Page 18 of Havoc
The house is still quiet, but I don’t let my guard down as I step farther into the room and lift my gun, aiming it at the door. I sidestep to the nightstand and quickly grabmy phone and purse before slipping into my shoes. Then I head for the door.
If I can just get out of the neighborhood, I can call for a ride to a hotel room and hide out for the night. Clearly, my cover is blown. If Titan knows this is where I am, he won’t stop coming for me.
I take a final breath as I breach the doorway and quickly swing left. It takes only a second to sweep the hall, and my shoulders relax when I find it empty. But right as I turn toward the staircase again, a figure moves up the final step.
I pull the trigger, knowing better than to hesitate. The shot rings out in the silence, followed by a muffled grunt as the man grabs his shoulder where I shot him.
And that’s when I recognize his face.
“Fuck.” Levi backs into the wall with a grunt, blood spilling out from between his fingers.
I guess we were always bound to destroy each other.
Levi hops off his bike, storming toward me with a lethal gaze. As sweet as he can be most of the time, there’s a deadly side to him I sense simmering under the surface tonight. And while it should scare me off, it makes my knees weak.
Ignoring his irritated glare, I don’t budge from where I’m standing, propped against my car with my thumbs tucked in my pockets.
At least the sweat dripping down my neck can be attributed to the blistering heat of the Vegas desert in the middle of summer. Even in the middle of the night, like it is now, the temperature feels sweltering. Hopefully, it’senough to mask that one look from Levi is all it takes to make me sweat.
“No helmet?” I angle my chin up to meet his gaze.
He brushes his dark hair off his face. “I wasn’t thinking when you texted. I just got on the bike.”
Maybe that should be a compliment that he’d drop everything for me the second he knew I was here. But his tense expression makes it clear it’s not. He rushed here because I came unannounced. To the one place he warned me not to.
“You shouldn’t be at the club.” Levi glances around, but we’re surrounded by empty desert.
Night casts shadows on the sagebrush, and the only light is from the moon and the headlights of my running car.
“Why not?” I frown. “You’re allowed to show up in my life whenever you want, but I can’t show up in yours?”
Because that’s what he does.
Levi and I have been talking for months, spending time together after school and between study sessions. Sometimes we’ll come out to the desert to talk or go to an arcade to blow off steam. But as often as he drops by my school, work, or randomly runs into me when I’m at a store, he doesn’t let me reciprocate the effort. He doesn’t want me anywhere near his club.
“Friendship is a two-way street, Levi. You can’t be in my life and then not let me in yours.”
He drops his chin. “It’s not the same. You’re too good for that place.”
“If that’s the case, then so are you.”
Levi frowns. “It’s not that simple.”
I stare at the clubhouse from a distance. This is the closest I’ve been to it, and it’s still just a pinprick of light in an empty desert. My plan tonight was to drive all the way to the gate, but I chickened out halfway, which only irritates me more.
It shouldn’t matter that Levi doesn’t want me to meet his club or his friends. I doubt we have anything in common. And if the stories he’s told are true, I wouldn’t fit in there. But the more time we spend together, the clearer this line between us becomes. And even if I swore I didn’t want a relationship with Levi, I’m starting to realize that one isn’t possible if we can’t actually let each other in.
A firework spits into the black sky at a distance, sparking through the night.
My eyebrows pinch. “Should they be doing that in the middle of a desert? Something could catch on fire.”
Levi shakes his head like I’ve just proved his point. And I hate that he sees me as some naive rich girl. Even more so, I hate that he’s not wrong half the time.
“Maybe you’re right.” I try to pull away, but Levi grabs my hand, stopping me.
“No, I’m not.” His thumb brushes over mine, and it’s hard to ignore that I want more from him when I know I can’t risk it.
As troublesome as his club would be for us, that isn’t our biggest problem. My dad would kill Levi for coming near me if we were more than friends. He would never accept his perfect daughter being with a biker.
