Page 89 of Beautiful Scars

"The letters are worse," I say, my voice steadier than I feel. "You need to read them."

I watch as Levi picks up the first letter, his eyes scanning the page. His face drains of color. He grabs another, then another, moving through them with increasing urgency. The photos scatter as he searches.

"Everyone out," he says, his voice a low growl. "Except Colt, Z, and..." His eyes flick to me, then away. "Sunny."

Wolf and Chase exchange glances before filing out silently. Ty and Jayce follow, closing the door behind them with a soft click.

"Is this—" Levi's voice cracks. He looks at Z, green eyes wild. "Tell me this isn't what it looks like."

The muscles in his jaw work, that familiar tick becoming more pronounced. His hands shake slightly as he picks up the photo of our fathers together.

"Z. This can't be right." Levi's voice cracks.

Z meets his gaze. "It is. Your father has been behind everything that's happened. He paid Garrett to kill Sunny's father. Then gave him the means to..." He glances at me, hesitating.

"To own us," I finish quietly. "Me and my mom. We were part of his payment."

Levi makes a sound like he's been punched. He braces himself against the desk, head bowed. "The accounts. The properties. All this time, it's been my father's money protecting him?"

"He knew the whole time." Levi's voice is barely a whisper. "He knew she was alive."

"Yes." Z's voice is gentle. "He used Garrett to keep her hidden from you. Used your belief in her death to keep you close."

"And my mother?" Levi asks, though I can see in his eyes he already knows the answer.

"On your father's orders." Z confirms. He picks up another sheet of paper, stapled to a faded polaroid, and offers it to Levi. "Proof pic, and a confirmation letter."

Levi reaches out his hand but yanks it back before he touches it. He shakes his head. "I can't…"

Instead, he picks up another photo—one taken of me getting off the bus in Oak Valley. His fingers trace the edges of the bandages visible in the image.

"I left you there," he says, not looking at me. "I left you, and he knew. He knew you were alive and he..." His voice breaks. "He let me think..."

The silence stretches between us as Levi absorbs each horrible revelation. His eyes move from photo to photo, letter to letter, piecing together the twisted web his father wove around all of us.

I watch his face as each new connection clicks into place. The way his father used Garrett. Used me. Used him. The way everything—every moment of pain and loss and grief—was carefully orchestrated by Alexander Reeves.

The enormity of the moment fills the room. Z looks to me and then to Levi before standing. Colt follows his lead.

"You two need some time to sit with this. We'll be downstairs if you need us," he says quietly.

I want to beg Zane to stay, but I know this conversation needs to happen. Has needed to happen since Levi walked back into my life.

The door clicks shut behind Z, leaving me alone with the man I once loved. The man who left me for dead.

Chapter Forty

Sunny

Thesilencestretchesbetweenus like pieces of shattered glass—sharp and dangerous. Levi hasn't moved from where he collapsed in the chair behind the desk, one of his father's letter still clutched in his hand. I can see the paper trembling.

"I killed him," Levi finally says, his voice hollow. "I killed my father thinking I was breaking free. But all I did was make sure Garrett would always have..." He stops, swallowing hard. "Everything. Everything he needed to keep hurting you."

"You couldn't have known." The words surprise me. After everything I said to him in the kitchen, about my pain, about hating him, I didn't expect to be the one offering him comfort.

"I should have though. I knew my father. I knew what he was capable of." His eyes meet mine, raw with a pain that matches my own. "I should have looked deeper. Should have found these before." He gestures at the scattered evidence of our shared nightmare.

"Like I should have known my father was mixed up with yours?" I trace the edge of the old photograph. Three smiling men who destroyed everything. "We were both collateral damage Levi. Stuck trying to survive the messes our fathers made."

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