Page 159 of Never Die for a Sinner
“The cabin was always my place when I needed to get away,” he says finally. “Still is.”
A quiet falls over us again, heavier this time. I shift in my seat, heart drumming with the weight of what I want to say next.
“Your father . . .” I begin, the words cautious, careful. “He wasn’t a good man, was he?”
Levi goes still. The kind of still that makes your skin crawl, like something just slipped under the surface.
“If you’re asking if he was an abusive prick? Yeah . . . He was.”
I shake my head, picturing William Cross in his younger years—bitter, sharp-tongued, hollowed out by his own hatred. If he was that cruel as a dying man, I can’t imagine what he was like in his prime.
“Can I ask a question?”
Levi doesn’t respond. I take a breath, nerves trembling in my chest. His silence stretches a beat too long before he answers.
“Yes.”
I brace myself, trying to make the words come out right.
“How did you . . . survive him?”
Levi’s eyes flicker —not in anger, but something deeper. Something like disbelief.
“I’m just asking because he was cruel even when he was sick. The things he’d say to me when I cleaned . . .” My voice catches. “I can’t imagine living with him when he could use his fists.”
He breathes out through his teeth, slow and deliberate.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Guess I was just too stubborn. I’d take the beatings, and when I didn’t make a sound, it just pissed him off. So . . . he’d go harder.”
The image pierces me like glass — Levi as a boy, silent through pain he didn’t deserve. My throat tightens, tears stinging in the corners of my eyes.
“That’s horrible,” I whisper.
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. As if it hadn’t shaped every piece of who he is.
“It was life. For as long as I could remember.” He pauses, jaw tightening. “I think he hated me because I looked like him. I reminded him of everything he couldn’t stand about himself. And he couldn’t tolerate being wrong. Ever.”
I stare at him, seeing that boy — all inky black hair and frosty blue eyes, and my heart threatens to crack open.
“I could never understand why Mom stayed with him.”
“She knew?”
He shrugs. “Some of it.”
A swell of rage rises in me. Not just at the man who hurt him, but at the woman who let it happen. Who saw and chose to look away. I don’t care what reasons she had—fear, money, love. None of them are good enough.
If my child was being abused, there’s nothing in the world that would stop me from protecting them. Even their father.
Levi shifts, eyes narrowing just slightly, as if he can read my mind.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ava.”
I meet his gaze. It’s hard and sharp, but I see what’s behind it — the part of him that still wants to believe she did the best she could.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“About?” he asks, voice lower now.
