“How is everything going?” Lincoln asked. “I am eager to get everything started, as you may have guessed.”
Levi raised his hands in the air and let them fall into his lap.
“I hope you can understand that things have been a bit delayed,” Levi said. “With the kidnapping and all, I’m still trying to get my wits about me.”
Lincoln’s eyes were almost as dark as Joe’s but with a tiny pinprick of yellow at the center of the iris. It made his face look dead, unwavering like he had forgotten how to feel the average spectrum of emotions.
“I don’t know if Mars is going to wait forever, Levi,” Lincoln said. “I know some people think it will, but I know it is just a matter of time before our window of opportunity leaves us.”
Levi had his mouth open for a sarcastic retort when another man, as tall and thick as Joe and Fox, came into the room. In his hand was Levi’s laptop, tilted open to the scanning program.
Levi’s stomach dropped as he realized what was going on.
“Now, what do we have here?”
The man brought the laptop over to Lincoln, who was starting to smile. He held it on his lap as Levi started to babble, words falling out like the curve of a waterfall.
“That was just for safety reasons,” he said, voice shaking. “I wanted to make sure that the activists weren’t hacking into anything important before we got started again.”
Lincoln stared at the screen, then looked up at Levi with an eyebrow cocked.
“You really think I’m that fucking stupid?”
Levi’s stomach did backflips, and he tried to slowly back out of the room. But Joe had popped up behind him, then pushed him back roughly.
“Hold on a second, Lincoln,” Levi said, still holding his hands in the air. “Let’s talk about this.”
“I can see that you were also trying to figure out how to bullshit me,” Lincoln said, shaking his head at the screen. “And you came so highly recommended, dear Levi.”
Joe’s massive hand was pressing down on his shoulder so hard and tight that Levi thought a bone may snap. His mind was racing, trying to find a way out of the web he had entangled himself within.
“I literally just noticed it,” Levi said. “I didn’t know what to do. But no one has been notified. Nothing has happened yet.”
Lincoln was still shaking his head as he spoke, scanning the screen with his dead-set eyes.
“I was hoping that you would remain ignorant enough to let me do my work,” he said. “A smart man, but a little oblivious. I’m afraid we will have to take a different route.”
Lincoln slammed the lid of the laptop shut, then handed it to the third henchman. He proceeded to stand from the seat and lean against his cane.
“I’m going to take you to your lab to suss out what other information you are hiding from me,” Lincoln asserted. “As for that wolf woman of yours, we are going to catch her off guard from her run.”
Lincoln began to grin like a madman while Joe removed his hand from Levi’s shoulder. He began to guffaw again, and Levi knew he had to take his moment. They were going to kill Hannah, and he would have to live knowing he was responsible for the death of the only woman he ever wanted to be with.
Levi leapt from the couch without much thought and clumsily grabbed hold of a nearby lamp. He tried to swing it at Lincoln’s head, but the man was faster than he looked. He ducked and pulled out a sidearm. Levi grabbed hold of the gun and tried to point it away from him. They both struggled, and within a flash of a moment, a muffled shot went off on the right side of his chest.
The world began to move in slow motion as Levi stumbled back. He glanced down at his shirt and watched as blood bloomed there, spreading wider and making his head dizzy.
He fell to his knees first, smashing them against the hardwood floor. He then tumbled onto his stomach, doing everything he could to stay awake, for Hannah, dammit, for Hannah.
Levi thought about his father as he drifted out of consciousness. He saw the Hot Sauce King, a label he used to loathe, and felt himself holding in rough and painful tears. He would do anything at that moment to be the son his father wanted him to be, rather than the one that ran for the hills.
He then saw Hannah in a sweet nightie, sitting by the window of the terrace just like she had the first night they made love. The wind rustled through her long black locks, her eyes blazing at him, craving him, needing him.
Levi went into the dark with the warm notion of Hannah being his and him being hers. He longed not to die, but the thought of her wonderfully gorgeous face calmed that fear like a soothing touch.
17
HANNAH