not a this,” Levi protested. “I’m a fucking person.”
Kai ignored him, addressing the others. “I’d like the room for the council members to be locked down.”
“What?” one of the men barked.
Rose moved forward again. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Lock it down, Tanner.”
Tanner was already moving. Two doors opened, and more guards streamed in. His guards, not anyone else’s. I recognized so many of them. They lined the inside of the room before the doors were shut again and deadbolted firmly in place.
Every person in that room was now a prisoner. Kai had taken complete control.
I tried not to react to this, but I couldn’t ignore the tingle that ran down my spine, the way it curled toward my stomach and began to warm me.
Kai looked at me once before turning back to Levi. He stood right next to him, speaking down to him. “You have a secret about my family, don’t you?”
“What is going on here, Kai?” Rose demanded. “I don’t like being a captive to your men. We all have men. We all have families, and I’m not saying that in the way Jillian was. My family will hunt yours down if you don’t get—”
“I’m getting to the goddamn point!” Kai yelled, his calm exterior slipping. “Sit your ass down. NOW!”
She quieted, her mouth clamped shut, and a second later, she sat down. I watched how she swallowed, her jaw trembling before she raised her chin.
“Kai Bennett, you cannot speak to another—”
“I can, and I will, and you might want to keep quiet so you can understand where the hell I’m going with this!”
“Kai—” another member began.
“Shut up!” He burned them with a look. “All of you.” Without waiting, he rounded to Levi. “Tell them what your family was hired to do. Now!”
But he didn’t. Levi held back, his eyes skirting around the room, passing over me without a second glance and lingering on the door before facing Kai again.
“Shit.” He raked his hands through his hair. “That’s what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it? Not about me turning on my family or having a fling with your sister. It was about the other matter. Look, man.” He started to get up.
A guard pushed him back down, hard. Levi barely noticed. He held a hand up, imploring Kai. “I had nothing to do with that. That was my uncles, and to be honest, they’re all right bastards. We’re basically nonexistent on the market in Milwaukee. Another family’s pushed us out. We just have a few businesses, a couple gambling circuits. That’s all.”
Kai waited for him to stop blabbering, and once he was done, he repeated, “Tell them what your family was hired to do against mine.”
Levi cursed. He began shaking his head, groaning as if he were in pain. “I can’t do that. I mean—shit. I can’t. I can’t. The stuff I was turning on my family was petty. Nothing big. Nothing like this. I can’t—no. Don’t make me. Please. I love your sister—”
“You don’t love my sister. You just called her a fling.”
“I know. I know, but there’s feelings there. Right? Man, I had plans. I was gonna—” He searched for words.
He was stalling.
“I was gonna ask her to marry me. I was gonna—yeah. Yeah! I had it all planned too, until you picked me up. I was heading to Minnesota to get her. We were going to go back to Mexico, get married there. I wasn’t even turning evidence, not really. It’d been a setup by the local cops. They set me up with child pornography.”
Oh God.
My eyes opened again. I was starting to see the dots.
Oh my God.
“They confiscated my computer, put that disgusting crap on there, threatened to take me in if I didn’t give them something on someone,” Levi whined. “So whatever. What I did tell them was minor, so minor. Just a slap on the wrist.”
Kai was letting him hang himself. The more Levi said, the worse it was for him.
I’d helped Brooke get to Minnesota, but he’d been the one to find her a place to hide. Those people had been his connections. That meant…
A string had tightened inside of me, twisting all my organs around and around each other, all into a nice, tight bowtie.
“Tell them. Now.”
So quiet, but so lethal.
I saw Rose close her eyes in surrender. She knew what was coming, whatever it was.
“Fuck!” Levi yelled before slumping in his chair. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” His hand went through his hair once more before he shot forward in his