21. ~Levi~

21

~Levi~

Nico Marchetti had been investigating Osiris for a good couple of years.

He'd had eyes on him from the moment his father had first brought up the possibility of dealing with that fucker, Malcolm Lynch.

The mafia prince was certainly on the ball.

All this information that he'd compiled was incredible and it had the means to bridge the gap with mine. But it was also a whole lot to sift through to get to that point. He hadn't left anything out, not one little thing, even what I would class as irrelevant data.

"Fuck," I muttered, slumping back in my desk chair in my old bedroom from my childhood and shoving a hand through my hair.

"Hitting some roadblocks?"

I'd been so immersed that I hadn't even heard the approach.

I spun on my rolling chair to see my dad standing at the threshold.

"You can come in," I told him, amused at him hanging back there. "I'm not a bitch-ass teenager anymore forbidding you from coming into my space."

He chuckled. "No, you're certainly not." He gestured at all my equipment set up. "You're a grown man taking control of the situation, of your own life."

"Ah, I forgot," I said, grinning. "You're where I learned that whole buttering up thing from."

His lips quirked. "You got me." He folded his arms across his chest. "First, though, how's that going?"

"There's a hell of a lot here. It's going to take time to go through. There's a ton of raw data."

"The fact he hasn't seen to this data at all highly suggests that he never intended to go after Lynch himself. He was always looking for someone else to do his dirty work. He wasn't doing you a favor. You're doing him a favor."

"It doesn't matter. This is dirty work I'm more than happy to do."

"For the last time, I'm hoping."

"Dad—"

"It's time, son. After this, it's time to stop."

I scrubbed my hand over my face. "I want to. I just don't know if it's possible."

He perched on the edge of my desk, facing me and folding his arms. "Why not?"

"Because I touched something dark, Dad. Six years ago. And I've only delved deeper since. If I don't have these outlets, I don't know if I can keep it under control."

"You can."

I arched an eyebrow. "How can you be so sure?"

He'd said it with so much conviction, like it wasn't even a question.

"Because I know you. The real you beneath all the rage, pain, and shame. I know your strength, Levi."

I started shaking my head. "Dad, no."

" Yes," he said, vehemently. "After all you've been through, all that's been weighing you down, you've carried it, and you haven't faltered. And here you are now doing this, leading the way, the man they look to in order to achieve the impossible."

I smiled. "Well, when you put it like that."

"You also have Brianna now to soothe that darkness, Levi." He laid his hand on my shoulder. "It's different now. So much has changed for you, and it's time to accept that, and not continue waiting on tenterhooks for the other shoe to drop. This is your new reality now. She's not going anywhere and neither are the boys."

"With this strike against Lynch coming up… it's… it's a clear risk, Dad."

"We will mitigate the risk in every possible way. We have great minds at the helm here who will strategize the strike. This isn't like five years ago. You need to recognize the difference and keeping reminding yourself of that."

"All right, yeah, I hear you."

"Good." He ruffled my hair in that way he could never resist doing, as he rose to his feet. "Now, while your program is constructing all that data, it seems like a pertinent time to discuss Knightsridge Engineering."

I relaxed into my chair and kicked my feet up on my desktop, settling in. "I'm still in college."

"I convinced you to attend Stonewell University to give you structure and a focus in a bid to curb your reckless tendencies and thirst for danger and darkness, your vigilante activities. You're overqualified to be there. All that you'll lack if you leave now are the credentials, which aren't even an issue, given that I can waive that as owner."

"I want to finish out my studies."

"Because of Brianna?"

"Partly. Getting her degree is important to her. Even during all this upheaval, she's been finding time to study and do her readings and projects. She didn't think she'd have the opportunity to do any of that because of her background as club princess, so it means a lot to her. And life is good at the mansion."

"You can move to another house in Tolhurst for you all to share. Here for a while if you wish." His lip curled up. "Or longer than a while."

"Nice try. But my plan is to finish up at Stonewell and then claim my birthright as your heir apparent. Until then, though, I've thought about interning there, having you mentor me so I can be fully prepared by the time I'm done with college."

"Really? You mean that?" he asked, his eyes bright.

It was what he'd wanted for a long time, but other things had always gotten in the way—namely my instability. Then me taking off for a year and becoming estranged from him and everyone because of my obsession to bury Malcolm Lynch.

I grinned back at him. "I do, Dad. If you'll have me, of course."

"I can't think of anything that I want more than you there right beside me running Knightsridge ."

"Perfect."

Footsteps sounded and we both spun around as Brianna strode into the room, urgency radiating off her.

I shot out of my chair. "What's happened?"

"I just got confirmation from Vixen that Tommy was working with Lynch. Actually is working with him currently. He was spotted with one of the known members you identified of Osiris, outside a gambling den, the two of them looking mighty cozy."

"Christ."

"My girl was also able to tag Tommy when he left the place late last night. The Osiris member never surfaced unfortunately, so there must have been an underground route out of the place. He was surrounded by his muscle too, so she couldn't even drop him either. So we missed the opportunity to bring him in for questioning and get a real-time location on Lynch out of him." She ground her jaw. "It would have saved this massive undertaking you're dealing with of trying to pinpoint his location when he's always on the move."

"We can still bring Tommy in. You said he was tagged."

"He won't break, Levi. He was trained not to by my dad. A bunch of the club members went through the same training when they were prospects. It was a dark time back then."

"You'd be surprised what I can achieve."

" No," my dad spoke. Well, growled vehemently. "Absolutely not. Remember what we just talked about. Torturing somebody would seriously strain your ability to walk away from this sort of thing. It would taint you, Levi."

"Yeah, you're not doing that," Brianna told me. She walked to me and took my hands in hers. "It would haunt me forever if I knew you'd done that for me."

"Okay. Besides, we have enough things haunting us, don't we?"

"Things we're on our way to cast off now."

I nodded.

"I recall what you told me about Brianna's text conversation with Tommy," my dad said. He looked at her. "Based off of that and his attitude there, I'd reason that he would be filled with twisted delight to tell you all about his illicit activities with Lynch and how he deceived you and your father."

"He's right," I said.

She nodded. "I need to find out for sure. I need to know what happened. I need the closure, Levi." She pulled away. "I can't allow him to get off scot-free just because our real target is Lynch."

"You're not going anywhere near that motherfucker on your own."

"I know. I came in here not just to notify you, but to ask you to go with me."

"If he's working with Lynch, it's unlikely he'll be alone," my dad warned.

I thought he was going to fight against us doing this, especially with the big strike coming up where we all needed to be at our best, and because he'd already managed to bite the bullet and accept me doing one majorly dangerous thing as it was.

Instead, he told us, "I'll send one of my units. You can start by trying to handle it on your own, but if things go south, they'll move in and extract you safely."

I gave him a chin lift.

"What about Mason and Colt?" I asked, Brianna. "Have you filled them in yet?"

"Mason is immersed in his tattoo designs, I don't want to upset that now he's finally back down to it. And Colt is stressed about Mythic Cry and having focusing issues. He's behind several weeks with his college work. They'll stay here. We'll be in and out, back before they know it."

"Brianna—"

"Levi, this is extremely personal to me. I wanted to go alone, but I'm bringing you in because I know you guys would never allow me to go solo on this."

"And because you know you couldn't get this past me."

The corner of her mouth turned up. "There's also that, yeah."

"By the way, I was going to say that I agree with you about keeping it to just the two of us. Just this time, though. We do the rest together as our foursome."

"Agreed. Just this one time."

"Good," I said, walking to the closet and reaching inside for my riding jacket. "Then let's ride, Wildflower."