn’t mean I would ever want his life to be the price. Just like Matty was going to give me a good, hard conversation about what I’d done by slipping out and scaring the hell out of everyone, I was going to be doing the same to Levi’s self-sacrificing bullshit. And it was going to involve just how little he valued his life.
“Warpath,” Kayden piped up, sounding uncharacteristically grumpy.
“What?” Levi asked in confusion.
“You didn’t start a ‘plan’, you drummed up a battle plan and went on the war path,” Kayden said dryly. “Are you forgetting I’m still a cop? I’ve been running all over the city just like every other cop, trying to keep this shit under control. By the way, fuck you for that, because we weren’t doing shit out there.”
“So, uh...what were the cops going to do to help Dom if you guys couldn’t even keep up with the stuff Levi was doing?” Milo asked, his drunkenness making him observant and utterly oblivious to the force of the words he’d just strung together.
“Fuck all,” Jace muttered. “But it’s going to take a long time before shit settles down.”
“No,” Levi said quickly. “I had a plan that would go into motion shortly after...after I was done. It would have begun repairing the damage I had caused over the past couple of weeks. It will still take time, but with my plan, and now with what I’m sure will undoubtedly be Augustine’s force of personality behindit, it will shorten the recovery time considerably. You should see an upturn in a matter of days, and if the timetable sticks, then within a month, perhaps two, the city will return to a stability it hasn’t seen in months. With Los Muertos gone, it makes it a great deal simpler.”
“That was Augustine, by the way,” I said to Milo. “The dilf you were thirsting over in front of your man, just so you know.”
Milo reared back and stumbled, obviously thinking there was a wall behind him, but was half a foot short. He caught himself before collapsing and made a horrified squeak. “Really? Ew, that’s so gross. I’m sorry I said your evil dad was hot, Levi. You’re a lot hotter.”
Micah squinted up at him. “How does that make it better?”
Eli snorted, reaching out to straighten Milo, trying to determine where he could lean without falling again. “It doesn’t, but it’s sweet that he’s trying his best.”
“You have an inhuman level of understanding and patience,” Mason said with a shake of his head.
“You’re just jealous because neither you nor your man can do the same thing,” Eli said lightly, earning a scowl from Jace...but I noticed he didn’t argue.
Moira ignored them. “You sound confident, but?—”
Levi shook his head. “Don’t. The details would be painstaking to go over, and it wouldn’t help you. If anything, knowing more could cause more trouble. I did what was required to make sure all of you would be safe from everyone involved.”
I growled when Mason opened his mouth. “Shut it. We’re done playing twenty questions with him, alright? You said your part already, and he’s said his piece, so you are all going to shut the hell up and listen to me now, alright?”
There was a long silence until Arlo cleared his throat. “You have the floor.”
