5. ~Levi~

5

~Levi~

I sat astride my Harley Softail Deluxe as I waited off the dirt road obscured by the heavy foliage.

Usually waiting wasn't my scene, nor my forte.

But in this case there were rewards to be had.

The first was observing Brianna Walker in her natural habitat.

Well, what had become her natural habitat over the last year. Something she was clearly intending to keep to.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

Which, of course, I did.

Her apartment building ten miles from campus wasn't a shithole, but it was modest, to say the least.

I'd initially been surprised when I'd investigated and delved into every little thing about her, because her old man had money. Despite the major setback he'd had a few years ago, he'd pivoted and found success through other means. Curt Walker owned a very profitable series of small businesses—a motorcycle repair shop, two luxurious lounges, and a chain of diners called Penny's . He'd done very well for himself. She had the means to be living in the lap of luxury, yet here she was residing in a humble one-bedroom apartment instead.

Hmm. She didn't want anything to do with her old life, she'd intentionally separated herself, even financially.

On the surface, it was admirable, a move of strength and independence.

But with the depth of my research, I was aware that it was closer to the opposite.

She was running.

Running scared.

Of the shadows of her past, of the trauma.

Unfortunately, that was often paired with a great deal of denial.

And barriers.

Barriers that threatened to get in my way.

I wouldn't allow that.

In fact, I was already in the process of removing some other barriers on her end.

I shifted my weight as I watched her through her bedroom window and she finally moved from working away on her laptop.

I'd been here for almost two hours and she'd been sitting there the whole time working, shifting between coding one of her apps and then doing her coursework. Every twenty minutes on the dot, she'd reach out beside her and drink from a mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and a great deal of mini-marshmallows.

She walked to her bed that was covered in hot-pink silk and lace—some hardcore Barbie shit going on, just like the rest of the space.

She snatched up her phone and as she did, I could see the screen flashing with an alarm.

Putting it down, she walked back to her laptop and shut down her work for the night, then she crossed to her dresser and pulled out a pair of little shorts and a tank.

She eased off her fluffy pink cardigan and for the first time, I was able to see a purple and blue watercolor butterfly tattoo on her left inner arm. I couldn't make out the intricate details from this distance, but it was enough to at least discern.

I got even luckier as she turned around and I saw a black dandelion tattoo on her right upper back.

I stilled. She saw it too. She saw that she was my wildflower.

Well, she didn't know that she was mine yet.

But she would.

Very soon.

I ground my jaw as I watched her start to strip off her gray scoop neck top too.

No.

I didn't want to see her like that, stripped down and bared to me, not like this.

It wasn't the way.

When that happened, she needed to be looking into my eyes, right there up close wanting it as much as I did.

This… this cheapened it.

If that was all I wanted, I could've used other means to get it.

Besides, I also needed her out of that apartment.

So, I pocketed my lighter, then pulled out my burner, firing off a text.

A text she would believe was from her friend, her only friend here.

Chloe: I'm ready to talk. I need to. Can you meet me tonight? My place?

The notification thankfully pulled her up short and her top didn't come off.

Instead, she picked her phone up again, read my message, then hurriedly responded.

Brianna: Of course. I'm leaving right now. See you in fifteen.

Nice.

Chloe: You're the best.

And she really was.

The lengths she went to in order to be a good friend to that trainwreck was worthy of sainthood. I knew from my research on Brianna, that she was putting forth a bubbly and excitable persona wanting to enjoy life and have fun, so it made sense that she'd be pulled to that in Chloe Anders. However, Chloe took it too far the majority of the time and it had put them in volatile and sometimes outright dangerous situations. Fortunately, as soon as I'd found out she'd been here at Stonewell U, I'd had eyes on her and people strategically intervening when those sorts of incidents had occurred to ensure nothing had come of it, that Brianna hadn't been harmed.

She hastily pulled on her cardigan, rushed out of the bedroom and I shifted to watch her grab her three-quarter-length pastel-pink coat, then head on out, locking the door behind her.

I noted that she didn't turn the lights off on her way out.

She didn't want to come back home to the dark.

As soon as I saw her charcoal-gray Charger driving out of the parking lot, I headed for the apartment building.

Coconut.

That was the scent that had infused me when I'd gotten up close to her during that party.

I smiled at the shampoo bottle in my hand and opened it, sniffing it. Sure, enough, it was the same scent. As I'd already found out her body wash was as well.

Mmm.

It smelled best when it was on her skin and in her hair.

I continued around the bathroom, taking in her glittering silver electric toothbrush, a hair straightener and a curler too.

I opened the cabinets and found the standard toiletries to be expected.

A hot-pink silk robe was hanging off the back of the door. I stroked the sleeves, then breathed it in, smelling her scent all over it.

I opened the mirrored doors of the cabinet above the main vanity mirror, taking in her makeup. Silver eyeshadow, the expected pink too, a lot of lip gloss.

And then I caught sight of something behind a box of tampons and her birth control meds.

Vials of medications.

Anxiety meds. Heavy-duty sedatives. Sleeping pills.

Hmm. One of the things I hadn't been able to determine was this. Reading the name on the prescription vials, it made it clear why. She hadn't used her real name to acquire them. Likely her father's doing then.

I made my way back into the bedroom.

I liked to start from the farthest point then work my way back out. Not that I had a lot of experience with breaking and entering people's homes and going through their possessions. Of course not.

Ribbons hung from some sort of organizer just to the left with a jewelry tree beside it full of beaded bracelets and rings, but no necklaces or earrings. I knew why there were no earrings—she didn't have her ears pierced. And the lack of necklaces, I had a strong theory for.

I continued around the bedroom, finding a thick book of fairytales on her bed, a couple of faux-crystal silver and pink lampshades on her nightstands. I'd also seen some origami creations around the open concept space of the living room and kitchen before I'd walked into the bedroom.

That, combined with her studies for her Software Engineering degree, and the fact that she was out a lot socializing with Chloe, made for an extremely busy life with barely any time to rest.

Very little time to think was more like it.

Her closet was no surprise at all. Bright and bubbly. There was nothing hidden in the far back either.

But then I went for her nightstands.

The first one had just a single box of tissues in the top drawer. But then I opened the door beneath and pulled up short as I took in a bright purple dildo and a bullet vibrator.

Good for her.

I moved to the other one and opened the bottom door.

A safe greeted me. Getting to the good stuff now.

I crouched down and studied it.

The familiarity of it couldn't be denied.

It was one of my father's next-gen products. Well, his corporation's creation, Knightsridge Engineering. He used a couple of them in his own home.

As such, I knew well how it worked.

The passcode changed daily and it was randomized and sent to the user's phone.

Considering I had access to said user's phone, it was child's play to determine it.

I pulled my real phone from my pants pocket and fired it up, accessing what I needed to, and it didn't take me more than a few moments to acquire the code.

I punched it into the safe and, sure enough, a high-pitched beep sounded, along with a mechanical whirring as the door clicked definitively, then sprung open.

Smiling to myself, I opened it all the way then peered inside to see two shelves.

On the bottom one was her passport, thick wads of cash, and a burner. Emergency items should she need to leave in a hurry. So she was still concerned about that then. All these years later. Beside it, nestled in the corner was a Glock 26. Yeah, definitely still concerned.

I focused on the top shelf and found a fuzzy rainbow-colored unicorn journal.

I frowned. In a safe? That was a bit much.

But as I pulled out my pocket knife and used it to open the gold padlock attached, then started rifling through it, it became clear it was much more than a journal or a regular set of diary entries.

It was research.

So she didn't just use her highly accomplished coding skills to create apps. She'd been using them in a similar way to that which I did. Illicitly. She'd been conducting her own investigation that mirrored mine.

She'd been trying to find the same people I had.

But then she'd abruptly stopped.

Why?

It didn't say.

I flipped through, trying to determine why.

Nothing. No reason given.

A couple of photos slipped out and I caught them, taking them in.

A growl rumbled in my throat before I could check myself as I studied the first one. It was a photo of Tommy Dixon, also known as Hawk in Brianna's previous circles. He used to be one of her father's top enforcers. And there he was in the photo sitting astride his Harley and grinning at the camera, well fucking beaming at it—beaming at her.

I looked at the other photo, which was far worse. It was clear she was holding the camera as the two of them snuggled together and Tommy kissed her cheek.

These weren't the first I'd seen of them, evidence of the illicit affair they'd had for a couple of years. There were more on her phone and of a much more compromising nature. But having them here in my hands and seeing them again and kept in her book of secrets… it had my gut twisting.

I slotted them back in the page they'd fallen from.

If she'd launched this investigation, it suggested that she did remember what had happened.

That had to mean that she actually remembered me too.

So her response at the party had been a load of crap?

There'd been nothing about me in the book, nor of the events concerning that fucked-up time, though.

Had the trauma made her repress the specifics of it?

Was the investigation just built on bits and pieces that she remembered?

Or had it come from what had happened to her mom, which had been closely related to that nightmare?

Had it come from her father's reports, rather than her own recollection?

As much research as I'd done, the only way to know the answers to that was to approach her directly, to ask outright.

But given what else I knew about her—creating a new life to run from the past—it stood to reason that she'd want to continue in that vein and do everything she could to avoid venturing down that dark road.

That asshole at the party who'd tried to assault her had made things even worse in that capacity, freaking her out and causing what had looked very much like a panic attack.

So now she would be more skittish than ever.

More fucking barriers.

It was all right, I could muster patience where this was concerned for a little while longer.

It definitely wasn't my thing, so there was a time limit on it.

But the way things were, combined with my harsher and, according to Mason, volatile , nature, this situation would require a different approach.

Rather than confronting her directly or getting in her face, she needed to be lured carefully and with a whole lot of charisma and incentive.

Fortunately, I knew just the person for the job.

And then, finally, Brianna Walker would recognize the truth I'd allowed her to avoid for far too long.

She. Belonged. To. Me.