Matty peered down at him with a curious smile. “I always thought it might be Moira...but are you going to end up being the protector of this family if I should die?”
Levi’s eyes went wide. “I will make to you the same promise I made Dom.”
“Err,” I said, wondering if now was really the time to whip out the killer persona.
“Can you keep it?”
“Yes.”
“Then go on, make it.”
“I promise that those who would hurt you...or yours, will die screaming in the attempt.”
Matty stared at him for several seconds before looking at me, giving a bemused smile. “How strange. To see the nervous, littletwig of a boy grow up into a man who, in another circumstances, could scare the living bejesus out of me.”
“He means it,” I said, thinking of the brutal state of the one man’s corpse, and the ugly satisfaction on Levi’s face when he’d watched the other man die.
“Oh, that’s why I said it,” she said with a laugh. “But he means it for the sake of my family, so it makes me feel protected. I had better see you on Sunday, eight sharp.”
“She means it,” Marcus repeated as he walked with her, arm in arm.
“God, how long do you think it’ll take before he stops acting so meek and more like himself?” Matty asked as they walked out. “It’s so weird to have a well-behaved child.”
“Give it time, he’ll be giving you hell like the rest of them.”
“Thank God for that.”
I waited till the door was closed before sitting down again. “How do you like that? From monster to family protector in a matter of minutes.”
Levi stared at the blanket. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Yeah? Well, Augustine deserves to be stuffed into a burning tire full of glass and rolled down a bumpy hill into a lake of acid, but people don’t get what they deserve,” I said, and felt better when he gave a choked laugh.
“Now there’s a mental image,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “What was it Milo said? Looney Tunes? Now that’s a Looney Tunes way of dying.”
“I never said he should die from it, I’d prefer he didn’t. Give him time to think, long and hard.”
“Brutal...I should have told them I’ll still have to deal with Augustine. It feels like I’m still lying to them.”
“You’re working with him on the details to get free of him and The Family. Telling them that is just going to set Moira and Mason off again for no good reason,” I said, sliding my arm overhis shoulder and pulling him against me. It was a testament to how exhausted he was that he didn’t resist, just let himself be pulled against me and lay there comfortably.
“I guess they have a right to be doubtful, suspicious.”
“Maybe. But they don’t need to go out of their way to keep reminding you of it either.”
“All of this doesn’t feel real,” he said softly, his hand falling into my lap and holding my thigh. “It feels like a dream. But it can’t be a dream.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never dreamed of anything like this before. Even at my most miserable, when I regretted my choice from years ago, I never let myself dream of anything else. I was stuck, and all I could do was try to improve my situation, not change it. But this is?—”
I closed my eyes and fought the rising tide of emotions choking my chest. I couldn’t imagine how absolutely, heartbreakingly alone he had felt for so many years. How he had given in to the choice he made at seventeen and given up on ever having anything good and loving in his life. How he had smothered and buried even the hope, the dream of something different, something better. He had turned his back on the idea of love and family, so he had filled it with success, efficiency, sex, and the occasional creature comfort.
“Well, it’s not a dream,” I told him finally. “It’s real. All of it.”
“I don’t know what to feel about that...or what to do.”
“What you’re going to do is get some rest. And then we’re going back to your place, and we’re going to exist....and recover. Maybe it’ll all hit us before Sunday, or maybe it’ll still feel weird and dreamlike. Maybe it’ll happen later. Maybe it’ll hit me first, and I’ll lose it, or you’ll break down first. But we’ll have each other when it happens. And then it’ll happen again and again,and we’ll be there for each other. But the important thing is that we take each day for what it is and just...be.”
