A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(47)
Dominic nodded. “I’ll drop you off wherever you need to go. I asked Martine to pick up a new cell phone for you-disposable, for now. Text me the number when you get it.”
“And what are you planning on doing?” Levi asked, eyeing him askance.
“After I talk my family and Carlos and Jasmine out of joining all those people on the road? I’m going to help with the legit evacuations. Natasha’s on the Community Emergency Response Team, and she told me to meet her at UNLV later.”
Dominic’s body language was calm yet alert, his speech coolly precise. Levi had seen him this way a handful of times, the most recent being after he’d killed Scott West to protect Levi and an untold number of innocent civilians.
Levi didn’t often think about Dominic’s military service. It was part of Dominic, an important experience that had shaped his life and helped make him the man Levi loved. Yet beyond the few occasions when Levi had relied on that experience to get them through a harrowing situation, it didn’t hold any greater significance to him. That was all in the past.
But looking at Dominic now, Levi was hit with the realization that there was nothing past tense about it. Dominic would always be a soldier, the same way Levi would always be a cop, right down to his bone marrow. That didn’t change when you took off the uniform.
A rush of admiration gave Levi the strength to say, “Can you help me up?” with no embarrassment.
Dominic assisted him out of bed and onto his feet, then leaned down to touch their foreheads together.
Last night, Dominic had needed to take control because Levi hadn’t been in his right mind. But that had changed, and as they stood there quietly, a moment of understanding passed between them without needing to be spoken aloud: Dominic wouldn’t stand in the way of Levi’s mission any more than Levi would stand in the way of his.
Once their security detail had been relieved of duty, Levi took half a pain pill-which rendered him fuzzy-headed but not unconscious-and spent the better part of an hour talking down his frantic parents. After hanging up, he got dressed and locked his service weapon in their safe, then hobbled downstairs with Dominic, where he learned that Dominic had borrowed a motorcycle from a neighbor.
Levi remained on the sidewalk, frowning at the hulking black-and-chrome monstrosity. Dominic grabbed a pair of helmets off the bike, took in Levi’s expression, and said, “Don’t tell me you’ve never ridden a motorcycle before.”
“What about me makes you think I’ve ever been on a motorcycle?”
Dominic snorted and handed him one of the helmets. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice. With the roads fucked up, it’d take an hour to go two miles in a car. The bike gives us much better mobility.”
He was right, so Levi didn’t object further. “You know how to drive one of these things?” Levi asked as he buckled his helmet.
“Yep. No license, but I think the cops have bigger things to worry about today.”
The ride was painful, thanks to Levi’s injuries, but the meds took the edge off. And because Dominic had no compunctions about zipping in between cars and even driving on the sidewalk when it was clear of pedestrians, they did arrive at the CCDC much faster than they could have hoped to in a car. In fact, after what Levi had seen on their way Downtown, he wasn’t sure they’d have made it here in a car at all. The city was in total gridlock.
When Levi had called in this morning, he’d been instructed to report to the CCDC to help process and interrogate the dozens of people who’d been arrested since last night. He said goodbye to Dominic on the curb and watched the bike speed away before he entered the detention center.
Calling the mayhem he found inside a “zoo” would have been an insult to zoos everywhere. Working in tandem, the FBI and LVMPD had been pulling in every person with a connection to Utopia that they could hunt down, and they were still going strong; the holding cells had swelled to capacity. Utopia members were well-coached to request a lawyer immediately, but between their numbers and the city’s condition, there simply weren’t enough lawyers to go around. Levi also suspected that Utopia’s legal defense fund didn’t have the supply to meet this level of demand.
Sorting through the arrestees to determine who might be involved in the terrorist plot and who was just human garbage was exhausting, and mostly unproductive. A few hours in, Levi took a break, slumping sideways against the wall of an empty corridor and knocking back the other half of his pill.
“Levi,” Leila said behind him.
He turned around-slowly, because he’d learned the hard way this morning that sudden movements made his chest and back shriek in agony. “Leila.”
Her eyes darted up and down, but her face was otherwise expressionless. “I heard you were injured.”
“Nothing serious.” He shifted from foot to foot, painfully aware that this was the first time she’d acknowledged his existence in a week. “What’s up?”
“I have Conrad Bishop in an interrogation room. Denise told me you’re familiar with him?”
Levi nodded. “Dominic obtained strong evidence that Bishop’s been financing Utopia on the down low.”
“I think I can pressure Bishop into striking a deal, but he’s dragging his feet. Coming face to face with Levi Abrams might be unsettling enough to give him a kick in the ass, especially since you were caught in the explosion yesterday.” She cocked her head. “How about it?”