Page 33 of Twisted Trust (Mafia Lords of Sin #10)

LEVI

“ C an I have one?” Scott looks up at me with these wide, large eyes and points at the pile of chopped-up carrots sitting next to me on the counter. A toy bear hangs from under one arm and his lower lip wobbles ever so faintly as we stare at one another.

“You want this?” My mind starts racing through the very minimal knowledge I have regarding what children can eat. Can four-year-olds eat raw carrot? Is there a danger in that? I glance up at Chip who sits propped up at the island counter poring over his laptop, and our eyes meet.

‘Can he have raw carrot?’ I mouth at him while Scott continues to stare at me with those gigantic eyes.

Saying no to him has been difficult all morning because I badly want him to like me and I think he knows exactly how to play me, but when it comes to something like this, I’m lost. I was going to blend the carrot and hide it in a pasta sauce I’m making for lunch, but if he’s willing to eat it raw, then maybe that’s a good thing.

“Sure,” Chip murmurs. “But make it small.”

“Please?” Scott asks again while reaching up and grabbing the tail of my shirt.

“Sure, kiddo, just give me one second.” I deftly chop up the carrot chunks into even smaller pieces until I’m certain they’re not a choking hazard, then I hand him one small cube and watch as the kid, famous for hating his veg, pops the piece into his mouth and eats.

Chip lets out a low whistle. “Maeve will never believe you.”

“Good?” I ask Scott with a smile.

He nods quickly and his gaze slips back to the pile, so I hand him another couple of chunks.

“Okay, new plan for lunch. How about you pick which ones look the nicest?” I say, waving my hand over the selection of vegetables still waiting to be chopped. “And we can lay them out on a plate and see who can make the craziest looking face. How’s that sound?”

He smiles shyly up at me and nods hard which makes his curls bounce back and forth on top of his head.

I’m tempted to get my phone and take picture evidence of Scott eating just so I can prove it to Maeve, but I also like the idea of having this as a secret.

Together, Scott picks out red and orange peppers, a weird-shaped tomato, and a green onion, which he immediately rejects after smelling.

“No onion?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Phooey! No, none!”

“Okay.” I laugh, discarding the green onion. “No onion.”

Scott moves as if he’s going to run back to the blanket fort we set up in the lounge where several toy cars lay scattered around in the wake of the monster destructions Scott’s bear caused, but he seems to change his mind and instead stays with me until I’ve cut up all of the veg and scattered them on to two plates.

“Ready?” Picking Scott up, I sit him in my lap at the dining table and the design contest begins.

I’m not much of an artist myself but with Chip timing us, I create a rather obnoxious-looking clown using the cooked pasta for hair and the peppers for a colorful mustache.

Scott creates a very round face with equally round eyes but he uses the pasta to make a mouth and the carrot pieces for teeth.

Then we both wait as Chip abandons his laptop to come over and judge.

“Is that a picture of me?” Chip gasps, pointing at Scott’s work.

“No!” Scott giggles, kicking his legs. “It’s my teacher!”

“Your current teacher?” His home-school tutor looks nothing like this, but I won’t judge if this is how he sees her.

“No! My old teacher. She was nice but her teeth were so orange and she was always so stinky.” His face wrinkles and he clutches tighter at the bear under his arm.

“Hmm.” Chip puts on an exaggerated show of examining both pieces of art, humming and tsking as he changes angle. It goes on for so long that Scott gets the giggles until Chip finally sighs and stands straight.

“I’m sorry, Levi. The portrait of the teacher wins.”

“Yay!” Scott cheers and throws his arms up, which causes his bear to fall. He immediately lunges to catch it and my arm around his waist is the only thing preventing him from plummeting to the floor. He seems extra delighted at being hauled upright with his bear in his hands. “I win!”

“You do!” I cheer with him while my heart pounds anxiously. He moved so fast that if I hadn’t already been holding him, there would have been a terrible accident. Is this what it’s like to be a parent? It’s more stressful than a shootout.

“Congrats, kid.” Chip ruffles Scott’s hair and returns to his computer.

“Alright, now whoever eats this the fastest is going to be the only person to get dessert, so you'd better eat fast!”

Scott’s already shoving carrot pieces into his mouth and covering his little fist in saliva with how eager he is to beat me.

I eat with him, occasionally picking up the pace to make it look like I’ll win but ultimately, I ensure he’s the victor and he very graciously accepts some ice cream while sticking his tongue out at me.

“You’re a cheeky winner, you know that?” I say while handing him the spoon.

Scott merely sticks his tongue out again. “Mommy says if I win, I should be proud and you’re a loser, so Mom won’t be giving you a bedtime story.”

“Aww man!” Pressing one hand to my chest, I sigh dramatically. “No bedtime story for me?”

“Nope.” He pops his lips on the P and spoons ice cream into his mouth. “I’m gonna tell Mommy I won.”

“You do that, Champ. You deserve it.” Meanwhile, I’ll be soaking up the delight that I got him to eat an entire plate of veggies for days . “When you’re finished, how about we take your bike outside and see if we can’t get you riding from the door to the garage? How’s that sound?”

Scott’s eyes widen and he grins at me while ice cream stains the corner of his mouth. “Without the extra wheels?”

“I don’t know.” I chuckle, patting his head. “We’ll have to see how stable you are.”

“I’m stable! I promise!”

“Mmhmm.” A buzz rumbles near my hip from my phone so, with one eye locked on Scott, I answer the moment I see Maeve’s name on the screen. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“No,” Maeve gasps, her voice strained and hushed. “I mean immediately, it is, but it isn’t.”

Tension snaps down my spine and every drop of warm relaxation that’s come from playing with Scott vanishes. “Tell me.”

“Well, on one hand, things are good because I told your mom the truth about Scott, and I’m sorry if you wanted to wait on that, but she was so sad and I knew it would cheer her up.”

My brow twitches. I’ve not given it much thought since in my mind, despite being Scott’s father, Maeve is very much his parent. “I was always going to leave that choice up to you, so if you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

“Great, okay, and uhm…” She hesitates, and I distantly hear my mother’s tipsy laugh in the background. “I got an email from George. He says he’s in Las Vegas and he’s here to get what I owe him.”

“What? We wired that bast—uhm…” Scott gazes up at me with curious eyes. “What I mean to say is he should have it. He’s got no reason to be here. Don’t contact him, don’t go near him, understand?”

The sharpness in my voice catches Chip’s attention and he raises his head with his brow pinched.

“Okay,” Maeve replies. “I wasn’t going to, I just wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you, I’m glad you did.”

“We’ll be home soon.”

“Take your time.” I end the call and ruffle Scott’s hair as he demolishes his ice cream, then I walk over to Chip. “We wired the money to George, right?”

“Mmhmm. Seven and a half grand.”

“He’s here. In Vegas. Says he’s come to collect.”

“You need me to get her?”

I shake my head. “Mom’s entire squad is there. She’s fine, and I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Can you check that he got paid?”

Chip nods and while his fingers fly over the keyboard, I watch Scott shove his head into the bowl and lick up the remaining ice cream. It pulls an unexpected affectionate smile to my face as I watch until Chip touches my arm.

“It bounced.”

“What?” Together, we stare at the screen. “How does it bounce?”

“Looks like the account we sent it to was closed before payment reached so it came right back to us.”

“Why would he close the account when he knew he was getting seventy-five hundred?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Put his face out there. I want everyone on the lookout for him.”

“Understood.” Chip starts typing away until a pop-up takes over the screen and he groans.

“What’s this?” Leaning over his shoulder, I study the pictures flashing on screen. “Is this from the dinner?”

“Yeah. Your mother thought Elio looked his best that night and she wants that suit to be what he’s buried in.” Chip’s voice softens slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t think it would pop up like that.”

I can’t speak. One picture is of my mother and father arm in arm laughing at something off camera and they look so peaceful and happy.

It’s strange. When I try to picture him, all I see is shadows and blood.

It’s like his features have melted from my mind due to the intensity of the pain in my chest every time I think about him.

“It’s fine.” My voice is tight and an uncomfortable heat prickles my skin. “She’s right. It was a good suit.”

“Uncle Cameron!” Scott suddenly pipes up in utter delight from where he’s escaped his seat and wriggled in between me and the table.

“What?” My heart jumps.

“Uncle Cameron! You found him!” Scott’s cheers of delight cut through me like an ice blade as I study the picture on the laptop. Chip does an even worse job of hiding his alarm.

“You see Uncle Cameron?” Chip asks.

“Yeah, duh! Right there!” Scott stretches up his arm and points, but he can’t quite reach the screen. “Does Mommy know? She didn’t tell me!”

I scoop Scott up with both arms as my entire body trembles faintly. “Scott, can you point him out to Chip?”

“Sure!” Scott leans out of my arms and points at the screen. “That’s Uncle Cameron!”

His finger lands directly on a face in the background.

The face of my cousin, Antony.