“Your hands are shaking.” I startled Lexie out of her daze as we sat in the room adjacent to the interrogation room. Lev was sitting on the other side of the glass, alone. He was unable to see her, but she could easily see him, along with his every move.

“I’m trying to get them to stop,” she briefly glanced up at me.

“You don’t have to do this, Lexie.”

“We’ve already gone through the reasons why I do have to do this.” She was right, we had. Seeing how nervous she’d become made it hard to allow her to face Lev on her own, but he’d only speak to her, and whatever he had to say would probably help us out.

“He’ll be handcuffed to the table, ankles shackled as well. All you have to do is ask for someone to come into the room, and they’ll be there in a second flat. He can’t hurt you—we won’t allow it.” I wasn’t sure if I was reassuring her, or myself. Either way, I felt it needed to be said.

“I know.” A weak smile tilted the corner of her lips as she stood. She passed me in the doorway and shook her hands out at her side. “I can do this.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You ready, Lexie?” Gribbins came around the corner with a file folder in his hand.

She nodded.

He opened the door, motioned for her to enter, and followed closely behind her. I stepped into the room Lexie had exited to watch from the other side of the two-way glass.

“Don’t worry, I’m not staying,” Gribbins announced before Lev could utter a single word.

“You’re a smart man,” he retorted.

“Lexie, have a seat.” Gribbins pulled the chair out for her to sit. He rounded the table and leaned in close to Lev’s face. “If you so much as look at her the wrong way, I’ll come back in here and shove my foot so far up your ass you won’t be able to walk ever again.”

Deep laughter rang out from Lev. “As appeasing as that sounds. I didn’t ask her here to harm her. My fate is mapped out as soon as the Judge’s gavel rings out. Her fate, however, is in her hands once she knows everything.”

“Be truthful, and I might put in a good word for you.”

Lev rolled with laughter once again, “You just don’t get it, do you? Once my jail cell becomes a prison cell, my life is over. I have nothing to live for except playing this one last pawn in the game. They allowed me to be taken down, so I can only wish for the same karma to be inflicted on them.”

Gribbins stood, “You know what to do.” He gave Lexie a firm look with a nod before leaving to join me in the observation room.

They sat in silence for quite some time, Lev gauging Lexie’s demeanor as she sat there wringing her hands together with nervousness. “You think she’s going to be okay?” Gribbins stood beside me.

“Only time will tell.”

Like the flip of a switch, Lexie’s entire manner changed. “Why did you want me here?” Her voice stern and steady. Gribbins glanced at me, I shrugged.

A grin crept across Lev’s face as he leaned back in the chair. “I’d like to tell you a little story. One about a girl who was oblivious to the madness that surrounded her.”

“The girl's me?”

“One night many years ago a beautiful red head, I liked to call Jenny, waltzed into a whorehouse just outside of the city looking for a job. Venz ran the business back then, all girls who wanted in had to meet with him first. Jenny was a goner, strung out on drugs…addicted to alcohol. Still beautiful as ever with curvy hips, and a thin waist. She didn’t look like your average junkie. No,” Lev shook his head, “she was every man’s dream, and Venz took her as his own.”

“Jump ahead a few years and one would think the two of them were love birds. Little did anyone know, Jenny was making a move to take Venz's money and run. When he caught wind of what she’d planned, Venz went to her house and shot her dead in front of her son.”

Lexie’s face paled once she realized Jenny was her mother.

“H—how did he find out what she was up to?”

Lev sat forward, placed his forearms on the table and popped his neck. “That’s the thing. The one piece of information I could never figure out. We’d been so careful. To the point of no one knowing anything about what we were up to, not even those closest to us. We were never seen together unless Venz sent me to pick her up or take her home. You know,” a humorless laugh escaped him, “he still doesn’t know I was the one behind Jenny taking all the money. I was the one she was going to run away with. She was my world, and he took her from me!” Lev gritted his teeth and slammed his palm against the table.

“Don’t,” Gribbins stopped me before I could leave the room.

“Are you hearing this shit?” I scoffed.

“No wonder Lev wanted to speak with Lexie. He loved her mom. What I don’t understand is why he’s coming clean now.” Gribbins rubbed the hair on his chin. I knew that look. He had a million different scenarios rolling around in his head.

“You loved my mom…” Lexie’s words were barely audible through the speaker in our room. She was in shock, and I had a feeling Lev wasn’t finished throwing the punches.

“Love is a funny thing. It can make you stronger, wiser, but it can also cripple you. The love I had for your mother was the crippling kind. She owned my heart, even if Venz owned her body.”

“You brought me here to tell me how much you loved my mom?”

“Not exactly.” He drummed his fingertips against the table.

Lexie narrowed her eyes. Lev was taking his sweet ass time, and she was growing more and more frustrated by the minute.

“Then what do you want!”

“I want to give you the truth.”

“The truth?” Lexie tossed her hands in the air. “The truth about what? My mother loving another crooked man who screwed over his so-called friend by taking his woman, and his money? Is that the truth you wanted me to hear? Because I don’t give a shit about that woman! I no longer give a shit that she was too hung up on screwing her way through criminals like you to get somewhere in life. So, if that’s what you brought me here to tell me, then I’ve heard enough.”

“Ah…but you haven’t heard enough. Not yet.” A wicked smile spread across Lev’s face as he leaned forward. “The one key piece to the puzzle that no one saw coming. Oh, that piece was Clover, or should I say your brother Jonah.

“Son of a bitch,” Gribbins growled.

“Now we know,” I acknowledged.

“What does my brother have to do with this?” Lexie’s voice wavered.

“He’s the reason we had to take you. One of Clover’s men picked up a pretty hefty load of blow to push through the casino. But a significant amount of that load was never paid for. Clover claimed he never received it, that we were fucking him over, that it wasn’t the case. When he insisted on not paying for the product, he made some very important people extremely angry. It wasn’t hard to track down his little sister.” Lev’s eyes narrowed at Lexie. A visible shiver ran through her body.

“Jon—Clover doesn’t even know I’m still alive. I haven’t seen or even heard from him in years.”

“Oh, he definitely knows you’re alive. Who do you think protects you while you work those lovely little under the table jobs for Oscar at the casino? He’s the only reason you’re still breathing. Which I find interesting since he’s made a nice spectacle of slaughtering quite a few women. But, that seems fitting since he was the reason your mother was murdered.”

Lexie shook her head in disbelief, “What do you mean by that?” Emotion so thick in her words, it clogged her throat.

“Little naïve Lexie.” Lev looked as if he felt sorry for her, but that look quickly faded. “Jonah is the one who told Venz about your mother stealing the money.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was. That’s why I suggested to Viktor that we take you. You’re Clover’s weakness. Even if he doesn’t see it himself, you’re the one who never wronged him. The only woman in his life that hasn’t hurt him…yet.”

“Why hadn’t you killed him yourself in revenge? It’s been years…”

“Sweet girl, sometimes revenge takes a lot longer than anticipated.”

“There’s the underlining reason,” Gribbins shook his head and turned to me. “He wants us to take Clover down since he wasn’t able to. Revenge for his part in his own mother’s death—Lev’s lovers death.”

“What a bunch of sick fucks.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

We turned our attention back to Lexie. Tears ran relentlessly down her face as she did her best to keep composure. There was a ledge she was teetering on, about to fall over the cliff.

“We need to pull her out.”

“Lexie knows what needs to be done,” Gribbins countered.

“What do you mean?” Confusion pulled my eyebrows deep in the center.

“She not done asking questions.”

“You gave her questions to ask?” Shock smacked me across the face.

“Of course. There’s information we need to know, and Lev most likely has it.”

“Why didn’t you pull me into the loop?”

“You know why…” Gribbins paused, I let the new realization that I was left in the dark sink in. “She can handle this.”

“Where is he?” Lexie spoke through gritted teeth as she continued to cry. “Where’s Clover hiding out?”

“That’s it.” Lev smiled wider than the Cheshire cat. “Get angry! There’s conviction in you. So much conviction! You just might be the person to pull the trigger and take him down once and for all.”

“Tell me where he is!” Lexie demanded.

“I need a pen and a piece of paper to write out how to get there.”

Lexie turned in her chair, her eyes boring into the glass between her room and ours. Gribbins left the room without saying a word and entered hers a few moments later.

“You better be right.” Gribbins laid a pen and paper before Lev.

Lexie stood and rounded the table to exit the room.

“Be sure to tell Clover I said hello,” Lev managed to say before she slipped through the door.

I stepped into the hallway and Lexie’s eyes connected with mine. Her body began to shake as a sob ripped from her lungs. I closed the distance between us as her knees buckled and I caught her in my arms. Words wouldn’t console the heartache she was feeling, so I held her tight against my chest as she cried the poison from her heart.