But betting Jac’s health? His dignity? His life?
He didn’t know if he could ever forgive him for this.
But if he didn’t accept, he didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself, either.
“I trust you,” was all Levi said. It wasn’t exactly the enthusiastic vote of confidence Jac needed, but it was something. “It was wrong for me to agree to this without asking you, but I can still decline. There are more important things.”
“No, there aren’t.” Jac ripped the business card out of Levi’s hands. “If this was another scheme for volts or admirers, then I’d tell you to go to hell. But this is the end of Vianca. You’re the slickest, cleverest person I know. Watching the way she treats you... I thought she’dkillyou today. And I felt like I couldn’t even stop it, not without killing us both.” The way Levi had simply stood there as he choked, standing his ground like he’d been in that position many times before, made Jac delirious with fury. “Of course I’ll do it. Anything is worth seeing her rot.”
Levi’s smile was bright even as he blinked back tears. He gradually lowered himself onto his back, as though every inch brought its own pain, and stared up at the ceiling.
“You’re worth more to me than all the other Irons put together,” Levi told him, and it was the best thank-you Jac had ever received.
“Yeah, well, you better be able to handle them when I’m gone. If I’m spending all my time at Luckluster Casino, I won’t be able to save you from Chez a second time.”
“Don’t worry. Next time you see the Irons, they’ll be the richest gang in the North Side.” The determined sound to Levi’s voice took Jac back. If he closed his eyes, they could have been thirteen years old again, fantasizing about all the fortune their futures held. Now Jac couldn’t envision their futures with anything other than dread.
“Did you tell Enne about Harrison?” Jac asked. After all, Vianca’s death would free her, too.
“No,” Levi said firmly. “That would only give Vianca another opportunity to find out. It’s better that Enne doesn’t know, for both our sakes.”
Jac agreed with that, but he was still surprised. It didn’t seem like Enne and Levi kept secrets from each other.
Jac let several moments pass before he worked up his nerve. Because yes, Jac would do absolutely anything for Levi, but that didn’t change the fact that what Levi had asked of him was almost unthinkable. Had it been anything short of this prize, it would have been despicable. But this was the price it took to end Vianca Augustine.
And if Levi’s suffering was worth all of this, then Jac refused to watch him walk down a path that would only lead to more heartache. Especially when that path was so obviously what the donna wanted.
“Can I ask you a favor, when I’m gone?” Jac asked.
“Anything,” Levi replied quickly.
“Don’t be with Enne.” Even as he noticed Levi tense beside him, Jac didn’t let himself falter. “Vianca used me to play with you, and she already suspects that you’re both together. Don’t give her any more ways to hurt you. To hurtbothof you.”
It took Levi several seconds to say anything, and when he did, his voice was strained. “Of course. I said anything. And you’re...you’re right.”
“It’s better for both of you.”
“Until Vianca is gone.”
Jac cringed at the hope in Levi’s voice, but he didn’t take his request back.
After a few minutes, Levi’s breathing slowed into a rhythmic sleep. Jac shifted uncomfortably, his heart racing with an all too familiar dread. Although he desperately wanted to sleep, for the next several hours, the sensation of drifting off terrified him. Every time he felt his consciousness slip, he yanked it back, as though he might fall off the edge. His mind kept revisiting the same memories over and over, unraveling the threads he’d spent years knotting.
When he did eventually sleep, he did so fitfully. It wasn’t deep sleep. It certainly wasn’t a lull.
And for the second night in a row, Jac Mardlin dreamed of his own death.
ENNE
Church bells tolled across Olde Town, making the wrought-iron gates and window bars tremble. Everything in Olde Town was sharp—the spindly towers, the spear-like points atop the fences, the crumbling spires. It was a neighborhood of thorns and barbed wire. And with every new haunting graveyard or condemned building that Enne passed, she wondered how Levi and Jac could possibly be so fond of this place.
The address Levi had given her over the phone this morning led her down the Street of the Holy Tombs, to an abandoned, overgrown park and an impressive marble building hidden among the trees. She tread up its stone steps and peered at the graffiti painted over its once beautiful oak doors. The building was grand enough to be a palace, with the columns and sweeping windows to match. But over a period of probably many years, after hurricanes and infestations and general waste, Olde Town had swallowed it whole.
The door creaked open, making Enne jolt, and Levi peered out with a smirk. “Did I spook you?”
Ennehmphed and straightened her skirts. “What is this place?”
“The remnants of an art museum that was looted and closed during the Revolution,” Levi explained. Then he grinned. “Pretty swanky, right?”
