Page 102 of Vegas Daddies

“You’ve been trying to kill my?—”

“No.” He sucks in a breath. “Believe it or not, Vlad doesn’t like death on his hands if he can help it. He prefers blackmail. So, he’s been ordering me to try and capture you.”

“That would explain the text,” Lifesaver says.

“The text?” Alice shoots him a look.

“Your father received an ultimatum from the Bratva—stop the campaign or never see his daughter again.”

This has Alice shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“He should end it,” Levi says.

Silence stretches across the room, all eyes landing on the boy.

The dude slept with the boss’ wife, is in shit with the Bratva up to his eyeballs, and to top it all off, has since adopted a new role as Vlad’s fucking pet.

He needs to get himself back to school before he grows any more stupid.

“What do you mean he should stop the campaign?” Alice says. “Don’t you know how dangerous these guys are? You’ve seen what they do. How they operate. You’ve witnessed firsthand how Vlad orders you around, playing with your life and dangling it in front of you, playing cat and mouse. These people need to be gone.”

Levi hardens his jaw and looks around the room, displeased, especially as his eyes land on Brander, Lifesaver, and myself. The small eyes suggest insecurity. Like he’s looking at his superiors.

Superiors who stole his girl.

He drops his eyes to his hands. Fiddles with them for a moment. They’re dirty. Grime spreads thick under each fingernail (the bits of nail he has left anyway) and his palms look like they haven’t been washed for a couple days.

He’s not doing well. Alice’s disgusted face makes that clear. The Levi she once dated knew the definition of soap anddidn’trun off in the middle of the night to the Bratva when Vlad whistled for his assistance. Levi was the computer guy, if I remember it right. The nerd. The dude who spent more time fingering computer keys than he did?—

I’ll stop there.

Point is—the guy has changed.

And I hate that Alice looks concerned for his well-being, because this is his own fucking fault.

May I also mention that he tried to kidnap her multiple times?

Why is she still fucking speaking to him?

“What do you mean he should end it?” Alice says. “You of all people know how dangerous the Bratva are. Look what they’ve done to you.” She gestures to his face. “You never wanted this.”

I narrow my eyes. There’s more to the story than this.

I know more than most what it’s like to experience the thrill of belonging to something, no matter how dangerous or immoral. IT guys live vicariously through individuals that actually move proactively through life. The ones that get up in the morning with a zest for life. A passion. Have IT guys ever rolled out of bedandnotreached for the strongest coffee they can find to make it through the day?

Desk-sitting isn’t exhilarating.

I suppose it’s the same kind of “exhilarating” as working as a barista in Buffalo.

Things are quiet.

People see you, but not really.

I didn’t feel like myself until the Venom Vultures. Until I was revving the Harley and riding into the sunset with my boys down empty desert roads. Sure, from time to time, we act brutally, and if God was watching over us he’d be shaking his head and already enrolling us into Hell, but the excitingthump, thumpin your chest makes you forget about coffee. You’re no longer slugging through life, letting the days pass.

Finally, you’re living them.

Levi is young.

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