10. ~Levi~

10

~Levi~

Five and a Half Years Ago

A literal kick to the ass had me crashing onto my elbows and knees.

Damn, that was gonna leave one hell of a bruise.

It didn't matter.

I didn't give a crap about the punishment that I took.

I'd take whatever I had to in order to achieve what I needed to here.

What I had to.

Vindication.

Proof that I was up to the task, that I could handle what I had planned.

I swiftly rolled onto my back.

Just in time as his combat boot came at me.

Combat boot—unheard of for the CEO of Knightsridge Engineering. But Roman Knight had really come prepared. I couldn't deny that I was feeling the full effect of that either.

But I did what I'd learned to in that hellscape and pushed it down so I could keep moving forward.

So I could keep fighting.

I twisted away before his boot could connect and used the rolling momentum to spring back to my feet, assuming a fighting stance.

I'd just landed stably when he threw his fist lightning-fast and clocked me across the side of the face.

"Fuck," I muttered, as my head snapped to the side and I tasted blood on my lips.

"I told you that I had it covered, that Curt and I are handling it, Levi."

"It has to be me."

"The most important thing is that the threat is destroyed."

"They need punishment."

"And, believe me, they'll have it. They took my son. They took you from me. That won't stand. They'll be punished severely. And then they'll be disposed of."

"What if Malcom Lynch and his guys go to ground before you manage to track them down?"

"I have my people on it. I'm pulling on a lot of resources to make it happen and to fast-track it. Curt Walker is even waging a war against them, crossing all sorts of lines and former allies in the process."

"It sounds bad. Isn't it going to bring down his motorcycle club?"

"If we don't find them soon, it's possible."

I wiped the blood out of the corner of my mouth. "All the more reason to have him stand down. You find them for me, and I'll deliver justice."

"No."

"Dad, I've been training to—"

"You've been doing it for a few months only, Levi."

"I'm a fast learner. You know that."

"It's still not enough time. You're still a boy."

"I stopped being a boy the moment I was taken by those motherfuckers."

Emotion plagued his features so similar to mine. "It makes me sick that it happened, and I'm so sorry, son. But I'm not about to let you risk your life in the name of this vengeance. It will be seen to for you."

"No!" I roared, my temper exploding like it kept doing ever since I'd been pulled out of that hellscape.

I'd never been an angry kid before. But what I'd seen and also had done to me, what had been done to her , had caused that in me. I could barely control it at the best of times.

But for what I planned to do, rage would function as power.

Power that would rip those fuckers apart.

"Levi, there's still a lot you need to learn."

"I don't care! I can do this! I can, Dad!"

In the next moment, he socked me in the gut.

I choked and doubled over, but he didn't give me any time to recover before he then swept his leg at my ankles, ripped me off my feet, then reached down and dragged me across the room.

I was gasping for breath as he threw me up against the wall and pinned me to it with his full body weight, looming over me in the process.

I screamed and struggled wildly against him. "Dad, stop! Get the fuck off me! You're not playing fair!"

"There is no fair," he rumbled. "Not in a real-world fight."

I didn't want to hear it.

I didn't want his words to seep into me and undermine my conviction and my plan.

I pushed against him, trying to free myself.

I tried every move I'd learned over the last few months.

Nothing worked.

Nothing could help me to escape.

Nothing could move him.

"You're not strong enough, Levi," he told me firmly, yet calmly, a complete and jarring contrast to me in those moments. "Not yet."

Rage bled into frustration.

And as I kept struggling, kept trying to fight, that frustration was tainted by exhaustion and was stripped away to leave the awful thing I'd been trying to avoid, to shut off, all this time.

Pain.

"I can't… I can't stop it, Dad. It won't… they won't… they won't leave me."

He pushed off me and uttered sadly, "I know."

"I don't know how to let it go without doing this, without hurting them back."

"You will. In time. All this focus on that is toxic, son. Let me help you to put your concentration on the bright future you have ahead of you."

How could I even think about any sort of future when I was trapped in the past, in that room at the abandoned police station.

The shackles might not be physical anymore, but they were still there.

"Have you heard anything else about her?"

"Brianna Walker?"

"Yeah."

"She's recovering at the clubhouse with her father."

"I want to see her."

He shook his head. "It's not a good idea."

"Dad, we were there together, we—"

"That's the issue. She's not doing well, Levi. Seeing you could trigger her and make it all the worse. She needs time, just like you do. Besides, she's under lockdown, her father has round-the-clock protection on her."

"Fuck."

I pushed off the wall and he wrapped his arms around me.

"Let's get you cleaned up."

"All right, yeah."

"I got you those computer components that you wanted, so you can put all this pent-up energy into that."

I forced a smile that I really wanted to feel, but couldn't. "That sounds good. Thank you."

As we made our way out of our home gym, my dad fell into that sad and contemplative state that he had been since I'd been liberated from that nightmare. He was so distraught about what had happened to me and despite his efforts to hide it, I knew him too well not to be able to see through to the truth.

The fact that something that awful had happened to his son was bad enough for him.

He loved and adored me so much and we were so close, I was basically his world. Everything else came second to him, even his multi-million dollar business empire.

But that I'd come back haunted so much by it all to such a degree that I couldn't see past it was another, because it was lingering, it was changing me. And I knew he was so very worried that it had actually damaged me irreparably, that the son he'd known had gone and been replaced by something else.

A shadow of what he had been.

And he wasn't wrong there.

Those demons had taken something from me during that hell.

They'd also infected me.

With fear.

Powerlessness.

Despair.

Rage.

And the hardest thing of all to shake—shame.

Shame that I hadn't been able to stop it, that those things had been done to me.

That those things had been done to her .

The angel among the demons had saved me, she'd sacrificed for me, she'd hurt for me.

All because I hadn't been strong or capable enough to save myself. Or her.

How the fuck did you even begin to figure out how to live with all that?

My dad wanted me to focus on my future.

My friends, Mason, and Colt did too.

But as hard as I tried to push forward, the past and those brutal memories were locked around me constantly pulling me back.

"You were right, Dad. I'm not strong enough to go after them. I'm not ready."

"You don't need to be. It's being handled."

"Yeah, I know. It is, it'll be dealt with."

He ruffled my hair. "I've taken the next couple of weeks off to spend time with you. We'll get you past this."

I smiled back.

But once again I didn't feel it.

And I knew in my bones that getting past it wasn't an option for me.

Not until I was ready to face what had damaged me.

And I would be ready.

I'd build myself up.

I wouldn't stop.

I'd do whatever I needed to in order to get to that place that meant I could come at those motherfuckers.

I'd take back the power they stole from me and shove that shame back down their throats where it belonged.

Because the inescapable truth was, I knew that I'd never feel peace until I destroyed them.