STORM: A Standalone Romance (115 page)

I didn’t expect normalcy after I told Levi my truth. Not even after he told me he still loved me, that things would be even better now that he understood me better, understood where I was coming from and why I reacted to certain things in certain ways.

But normalcy is what we decided to strive for. If Carl had somehow ruined what I had with Levi just by the mention of his name, then he would’ve won. In fact, if I didn’t keep trying to be normal, to get on with my life, to be happy, Carl would win it all.

So when Levi asked me out on a date just a handful of days after I painfully spilled my guts to him, I agreed. I was eager to try to exorcise Carl’s grip on me. And maybe, if we worked on making new memories together, Levi and I could forget about the asshole, as well.

“Where are we going?” I asked Levi as I peered into the closet I’d commandeered in his bedroom. I had so many clothes hanging up in there that I hadn’t even worn yet, tags still on them. I’d wear some of those clothes tonight, just to break them in. They were all garments Levi had bought me. I wanted to show him that I appreciated them.

“It’s a surprise.” He pulled on a soft, charcoal gray sweater over a white button down shirt. Men had it so easy whenever they got ready. I hadn’t ever seen Levi so much as moisturize his face. And I doubted he cared about what he wore or the way his hair laid on his head.

“Is it a formal surprise or a casual surprise?” I asked.

“I’m wearing jeans and a sweater,” he said, smiling at me. “Pick something like that.”

“Okay.” I eyed the fancy, floor-length dresses still encased in plastic and vowed to don one of them another day.

Levi drove us across the city, the lights of all the surrounding buildings slowly winking on, giving off light long after the sun sank below the horizon. This was why they called it the city that never slept. It was daylight for all 24 hours.

“Here,” Levi said suddenly, holding out a small box to me as we were held up at a traffic light.

“What’s this?” I asked, taking it. It was heavy. “It’s not Christmas yet.”

“Call it an early Christmas present, then. Open it.”

I slid the lid off and inhaled sharply. It was a revolver — a sharp silver color, gleaming with every streetlight we passed. It was heavy for its size — much heavier than I would’ve imagined a gun would be. But maybe I thought it was just heavy because of what it meant.

“It’s not actually what I’d get you for Christmas,” Levi said, patting my knee comfortingly, keeping one eye on the road. “But it’s the present I want you to have right now.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked. “Kill somebody?”

“No. You’re supposed to learn how to use it, keep it with you at all times, and use it to protect yourself.”

“I’ve never fired a gun before, let alone owned one.”

“Well, both of those things are about to change. Our date tonight? A shooting range.”

“Very romantic,” I said, sarcastic. “I don’t know about this, Levi. Do I really need a gun?”

“I would much rather you have it and not need it than the alternative.”

All of this because Carl had somehow figured out I was in New York City and decided he wanted to make my life hell again. Hadn’t he taken enough from me already?

“I really don’t want to do this,” I said. Doing this would mean that this was all too real. I would be accepting the fact that Carl was back.

He’d told me, though, that he would be coming back for me. That had been real, too, but I’d somehow been able to pretend for an entire year that he’d been lying, or dead, or somehow just magically vanished off the face of the earth.

“Meagan.” He took the gun from me — I still hadn’t actually touched it — and replaced the lid on the box it had come in. “Take control of this situation. Don’t wait for something to happen and then react. Be ready. I know it’s not fun to think about.”

“Not fun?” I blinked at him, dumbfounded. “This monster has ruined my life. I don’t think ‘not fun’ really quite describes it.”

“I’m not trying to diminish what happened to you,” Levi said. “I just want you to be prepared for the eventuality that something else is going to happen.”

I knew, in my bones, about that eventuality. I just wished I didn’t.

“I think it’s time that you told me exactly what the threat said.”

“I really don’t want to put that on your shoulders,” he said, wheeling the car into a parking garage. “It wasn’t nice.”

“I don’t imagine it was nice. But I have to know. I have to know exactly what I’m dealing with.”

“Why don’t you let me handle the threat? I don’t want you to worry about it.”

“Levi, you gave me a gun for Christmas. You’re taking me to learn how to use it right now. Maybe I’ll take everything a little more seriously if I know exactly what’s at stake.”

He sighed and parked the car — right beneath a security camera, I noted, and near a light and other cars. Levi usually liked to try to park away from everyone else in lots and garages, but he was sacrificing his vehicle’s pristine flanks for increased safety. Reaching into his breast pocket, he withdrew a piece of paper that had been folded and refolded.

“Do you seriously keep it with you all the time?” I asked, feeling sick as I took the paper.

“To remind myself to be vigilant,” he explained, watching me as I unfolded the paper. “To remind me of what I’m unwilling to lose.”

I felt a wave of dizziness as I realized Carl had touched this piece of paper, writing on it and sending it to Levi’s office. It repulsed me physically to touch it now, but I soldiered onward. I didn’t want to show Levi just how freaked out I was. It would make him worry, and I already worried him enough.

“No one touches what’s mine,” it read, the letters written in a jagged, uneven script. “I’ve already taken something from you that you cared about. I’ll take your life, too, if you don’t give Meagan to me. She’s mine, not yours. I made her.” It was signed at the bottom, his full, real name, a man with nothing to hide.

I read it again, one more time to make sure I understood every insane word, and handed it back to Levi wordlessly. He refolded it again and returned it to his pocket.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said quietly.

“I’m thinking it’s about time I learned how to use my Christmas present,” I said, taking the box and getting out of the car.

The shooting range was smaller than I’d envisioned, but I didn’t have much to work off of — just scenes in movies and TV shows. There were only a couple of lanes, and no one was using them. There was only one person behind the counter, there to give us eye and ear protection and sell us ammunition. Levi purchased a couple of boxes of bullets and we went into the range.

“Not very popular, is it?” I asked quietly as we put on the protective glasses.

“I rented it out for tonight,” Levi said, handing me the ear protectors. “Put those around your neck, for now. Let’s talk about your gun.”

My gun. It was kind of surreal. Probably just as surreal as the fact that Levi could afford to rent out an entire establishment just because he wanted a little privacy.

“Can we just keep calling it my Christmas present?” I asked. “I don’t know if I’m ready to admit that I’m locked and loaded just yet.”

“Whatever you want.” Levi’s mouth remained in a straight line, but his eyes twinkled with humor. “Now, this model doesn’t jam. It’ll be easier for you to use because it’s more forgiving on those with smaller hands. And it’s simple to keep it clean, keep it loaded, and keep it in your purse — with you at all times.”

“I don’t want to carry it with me,” I protested. “What if I drop my purse and it accidentally fires and kills someone?”

“It won’t go off like that. And you read the threat. You have no idea when he’s going to choose to come after you. That’s why you have to have the gun all the time. You have to be ready in every moment. Now, let me help you load it.”

My hands shook as I fumbled with slipping the bullets into the chambers.

“Six bullets, six shots,” Levi said, spinning the cylinder and handing the revolver to me. “Hold it with both hands. Arms out. Legs spread, steady, supporting you.”

He stood behind me, guiding me into the position he’d described. His breath on my cheek, his arms on my arms, his crotch to my rear. I shuddered at the exact time I felt a stir of awakening from beneath the fabric of his trousers.

“Is this a turn-on for you?” I asked, turning to him and grinning. “You like strong women with weapons?”

“I like you,” he said, stepping away and pressing a button to send the paper target to the other end of the range. “I get a boner every time I get near you. I can’t control it. So please excuse me.”

“You’re not excused,” I said primly. “I know just what I’d like to do with that boner. And you just so happened to give us the privacy in order to make it happen.”

“Not happening,” Levi said, giving me a brief but brilliant grin. “I don’t want to distract you from your education. Or your Christmas present.”

I was dying for a distraction. The gun was even heavier with the bullets loaded into the chambers. And it made my mind heavy with anxiety.

“It’s time, Meagan. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

I extended my arms like he’d shown me, and stared down the barrel of the gun to the faraway target. Would I do this if I saw Carl walking down the sidewalk toward me somewhere in the city? The thought made me dizzy, and I lower my arms. Would I be able to cut him down like this? Part of me shouted “fuck yes.” I had no love for him, no regard for him as a human being. He had taken something precious away from me that I’d never be able to retrieve. It was my right to end his life if he threatened me again. I had a right to defend myself, and implicit in that right was the right to end him.

And yet part of me was afraid. What if killing him made me … different? I didn’t want to suffer anymore mental angst because of that monster. I couldn’t take it back if I killed him. If it turned me into something else, there was no going back. I would have taken a life for him, and that was difficult to fathom.

I glanced over at Levi for comfort, but his face was set in a grim line. Exhaling heavily, I refocused on my target — a large piece of paper with a black silhouette of a torso. It wouldn’t be like this, if it really happened. There wouldn’t be an abstract human shape in front of me, and it probably wouldn’t be so far away, either. It would be Carl, my de facto stepfather, the bald spot on his head gleaming, his eyes watching me, always watching.

I pulled the trigger.

“Try to keep your eyes open,” Levi coached me. “It’s hard, but you’ll aim better. Again.”

The act of firing the bullet was so loud. Even though I was the one pulling the trigger, it never failed to surprise me. The target was so far away that I wasn’t sure if I was even hitting the torso area.

“That’s better,” Levi encouraged me. “But don’t flinch.”

“That’s like telling me not to breathe,” I muttered.

“You’re doing well,” he said, changing tack. “You’ve never fired a gun before. You’re doing very well.”

“You don’t have to patronize me,” I sighed. “Okay. Let’s do this for real.”

I widened my stance, looked down the barrel of the gun, and visualized each one of my bullets hitting the target. Bang — bang — bang — bang — click. That was it. No more bullets.

If this was really happening, if Carl had been coming at me, threatening my life or my sanity, I needed to have it taken care of by now. Six shots. That’s all I’d have.

“Let’s see how you did,” Levi said, pressing the button to return the target to us.

“I thought you said I did well,” I said, not caring that I sounded petulant. I felt much worse. The gun felt too heavy in my hands as I examined it, the barrel still hot from the shots I’d fired. Would this little thing really protect me? No, it wouldn’t protect me on its own, but it would help me protect myself.

“You did do well. Look.” Levi unclipped the paper target and handed it to me. I ran my fingers over the holes my bullets had made in the black silhouette area. He covered my hand, made my finger touch a hole near the center of the shape.

“This one would be fatal,” he said. “Straight through the heart.”

I turned that over in my head a few times. If it really had been Carl instead of this paper target on the other end of my gun, he’d be dead. I’d be standing over him, just like this, touching the hole I’d put in him.

Sort of like the maw he’d put in me.

Something about that exchange seemed almost fair, and I made my peace with it.

If I had my gun with me, like I was supposed to, and Carl tried to fuck with me again, I’d end him. It seemed to be just as simple as that.

The gun in my purse never got lighter. I tried to put it in perspective, tried to convince myself that the extra weight was the added security Levi had touted. I would be ready for anything with this gun in my purse, kept with me at all times, per his request, and now that I knew how to use it, I’d be able to deal with any threat that came my way.

But if I thought about it for too long, the gun in my bag felt like a ball and chain, a weighty promise that I would be forced to do something I couldn’t take back, forced into action even if all I wanted to do was hide.

It was with me at all times, heavy at my side while eating lunch, heavy on my arm while out running errands, heavy on my lap as I clutched my purse while talking with my doctor during one of my various appointments. They’d been going well, as difficult as it was to open up. He was a good man, and I often found myself empowered to talk about the sessions afterward with Levi, who always waited outside the office for me to finish.

“You don’t have to tell me what you discuss with your doctor,” he told me one day, when I was pausing a lot in my narrative, fighting to put something into the rightest words possible so Levi could understand it.

“But I want to tell you what I discussed.”

“I don’t want you to feel that you have to. What goes on inside that office is private. It’s your time to discuss whatever you want with the doctor. You don’t have to share it with me. You’re not obligated.”

“But I need to,” I persisted. “You need to understand why I am the way I am.”

“If you want to talk to me about it, I support you,” Levi said. “But don’t feel like you have to. I love you no matter what, okay?”

“I love you, too.” Both of us paused over the lunch we’d been sharing — a couple of wraps the chef had made up for us once we’d gotten back from my appointment. Levi had told me several times already that he loved me, but this was the first time I’d reciprocated.

“Do you really mean that?” he asked quietly. “You don’t have to say it because you think you have to.”

“Stop telling me what to say,” I said quietly. “I love you. I really do. I’m sorry things are messed up right now — well, all the time — and I don’t think I really understand why you’re keeping me around when you could go as far away from here as you wanted and get out of this situation, but I love you. If the tables had been turned, if you were the one who needed my help and I was the one helping you, I don’t know if I could do it.”

“You’d do it,” Levi said, smiling. “You’d do it because you love me.”

I laughed suddenly, apropos of nothing. “You got me a gun for Christmas, for crying out loud. Who does that?”

“You needed that gun,” he said calmly. “Do you still have it?”

“Of course I still have it,” I said, holding up my purse. “You told me to keep it on me at all times, and I do. It’s heavy.”

“It’s not that heavy,” he said, taking a bite of his wrap. “You’ll get used to it. It just feels heavy — in your mind, that is.”

I picked at my wrap for a few long moments, not incredibly hungry but not wanting to cause Levi any worry. I nibbled on a piece of lettuce that had fallen out.

“How do you know all of that about shooting and guns and everything?” I asked, looking at him. “I didn’t know that being an architect required such … specialized … knowledge.”

“I’ve had some contracts in some interesting places,” he explained. “After an onsite experience in the Middle East — nothing major, just a mugging — I realized how important it was to know how to defend myself. I engaged the security team, and I took a few classes myself. Security’s good only as long as they’re with you and attentive. In the end, Meagan, you have to understand that you’re the only person you can rely on.”

“I’ve known that for a long time,” I said, giving him a small smile.

“You can rely on me, though,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

“I do.” And I did. He kept a roof over me, for crying out loud, and food in my belly. “And you can rely on me, too, even if I don’t have as much to offer you as you do to offer me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, kissing me softly on my cheek. “I’m in love with you, and that’s worth more than anything else.”

“I don’t know why you would still want to be with me,” I said, studying our fingers, interwoven, interlocked. They seemed so strong together, so right, as if nothing could tear them apart. I realized, though, that it would be easy to unlock them if one of us were to let go. I didn’t want Levi to let me go, but I’d understand if he did. I felt like I was too broken to deserve redemption, and I didn’t wish the task of rebuilding me on anyone.

I wished there were a way to get out of it, myself.

“I love you like I’ve never loved anyone,” he said. “And the only thing I want is for you to be safe and happy.”

Could it be as simple as that? I puzzled over it for the rest of the day, Levi distracting me with a movie and a promise of something pleasurable to end the day with.

As I got undressed in the room as Levi brushed his teeth in the bathroom, my eyes fell on a folded piece of paper on my pillow. I smiled as I picked up the piece of paper. Had Levi written me a love note and left it here for me to find earlier? I unfolded it.

“I’m coming for you,” it read, and I frowned. That wasn’t romantic at all. In fact, it sounded like another note I’d received not so very long ago from someone I never wanted to see again. Carl.

I dropped the paper like it was on fire, stepping back so quickly that when I hit the wall behind me, all the pictures hung on it rattled.

“Meagan? Are you okay?” Levi called from the bathroom. “You drop something?”

I had dropped something, but it was my fear that had caused the big noise.

Levi walked out of the bathroom, his toothbrush still in his mouth, and his eyes widened.

“What’s wrong?” he said, ducking back out of the room quickly to spit the foam into the sink. “What happened, Meagan?”

I’d lost the ability to speak, at least temporarily, and pointed instead to the note that I’d dropped on the floor. Levi stepped forward, his strides long and fast, and examined the piece of paper.

“It’s Carl Prentice, isn’t it?” he asked, looking at me. “It’s your stepfather.”

I gave a short nod.

“Where did you find it?”

Another point — this time, to the pillow on the bed we shared.

Levi set his jaw, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“He was here, wasn’t he?” I managed to say. “Right here, in the townhouse. In this bedroom.”

“We don’t know that,” Levi said. “Don’t rush to conclusions just yet, Meagan. Stay calm.”

“How else would the note have gotten here?” I demanded, still frozen against the wall, staring at the paper as if it would leap up and bite me if I took my eyes off of it. “It didn’t just fly here, Levi. Someone had to put it here.”

For a man who was so good at springing to action, perhaps Levi was wasted upon the architecture industry. His security team was swarming the townhouse in mere minutes, coupled with police officers. All of the newly rehired staff were questioned thoroughly, but no one could divine just how the note had gotten placed on my pillow.

Levi and I sat on the couch in the downstairs den amid all the tumult, the fingers of one of his hands drumming the armrest ceaselessly, the other hand gripping mine. I was sure he thought he was trying to impart some comfort to me in this stressful evening, but part of me wondered if he was keeping me in place, keeping me from running away, which I sincerely wanted to do.

It was easy to say that I wanted to stay and face down this threat, tie up this dangerous lose end with Carl when I wasn’t faced with real proof that he was even on the loose. But now, with this letter, I knew that he was closer than ever. It terrified me. I didn’t want to go through the horror again. I didn’t want to be forced to do things to myself anymore. And I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Levi. It would be something I couldn’t forgive myself for. Levi had done everything for me, and it would be a terrible way to repay him to let him bear any of the brunt of Carl’s rage toward me.

I wanted nothing more than to run.

“What do you want to do, Mr. Morgan?” a big man in a dark suit asked. I’d never seen him before since I’d moved here, but I figured he had to be someone important — someone high up in the security team.

“If we can’t figure out who left the note there, we’re going to have to be that much more vigilant in the future,” Levi said, his fingers still moving, their tapping conveying the turmoil in his thoughts. Maybe he was thinking that he’d rather be rid of me than to deal with this problem, and I agreed with him. He didn’t have to do any of this. All he had to do to get past this threat would be to turn me loose on the streets. I’d support that decision, even if it meant leaving my survival up to luck.

And I’d never been lucky.

“We can increase the police outside,” the man said. “Station more of your security team inside.”

“I don’t know that engaging even more people is going to solve this,” Levi said. “Let’s talk security cameras. If I’d had surveillance in the bedroom, we could at least review the tape to see who was in there.”

A deep shudder welled inside of me. The thought of cameras watching my every move inside the townhouse — that was too close. It was just too close. Inside of my head, Carl would be behind every camera, recording my every move, watching me.

Perhaps watching me even now.

“Meagan?”

I opened my eyes — I hadn’t realized I’d closed them — to see Levi and the security man staring at me.

“What?” I asked, my eyes darting between them both.

“Are you okay?” Levi asked.

“If we can do it without the cameras, I think that would be better,” I said. “Only if we can. Please. I don’t think I could stay here.”

Levi’s face brightened with understanding and then darkened all the same. “No cameras,” he said shortly. “You’re all capable people. All I’m asking for is that you figure out how to keep a man who wants to hurt this woman out of my house. Is that difficult?”

Levi was upset that this had happened, upset at his security team, at the idea that, given all of the resources at his disposal, he couldn’t throw enough money at this problem to get it to go away. I knew that was what he was thinking, and that my safety was a source of stress and frustration made me hate myself.

“Maybe I’ll just go away,” I said. “I’ll just go somewhere, anywhere. Get out of town. You won’t have to worry about me.”

“Meagan, I would worry about you even if there wasn’t a lunatic out to get you,” Levi said. “You’re not going anywhere. If you’re alone and away from here, you’re even more vulnerable. We’ll get this figured out. Increase the patrols around the neighborhood. Add three more men to the detail inside the townhouse.”

The last two orders were directed at the man in the suit, who nodded and stepped briefly away, talking on a cellphone and grabbing people as he passed by. The house was crawling with people in dark suits. It was a wonder they could tell themselves apart. There had to be dozens of them.

“We’ll just have to get used to having more people around than usual until we get all of this figured out,” Levi said, smiling grimly at me.

“And what is it going to take to figure this out?” I asked dully. “Carl behind bars?”

“He’ll never make it behind bars,” Levi said with a strange tone of voice.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my heart sinking. “You don’t think the notes would do it? The police think he was behind my brother’s killing. They don’t have the evidence that would put him away?”

“He won’t make it behind bars because I’ll kill him myself if I see him,” Levi vowed.

I shuddered in spite of myself. I knew that Levi knew his way around a weapon, but to hear him profess that he was ready to commit an act of violence … it was frightening.

“I think I want to go to bed now,” I said in a small voice. “Can we send everyone home, just for tonight? I just want to be alone with you. Not in a crowd of people.”

Levi’s face softened, and he kissed my forehead. “Of course. Everyone out!”

The security man he’d been talking to earlier looked at Levi with surprise, but didn’t question him, helping to usher all of the other personnel out, including the police officers who’d drifted inside during the tumult. Levi even dismissed the staff he had on hand, giving them the night off for my own comfort.

“Is that better?” he asked as he turned the bed down for me, helping me into it. It was hard to believe that the note had been there, right where my head was resting. I wondered what had happened to it, but didn’t really want to ask.

“Much better,” I said, smiling at him. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

“Meagan, I love you. I love you and I would do anything for you. This is nothing. We’re going to get through this.”

“I know,” I said, even if I wasn’t so sure of it myself. It was comforting to be caught up in Levi’s conviction.

The floorboards creaked behind him and I gasped as I suddenly made out a form darkening the doorway.