Levi’s eyes widened. “That’s not true.”
“How’d you convince Barclay to give you that much cash, anyway?” Dominic asked, because he wanted this to be as painful for Levi as it was for him. “You get on your knees or your back?”
Levi’s face wiped clean of all expression. His right hand clenched into a fist at his side, then deliberately relaxed. “So this is the part where you’re mean to me, right? Where you try to drive me away by hurting my feelings?” His voice had acquired a mocking, singsong tone that Dominic flinched away from. “That’s not going to work. I know what you’re doing. The truth is that you don’t want to stop gambling and you’re afraid I’ll make you. You’ve convinced yourself I’ve given up on you so you have a reason to get rid of me.”
Dominic’s hackles rose. “Make me? You can’t make me do anything.”
“No? Seems like I got you out of that casino pretty quick.”
Pushing himself off the wall, Dominic strode toward Levi and loomed over him. “And how exactly are you planning to stop me from going back inside?”
He knew how, though, and it had his pulse racing. A few months ago, he’d asked Levi to use physical force to prevent him from gambling if necessary. Now it seemed Levi was willing to fulfill that promise.
Unfazed, Levi flicked his eyes up and down Dominic’s body, then smiled—the same cold, frightening smile he’d worn at the tournament. “You don’t seriously believe you could beat me in a real fight, do you?”
“I’ve beaten you plenty of times.”
“Sure, in friendly sparring where it’s all good fun and there’s protective gear involved. Right here, right now? You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“You’re buying too much into your own press,” Dominic said, blown away by Levi’s arrogance.
Levi spread his arms wide. “Hit me, then.”
Dominic side-eyed him, certain this was some kind of trap.
“I sucker punched you. You have every right to defend yourself. So go ahead.”
Dominic’s right arm tensed, his fingers flexing. He imagined his large fist smashing into the sharp planes of Levi’s face, breaking bones, drawing blood.
It made him want to vomit.
“You won’t,” Levi said quietly. “You can’t. Because no matter how angry you are, no matter how far down this rabbit hole you fall—if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you would never raise a hand to me for real. No matter what the provocation.”
He stepped forward, pushing even farther into Dominic’s personal space.
“I’m capable of hurting you in ways you’d never hurt me,” he said. “That’s why I’d win a true fight between us. Every single time.”
He was right. God, he was right.
“So is that what you’re gonna do?” Dominic asked. “You gonna beat the shit out of me while I stand here and take it until I pass out?”
Part of him wanted Levi to say yes. He deserved it.
Levi’s eyes fluttered shut. When he opened them, he shook his head and moved away, putting a good six feet of space between himself and Dominic. “I can’t,” he said, looking more sorrowful than angry. “I know I made you a promise, but . . . I enjoy violence too much, Dominic. If I hurt you that way, if I took pleasure in it . . .” He made a strangled noise. “I can’t invite that kind of darkness inside myself. I don’t know what it would do to me, and I can’t risk finding out, not even to save you from this. I’m sorry.”
Neither of them spoke for a minute. People kept passing by, traveling between the casino and the motel, and though a few gave Dominic’s bleeding mouth a double take, nobody tried to intervene.
“What are you still doing here, then?” Dominic was breathing hard, his balance unsteady like the ground was quaking beneath his feet. “If you’re not going to stop me, leave me alone.”
Levi’s grief-stricken look disappeared, his eyes snapping with renewed fury. He closed the distance between them in a flash, grabbed Dominic’s tie, and yanked so their faces were on the same level.
“You think because I won’t use violence that I can’t stop you?” he snarled. “Can’t hurt you? Think again. You want mean, I’ll give you mean. I can take everything you dish out and serve it back threefold.” His grip tightened on Dominic’s tie. “You’ve never seen me at my worst, Dominic. Believe me when I say that’s going to change. I swear to God I will do everything in my power to make every single day of your life a living hell until you stop gambling again.”
Dominic was mesmerized by Levi’s face, by the heated passion in his voice. He’d never seen Levi quite like this, and he was split between urges to free himself or simply drop to his knees.
“I love you, you son of a bitch. I won’t watch you destroy yourself no matter what you do to push me away. I’ll drag you back into recovery if it’s the last goddamn thing I do on this earth.”
Levi shoved Dominic when he let go, so that Dominic reeled backward.
“Go visit your fucking sister,” he said, and walked away without looking back.
Dominic sagged against the wall, because without the support he would have fallen over. It was happening again—his life crumbling, every important piece of it sheared away bit by bit.
Levi might believe it was easy to put a stop to that. Dominic could declare right now that he’d never gamble again. He could go home, clean up his act, and start repairing his strained relationships with everyone from Gina to Carlos to Levi himself.
But the best of intentions wouldn’t do him any good. It made no difference how much he wanted it, how hard he worked for it; he was doomed to fail every time. Look how little it had taken to break his recovery last time.
He didn’t have the power. His addiction did.
He wasn’t strong enough to fight it.
Levi maintained his composure until he reached his car. The second the door shut, he started shaking uncontrollably, gasping for air as his vision blurred.
This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t lose Dominic. He wouldn’t.
Dominic wasn’t giving him much choice, though. Levi knew how to be a good partner to someone in recovery, but someone in the throes of an active addiction? He was at a loss. Where was the line between being supportive and being a doormat or an enabler?
Levi wouldn’t abandon Dominic, but he also wouldn’t let Dominic treat him badly no matter what the reason. Though Dominic might think he didn’t want Levi around right now, he needed Levi more than ever. Yet if Dominic was truly intent on driving Levi away, how long could Levi bear that before he broke?
Levi had promised Carlos he wouldn’t give up on Dominic if Dominic relapsed. At the time, he hadn’t been able to imagine a situation where he would walk away from Dominic for such a reason. But he hadn’t known what it would be like, and he had a sinking feeling that what he’d seen so far was just the tip of the iceberg. It was only going to get worse from here.
His cell phone rang. He answered it without looking at the screen; this late, it could only be Martine or work. “Abrams.”
“Are you all right?” said a deep electronic voice.
He covered his eyes with his free hand. “Have you been watching me?”
“Always.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he asked, too worn out and demoralized from his confrontation with Dominic to feel the horror of the Seven of Spades’s call as deeply as he should have.
“I bore easily. You’re interesting.”
“Is interesting code for hot mess?”
The Seven of Spades’s computer-altered chuckle rasped across the phone line. Levi moved to open the app that would record the call—then hesitated, his thumb hovering a centimeter above the screen. He bit his lip and lifted the phone back to his ear.
“You knew Dominic was gambling all along.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t warn me.”
“I thought it would be better for you to find out on your own.”
“Better
, or more interesting?”
There was a long pause. “Maybe both.”
“You do have a flair for the dramatic.” Levi leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
“Did you two end your relationship?”
“I . . .” He realized he had no idea. “I’m not sure. Neither of us said the words, but I don’t think it needed to be said. We’re at an impasse.”
“I’m sorry.”
Desperate to change the subject, he said, “You attacked Milo Radich with a stun gun and a needle.”
“Time was of the essence. Don’t tell me you think the death of a worm like that was any kind of loss.”
“You know my opinion on the subject.” When there was no response, Levi added, “Was it only a matter of expediency, or should I be expecting more aggression in the future?”
He heard a crackling sigh. “I don’t know. There’s a unique pleasure in subduing your prey by force instead of trickery. The rush of the struggle, the look in their eyes when they know they’ve been beaten . . . But I don’t think I need to explain that to you, do I?”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t try to commiserate with me over this. You and I are nothing alike.”
“Aren’t we, though?” said the Seven of Spades.
The next morning, Levi knocked on the half-open door to Natasha’s office. “Hey, do you have a minute?”
“Sure, come on—” She looked up from her computer and raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit.”
He laughed—a genuine laugh, his first one in days. “I feel like shit. That’s actually why I’m here.”
She waved him into a chair and came to sit across from him, offering him a Tupperware container of home-baked brownies. He wasn’t hungry, but he took one to be polite.
“I heard about the fatality,” she said. “I’m sorry you have to go through this again.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you here to schedule your mandated counseling sessions? Sergeant Wen hasn’t contacted me yet.”
He stared at his brownie like it would solve all his problems if he just focused on it intensely enough. “I don’t think peer counseling is going to cut it this time.”
She waited in patient silence for him to continue. He scored his thumbnail through the brownie’s frosting a few times before he worked up the courage to meet her eyes.
“I’m a mess, Natasha. I’m paranoid and on edge all the time. My anger is getting more and more difficult to control. I have horrible dreams every other night, and sometimes it’s all I can do to get out of bed in the morning. I feel . . . hopeless. Like my life is circling the drain.”
“Have you had thoughts of hurting yourself?” she asked gently.
“No. But I’m teetering at the edge of something dangerous. Dominic and I kind of broke up last night, and somehow I found myself halfway taking comfort in a conversation with a fucking serial killer.”
She rocked back in her seat. “Jesus, Levi.”
“I know. I know.” He put the brownie down and ground the heels of both hands into his eyes. “I can’t keep going on like this. I’m afraid of myself. I need help.”
“I agree. You and I are friends, though. There’s no problem with me providing peer counseling, but you need real therapy. It would be unethical for us to do that together considering our relationship.”
“I understand. I was hoping you could refer me to someone you trust.”
Natasha nodded thoughtfully, tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair. “I know just the person.”
Dominic stumbled home late on Tuesday night—early Wednesday morning, really—a little tipsy and morose from another unlucky streak at the casino. He unlocked his apartment door and stepped inside, and he knew something was wrong even before he turned on the light. The wireless alarm wasn’t beeping.
He flipped the light switch closest to the door and gasped.
His apartment had been destroyed. The furniture was overturned, some of it smashed to bits, the couch cushions shredded as if with a knife. Drawers had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. Every breakable thing he owned had been shattered, from the television and computer right down to the table lamps and the photographs on the walls. The devastation was so thorough it looked like a particularly vengeful tornado had ripped through the place.
“Rebel!” he shouted. God, if she’d been hurt . . .
She barked from the rear of the apartment. Though he didn’t have his gun on him, he raced in her direction, leaving the front door wide open and not even caring if the intruder was still inside.
He burst through the closed door of his bedroom to find it untouched. Rebel was on her feet, agitated but seemingly unharmed.
Falling to his knees, he threw his arms around her and crushed her against his chest. She licked his face frantically, whining low in her throat.
“Are you okay?” he said. “Let me see.”
He examined her from head to foot until he was satisfied that she hadn’t been injured in any way. Then he checked her muzzle, inspecting the fur and peeling her lips away from her teeth.
No blood, which meant she hadn’t attacked the intruder. That was odd enough in itself, but it was even more bizarre that the person who’d ransacked his apartment had taken the time to herd her in here and then had left her and this entire room alone.
Now that he knew Rebel was all right, he could survey the scene more closely. He retrieved his gun from the safe in his closet and left the bedroom. She tried to follow him out, but he considered the broken objects littering the rest of the apartment and shooed her back inside.
“No, no. Stay.”
She gave him a mournful look, and he bent down to ruffle her head.
“I’ll be right back. I promise.”
The first thing he did was clear the apartment, but as he’d suspected, it was empty. If the intruder had still been here, they would have seized the chance to attack him when he’d rushed inside in a distracted panic.
Still, he kept his gun in one hand while he returned to the front door. No damage had been done to the door itself; none of the multiple locks had been forced. Likewise, the alarm system hadn’t been sabotaged—it had simply been disarmed.
Whoever had broken in had used keys and knew the alarm code. How? The only people he’d trusted the code to were Levi, Carlos, and Jasmine.
His heart in his throat, Dominic walked slowly through the apartment, scanning every inch. Circling the breakfast bar, he entered the kitchen, where every cabinet stood open and empty. All his plates and glassware lay in pieces on the tile floor.
That was when he saw it.
A magnet designed as a seven of spades playing card was stuck to his refrigerator, securing a piece of paper on which a message had been scrawled in black marker:
YOU HURT HIM, I HURT YOU
DON’T PUSH YOUR LUCK
Explore more of the Seven of Spades series: riptidepublishing.com/titles/series/seven-spades
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Seven of Spades series
Kill Game
Trick Roller
One-Eyed Royals (coming soon)
A Chip and a Chair (coming soon)
Can’t Hide From Me
Cordelia Kingsbridge has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, but quickly discovered that direct practice in the field was not for her. Having written novels as a hobby throughout graduate school, she decided to turn her focus to writing as a full-time career. Now she explores her fascination with human behavior, motivation, and psychopathology through fiction. Her weaknesses include opposites-attract pairings and snarky banter.
Away from her desk, Cordelia is a fitness fanatic, and can be found strength training, cycling, and practicing Krav Maga. She lives in South Florida but spends most of her time indoors with the air conditioning on full blast!
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Cash Plays Page 29