Whatever it cost.
They were in the car, a borrowed sedan, nothing conspicuous, when Levi stepped into the headlights.
It happened fast. One moment the street was empty, rain-slicked and quiet. The next, a figure in an army surplus jacket was standing in the middle of the road, hands out, that manic grin on his face.
"Shit," Zain said, and hit the brakes.
Seth was out of the car before it fully stopped. Rage and adrenaline and the vestiges of the gala's controlled fury all converging into what burned.
"Levi. What the hell are you doing?"
"Time's up, brother." Levi's hands were shaking. His eyes were wrong, too wide, too bright. He was high. "Forty-eight hours. I said forty-eight hours."
"It's been thirty-six."
"Close enough." The gun appeared from behind his back. Small. Chrome. Shaking in his grip.
Zain was out of the car now. Moving slow, hands visible, every inch of him radiating the controlled lethality that Seth had learned to recognize.
"Put it down," Zain said.
"This ain't about you, man. This is between me and Seth."
"Everything about Seth is about me."
The words landed in the rain-wet dark. Levi blinked. Looked between them.
"Oh." A sick, knowing smile. "Oh, I see. That's sweet. That's real sweet."
"Levi." Seth's voice was steady. "You don't want to do this."
"I need the money, Seth. Ineedit. You don't understand. "
"I understand better than anyone."
"Then help me! Just give me something, anything, I'll disappear. "
"You'll come back. You always come back. Every time you need a fix, every time you're desperate, you'll remember where I am and you'll come back and one day you'll bring someone worse."
"I won't. "
"Yousold me,Levi." Seth's voice cracked. Just once. "You sold me to the people who put me in a cage. For drug money. And now you're standing here with a gun asking me to trust you."
Levi's face crumpled. For a moment, just a moment, the boy Seth had known surfaced. Fifteen, scared, sleeping in doorways. The boy who'd shared his last cigarette and his last lie and believed they'd both get out.
Then the gun came up.
Zain moved.
The disarm was brutal and clean, one hand on the wrist, one strike to the throat, the gun clattering to wet asphalt. Levi crumpled, gagging, and Zain hit him again. Once. Twice. Methodical.
Then he stepped back.
The gun lay on the ground. Levi groaned in the rain. Zain looked at Seth.
"Your call," he said.
Notwhat do you want to do.NotI'll handle it.Your call. A gift of agency from a man who understood that powerlessness was the wound and choice was the only medicine.
