Page 164 of Never Die for a Sinner
Sickness pools in my stomach, and I jump when I’m backed into a corner.
Oh, this is bad.
A shadow passes over us, and I flinch.
One moment, my mother’s boyfriend is in my face. The next, I’m staring at the broad shoulders of a man who shouldn’t bring me this much comfort, but who feels like a life raft in the middle of the sea.
Levi . . .
“Ava’s not signing anything for you,” he says, his tone laced with darkness.
Relief washes over me, even as he gets right in Brad’s face, forcing him to back up.
He falls back a few steps, glaring at him, but even I can see the fear in his beady gaze.
“Give me the contract.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” my mother snaps, her cheeks flaming red.
Levi chuckles darkly, taking another step forward. Brad falls back into the wall.
“Everythingshe does concerns me. You’ve got DEA and FBI here, right now. You really want to fuck around?”
Christian stands at the doorway, blocking Brad from leaving, and he cocks his head as if daring him to try.
My mother glares at both men before she shoves the contract into Levi’s chest. I watch in awe when he takes it, holding it up in front of her face, and rips it right down the center.
He drops it at his feet in a desecrated pile, his voice dropping so low, I can barely hear him.
“Let this be a warning. Don’t come near her again.”
Both my mother and Brad freeze, neither moving. The only sound in the room is the racing of my heartbeat and the steady drip of the faucet.
It’s the most human I’ve felt in two days.
“Come on,” Levi says, finally stepping back. He holds his hand out to me, which I graciously accept. “I’m taking you home.”
The ride home is silent, filled with nothing but the steady whir of the heat going in the car.
It’s hot, but I barely feel it. Unfortunately, the cold lies somewhere much deeper.
Levi keeps glancing at me, that indifferent look I’ve come to grow used to doing nothing but grinding my nerves because he doesn’t seem to understand I don’t want him to look at me.
I don’t want anything. All I need is to sink inside myself and huddle up in bed, ignoring that the world exists.
I don’t know how to navigate this . . . thisholethat’s aching in my chest.
No one ever tells you how to handle death. I don’t think anyone honestly knows. Even if it comes slowly, it’s a shock every time.
I didn’t even realize we hadn’t gone home until Levi put the car in park and I looked up to see the cabin.
I’d dozed off on the ride, my head resting on my elbow on the window.
I can’t even be angry. With any luck, he’ll leave me here and let me wallow in my own self-pity because I don’t want him to see me this way.
See the broken girl that I hide so well. The one whose mother is an awful person, and whose father couldn’t even be bothered to stick around.
I don’t want Levi to knowthatAva. The one who hated her life growing up because it was never hers. The one who was so scared of anyone and everything that she would rather hide out in her room than chance facing the world outside.
