Page 53 of Twisted Trust
“It would be apleasure,” I reply, smiling widely.
Levi clears his throat suddenly. “Maeve, you don’t have to?—”
“Hush.” I cut him off quickly and glance at him. “I’m happy to.”
Whatever else he plans to say dies as Elio suddenly hurries into the room. “Marcie, honey, I must leave. Levi, we have a dinner with Antony.”
Antony. The mention of his name turns Levi’s face to thunder and his jaw tenses so suddenly that the muscle up on his cheek jumps like it’s trying to escape. “Why?” he asks with such restrained anger that the air between us suddenly feels charged. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this before and an urge rises to reach out and touch him. As I do, he quickly moves into my space.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Elio says and he flashes me a brief smile. “Nice to see you, Maeve.”
“You too.”
“Make yourself at home,” Levi says as he brushes a chaste kiss to my cheek. “I’ll be back later.”
16
LEVI
“We need to talk.” Chip usually sits across from me on drives like this just in case we get into an accident, but today, he sits next to me and fixes me with a firm stare.
“We do?” My brow lifts. If this is about the emergency meeting with Antony, then I’m just as in the dark as he is. “About?”
“Maeve.”
Tension pulls slowly through my body like a bow being pulled taut. “Did something happen with Cameron?”
“No. She—” He glances over his shoulder to ensure the screen separating us and Donald is raised, then leans in close. “She was pissed at you and she said something weird. Something about your being dead for a year. And then someone contacted her and told her you were so furious with her that you wanted to kill her baby, make her watch, and then kill her.”
My stomach flips slightly and a bad taste rises on the back of my tongue. I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life but I’ve never once dirtied my hands with the blood of a child. “She mentioned something similar to me as well. I haven’t had time to confronther about it, but she said I’d faked my death for a year and suddenly, I understood why she hated me so much. I thought it was because she believed I left her… but her baby?”
“You were in a coma for three weeks, not a year. I tried to reason that maybe she found out about it and just never knew you woke up, but that doesn’t explain why a year later, she would be told you’re hunting her down.”
“It was true, though. I’ve been hunting her since I woke up because she was the only other soul I told about the details of that deal. No one else knew. Just me, my father, Nazario, and her. Nazario sure as hell didn’t blow himself up and my father had more riding on that deal than I did. She was the only one it could have been. Everyone else just thought it was a regular deal.”
Chip drags a hand down his face, flexing his fingers at his jaw. “If we look at this objectively, someone told her you were dead. It had to be someone from this family because anyone else would have taken her to use her against you.”
“Unless she truly is a Red Serpent.” The words weigh heavily on my tongue. It’s wishful thinking that I pray she’s not, but I can’t deny how the pieces fit. “And if she is, then I’ve just invited her back into my life.”
“You said Naz has doubts,” Chip murmurs. “And you share those doubts. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be alive.”
“I do. Partially. But I don’t know if that’s old feelings getting in the way of what’s right in front of me. Love makes you blind and all.”
Chip’s brow twitches up. “You still love her?”
“No, it’s just a saying.” Pain squeezes through my chest as the words leave me, as if my soul knows something I don’t.
“Fine. Let’s say we were right all along and she is the traitor. What does she have to gain by thinking you’re dead? Who would tell her, and to what end?”
“Leo,” I reply instantly. “The Red Serpent Don would tell her that.”
“But why?” Chip presses. “What value does she have alive? She’s not his daughter, is she?”
“Nah, that kid’s only thirty-three. There’s no way.”
“Sibling?”
“Doubtful. Plus, no one knew I was hunting her down once I woke up. No one knows what she meant to me, at least. Anyone I roped into hunting for the traitor only knew her as a stranger without a name. No one knew. Except…” Sinking deeper into my seat, my attention drifts out the window. “Someone knew. And someone knew enough to make her hide.”
