It’s… more comfortable than I would have expected it to be, sitting here eating with him. We chew our food in silence for the first several minutes, but it’s not tense or awkward.
It gives me the push I need to speak up and do some digging. Despite what Rory said last night about me maybe living with them for a while, I have no idea how quickly my dad might manage to accomplish the task they gave him. And as much as I hope it’s soon, I need to take advantage of every minute I have with these guys to learn more about them and their organization.
“The Black Roses are a pretty established gang, huh?” I ask through a mouthful of fries.
Levi nods. “Well enough, I guess. They’ve been around since I was little. Been running the city for years, fending off the Jackals for almost as long.”
“How long have you been a member?”
He glances away for a second and then down at his sandwich, and I half expect him not to answer me. But after a second, he does.
“Years. At first, I was just on the fringes, I guess. Doing random jobs if they wanted me to, mostly on the outside looking in. My brother was a member, so that was kind of my in.”
“He was?” I speak around a mouthful of steak and peppers. “Like, past tense? Did he quit? I didn’t think that was allowed.”
“It’s not,” he replies. “He died. Six years ago. I became a full member after that.”
I stop chewing, my jaw freezing in mid-bite.
Oh. Huh.
Somehow I haven’t thought about the three men as people who have close family connections. I mean, the leader of the Black Roses is Sloan’s father, but I’m willing to bet they don’t have the close relationship that I have with my dad.
But when Levi speaks, his voice is the careful kind of neutral that means there’s pain there when he talks about his brother.
It makes me feel bad for him, and I want to kick myself for even thinking that. I don’t want to see the human side of these guys at all.
They’re the villains.
The bad guys.
The ones who swooped in and took me away from my Dad and are now holding me hostage.
If I start thinking of them as real people with emotions and thoughts and feelings about things other than being shitty, it’s going to get weird fast.
“I’m sorry,” I say anyway, mostly because I have to say something. You can’t just hear that someone’s brother died and say nothing. I want to ask how it happened. If it was an accident, or if there was some kind of fight or gang-related attack or something. But I don’t.
Still, Levi must see the sympathy in my expression before I can totally shove it down. He reaches out and touches my arm, his dark brown eyes softening as he looks at me.
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago,” he says quietly.
It’s an innocent enough gesture, but the touch of his fingers on my arm is electric, sending sparks flying and racing up my spine. I barely bite back a sharp inhale, pressing my lips closed and trying to keep my posture casual and relaxed.
Jesus. I don’t know what it is about this guy that makes me react this way whenever he touches me. I can’t help but remember the time we hooked up. It was a year ago, but Levi’s even more built and sexier than he was then. I couldn’t resist him back then, and it’s even harder to keep myself from being drawn in by him now.
The air between us seems thicker, somehow. Our eye contact is charged, and I know he’s thinking similar thoughts. There’s no way it’s just me that’s feeling this, and if I wanted to, I could reach across the table and—
And nothing. No. Bad.
I give myself a mental slap and pull my arm away from Levi, taking a deep breath. He’s not just some random hot guy who I can drag into the nearest empty room on campus and fuck. He’s a member of the Black Roses, a high ranking one apparently, and he and his friends fucked my Dad over and nearly beat the shit out of him.
He’s not someone to lust over. He’s someone to hate and try to take down so I can keep my family safe.
That thought douses the fire that’s trying to build inside of me like a splash of ice water. My jaw tightens, all the heat draining from my limbs.
We finish the rest of our lunch in silence, and it’s probably for the best.
8