Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 135958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
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 seat, sitting on the edge, his feet bouncing up and down. “Fine. You want to know what they did? We killed your mom.”
I deflated. And I looked at Tanner in the other room.
He had been expressionless until now. Now his eyes were wide, his eyebrows high and his mouth open. He reached forward, grabbing the back of a chair in front of him.
A few of the council members cast him sympathetic looks, but not Rose. Not Richard, and not the elderly man. I didn’t know what families they represented, their last names, but I didn’t think it mattered. Somehow, in some way, they were involved, because all three were eyeing the guards around them.
I suspected there was a policy that council members couldn’t sit at the table with weapons. So they were sitting ducks for whatever was coming their way, set forth by Kai.
“Explain.”
Levi eyed Kai, shaking his head. He just kept shaking, and his leg started bouncing up and down. “You’re a dick, you know that?”
Kai hadn’t been watching him, but his dead eyes slid his way now. He stepped closer. “Start talking, or I’ll start torturing. Happily.”
Levi stalled for one more moment before giving in. “Fine.” He looked up, already flinching over what he was about to say. “About twenty years ago, my family got paid to make a hit look like a robbery. My two uncles did it. It was supposed to be just the woman, but then a second order came through for the guy too.”
“And that woman was?”
“Already said,” Levi huffed out. “Your mom.”
“And the man?”
He was quiet a moment. “Her lover. Randall Ritzo.”
Tanner’s eyes cut to the elderly man, and in a second, he had his gun out. Two steps and he brought the butt of the gun down on the back of the man’s head.
No one said a word. No one.
The elderly man fell forward, his head hitting the table hard, but he lifted a hand to the back of his head. “What the—” He pulled his shaking hand back, blood on his fingers. “Why the hell did you do that? Randall was my son!”
Tanner growled, taking the man’s head and grinding it into the table again. “My mother, you old fuck! You killed them, didn’t you?” He scowled at Kai. “You knew about this? THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME?!”
Kai didn’t respond, only turned to Levi. “Finish. Tell them the rest.”
Levi let out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re going to kill me after this, aren’t you? Don’t matter if Brooke loves me or not.”
In response, Kai pulled out his gun. He pointed it at him. “Tell them.” He cocked the gun. “Now.”
“Yeah.” He raised his voice. “Yeah, the order came down from the Ritzo family. It was his son. We didn’t get the purpose of killing your own kid, but whatever. Families have done worse, especially in our world. So yeah. My uncles killed ’em. Both.” He scowled right back at Kai. “That order came down from your dad too. Both your fucking families were behind it.”