I knew he was talking about the money because he didn’t give a shit about whether I walked through the door on time. I could have gone missing for days, but he wouldn’t take notice until the rent came due.
“Sorry, there was some kind of problem with work depositing my check on time,” I lied. The truth was, Dina had insisted that I give her the last of the money I had in my account a couple days earlier, so there hadn’t been enough until this morning to cover rent.
“Next time you’ll start paying in advance.”
I bit back the urge to remind him that the only thing keeping his ass from being evicted was my larger share of the rentplusthe work I did to help the owner maintain the property that helped cover the rent my father and I couldn’t come up with in cash. If my father hadn’t been so invested in staying in the apartment, I had no doubt he would have spent the money I gave him on booze. As it was, most of his own paycheck went to fund his incessant need for alcohol.
I desperately wished I could just get my own place, but like my father, I too was tied to this place.
“No problem,” I murmured. I knew he wouldn’t remember the conversation anyway, so I pretty much would have told himwhatever he wanted to hear. I ignored my rumbling stomach and went to my room. I had less than three hours before I needed to be up again and I didn’t want to spend any of that time in the kitchen making breakfast while my father was still lingering around. I’d eat later when it was time for me to get up.
Because by then, my father would be gone and I’d get to face the best part of my day.
Chapter 6
Phoenix
Levi definitely wasn’thappy to see me when he opened the door to let me into the kitchen. But the fact that he also wasn’t surprised by my presence meant Father O had likely talked to him.
After dropping Levi off at work the night before, I’d parked my car on the street alongside the grocery store since I’d figured the guy who was hassling Levi would likely try to go after him again using the employee entrance rather than the busier front entrance. The asshole hadn’t shown up and as soon as I’d made sure Levi had made it safely home, I’d gone to my own apartment to get some sleep. Since Ronan had someone watching Seth 24/7, there wasn’t the need to stay on Levi the whole time and since I’d identified through learning his routine that he rarely left his building between the time he got home and the time he left to volunteer at the soup kitchen, I’d felt it safe enough for me to go home to get some sleep rather than try to sleep in the confines of my car.
I’d gotten up around lunch time and then headed to St. Anthony’s to talk to Father O. I figured getting the old man on my side would make things easier when I showed up for my first shift as the newest volunteer for the St. Anthony’s Soup Kitchen. I’d convinced Father O to put me on the same schedule as Levi so that I couldgive him a ride to work each night. The deciding factor for Father O had been my insistence that I could make sure whoever had put the bruises on Levi’s face wouldn’t get a second chance. I hadn’t told the priest I already knew how Levi had gotten the injuries, but he hadn’t seemed surprised that Levi had even ended up with the bruises in the first place…like he’d already known it wasn’t a random attack. After I’d gotten Father O’s buy-in, I’d gone back to Levi’s apartment to wait so I could follow him. Like the day before, he’d taken the bus again, despite the improvement in the weather. Since he’d walked to the church all the previous times, I had to assume he was being careful because of his run-in with the blond asshole the day before.
There’d been no sign of said asshole this time around so I’d waited a few minutes before knocking on the soup kitchen entrance door.
Levi didn’t say anything as he opened the door wider, so I followed him inside and remained silent as he gave me my instructions - cutting up vegetables for the stew he was preparing.
As I worked, I let my thoughts drift to where they’d been since the previous night after Levi had asked me to leave the soup kitchen after I’d volunteered to help him finish preparing the meal. My intention had been to go back to my car and wait for Levi to appear from the alley and follow him to work like I normally did, but I’d been too on edge that I’d miss his attacker sneaking into the alley through the end I couldn’t cover, so I’d ended up getting out of my car and waiting for Levi by the door. My anger at myself had grown and grown as I’d tried to make sense of what I was doing there…after all, my job wasn’t to keep Levi safe. It didn’t matter if his entire body was covered in bruises when it came time for me to take him out, I had a damn job to do. And even if it wasn’t my job, Seth was my priority because he was family. Levi was nothing to me.
So, what the hell was I doing here? Why was I going through such extraordinary measures to ensure the young man didn’t get hurt again? Why, even now, did I want to go up to him and shake him and ask him why he’d participated in such a horrific crime seven years ago? Why did someone heartless enough to stand by and watch a man and his child be cruelly tortured and listen to a womanbeing brutally raped then go and volunteer at a soup kitchen when he wasn’t under any obligation to do so?
That was a piece of information I’d managed to wrangle out of Father O when I’d talked to him earlier. There was no court or probation officer ordering Levi to give back to the community…he was doing it because he wanted to. And from the way the priest had talked about him, the young man thoroughly enjoyed the work and was popular among the men, women and children who relied on the soup kitchen’s services. Apparently, the way he’d talked to me when he’d still thought I needed a helping hand was the way he talked to all the people who walked through the soup kitchen’s door. He treated them like people. He showed them respect and kindness. He inquired about their lives. Father O had even told me a story about how he’d given up his gloves, hat and coat this past winter to a man who’d had nothing.
I wanted to believe it was an act, but I couldn’t deny his breakdown the night before.
When he’d been talking about his brother.
To have such an extreme reaction to even the mere mention of his older brother had been a telling sign, and I was starting to have my own suspicions about just how much influence Ricky Deming had had the night Seth and his family had been attacked. Before the drug possession charges that had landed Levi in prison just before he’d turned nineteen, he hadn’t been in any kind of trouble. His brother, on the other hand, had had numerous run-ins with the law. Mostly minor things like assault and vandalism.
Everything had changed when Ricky had been in his twenties and he’d been accused of rape on two separate occasions. One of the girls hadn’t even been eighteen years old. Initially, both girls had pointed the finger at Ricky, but when the prosecutor had been ready to press charges, they’d both recanted. And then Ricky’s girlfriend had been discovered strangled to death in her apartment.
It should have been a slam-dunk case, but Ricky’s father had offered an alibi, which had made the prosecutor nervous. So, he’d knocked the charges down so Ricky barely served any time at all. Both Levi and Ricky had been in prison for an overlapping timeperiod, but not in the same prison and Levi had gotten out before Ricky. Luckily, there hadn’t been much time for Ricky to hurt anyone else because Ronan had ordered the man’s termination within a month of him being released.
I glanced over my shoulder at Levi who was in the process of pulling some frozen dinner rolls out of the freezer and putting them on several cookie sheets so they’d be ready to go when dinner was just about ready to be served. “Where do you want these?” I asked as I motioned to the vegetables I’d already chopped. Levi glanced at me and I didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered briefly on the butcher knife in my hand.
“Um, put them in here,” he murmured as he reached into a cabinet above the stove and pulled out a large bowl. His shirt rode up just a little bit and I barely managed to conceal my reaction at the sight of a jagged scar just above his hip bone that ran upwards until it disappeared beneath his shirt. Levi didn’t notice me studying him and I averted my eyes when he handed me the bowl.
“Smells good,” I said absently as I began putting the vegetables in the bowl. The base for the stew had been simmering for a while now. I moved to his side. “You mind if I try it?”
Levi seemed surprised by the request, but he nodded and handed me a clean wooden spoon. I tried the soup and nodded. “It’s good.”
He studied me for a moment. “But?”
“No buts,” I said, handing him the spoon.
“What?” he asked. “Is it missing something?”
“No,” I began.
