1. ~Mason~

1

~Mason~

"Anything on Royce?"

"Nothing yet," Levi reported.

He stepped back from his laptop, then bolted from the coffee table and slammed his fist into the nearest wall. "Motherfucker! Argh! Argh!"

"We're analyzing right now, it'll come. We'll figure out how he's gonna come at her, even if we can't pinpoint exactly when it's gonna be quite yet," I assured him.

"Yeah," Colt piped up from the couch, where he was far from his usual relaxed self, not leaning back at all this time, and rather right on the edge.

Hell, we all were, more than just literally speaking.

"Mason and you have Hex watching the borders, so we'll know the moment they cross over."

"Meaning we can act to intercept before they get to Brianna," I added.

Expecting Levi to pull back from the wall and take comfort in what we'd just told him, the reassurance we'd given, we were both surprised—and worried as fuck—when he instead started roaring and wailing on the drywall furiously.

"I fucked up! I fucked up!"

"Shit," Colt uttered, getting to his feet and rushing over to Levi.

I dodged into his path, stopping him.

It was rare that Lev lost his temper in this sort of way, by hurting himself. It meant that all bets were off, that it was dangerous to approach him and that it would be a bitch of a thing to pull him out of it.

It was hard enough as it was not to show how pissed I was that something he'd done had driven Brianna away from us.

I knew that showing that wouldn't do any good. In fact, it would only make things a great deal worse. Working Levi up, especially when it came to Brianna, was not a healthy idea. Besides, he was already hurting badly, the last thing he needed was an I-told-you-so thrown in his face, or a reprimand.

What he'd done had occurred before we'd all grown close together and before he'd agreed to tamper down his reckless and lone wolf ways, so I couldn't get on his back about something caused by a version of him that didn't exist any longer.

Lev was yelling about breaking us and the train wreck that is Chloe ruining everything , then moving on to say that he was the one responsible, that he ruined everything he touched.

I eased Colt back further, then I came up behind Levi and swiftly trapped him in a body lock, then used all my strength to rip him off the wall.

He fought me, yelling in so much pain that it had me and Colt fighting to swallow down the emotion it was evoking in us both. That wouldn't help right now. Levi needed stability.

That was what Brianna had brought to him once she'd stopped running from him, and now she wasn't here with us, it was really destabilizing him.

"I need you, Levi," I spoke as I tightened my grip to a brutal hold that constricted his airflow, so I could weaken him enough to make him stop. " She needs you to fix this Royce Humphrey situation."

Slowly, he started to calm in my hold.

When he was no longer fighting me or resisting, I released the pressure around his throat.

"Fuck," he breathed, as I helped him into the armchair adjacent to the couch. "I messed up."

"Lev," Colt began. "As much as it sucks not having her here with us right now because this revelation came out, we also know that whatever you do regarding Brianna is out of love for her, protection, what you figure is in her best interests. We can't fault you for that."

"And this is something you did before we all got together."

"She didn't see it that way," he murmured, shoving a hand through his hair.

"Give her time," Colt said.

I sat down beside him on the couch and told Lev. "She just needs time for the shock of it to wear off. It's raw now. It's why we insisted you don't bombard her with messages and fight to contact her."

"Or, worse, actually show up at her door," Colt added.

"Exactly," I said.

Levi sighed heavily then pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolled for a moment, and handed it to me. "These are all the draft texts I wanted to send her, but stopped myself from doing since we agreed to give her space."

I took them in, Colt reading over my shoulder too.

Levi: I'm so sorry it came out like that.

Levi: It's not as bad as you think.

Levi: I mean, I know it's bad, I can actually recognize that, but I meant it wasn't done for a bad reason. I didn't do it to isolate you or anything. It wasn't like that.

Levi: I truly am sorry, Wildflower.

Levi: What can I do to make it better?

Levi: I can't stand the thought of losing you.

Levi: We can work through this. However you need, on your terms.

Levi: I care about you so much, we all do. Please don't leave.

"Aww, oh my God," Colt said.

I handed the phone back to Levi, still stunned that he'd actually shown it to us, put his vulnerability on display like that.

It just went to show how much he was hurting, and how much he needed us to understand that, to understand he needed us so badly right now.

The thing with Levi Knight was, when he was hurting, he needed a distraction.

Well, in his case, a focus.

And we had one.

Not a good one, a really fucking bad one.

Royce Humphrey and his mercenaries were coming for Brianna.

"Lev, it's actually best that she's distanced herself from us right now. If not, we'd have to tell her about Royce, and that would cause major panic, considering the brutal history there. So, I need you to focus up and put the rest on hold at the moment, so we can deal with this. And then once it's done, if she still hasn't reached out, we'll go to her, all three of us together, and talk it out. We'll fix it."

"We will, Lev," Colt uttered, bolstering my words to him.

It took him a moment to absorb it all.

And then he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that." He rose to his feet. "I can find Royce."

"Good, and then we'll run him and his mercenaries into the ground."

"They won't get near her," Levi growled, vehemently. "I'll rip them apart before it can ever come to that."

We all would.

Estranged right now or not, she was ours.

And nobody threatened what was ours.