Redemption (The Protectors 8)

Not that anyone would look too hard.

“Do you know who I am?” Ronan asked as he stepped forward.

I nodded. “You’re Seth’s husband.”

Ronan’s jaw tightened and I wondered how my simple statement could have caused the reaction.

“Are you going to do it here? Or someplace else?” I asked. “Father O doesn’t deserve to have it happen in his church,” I said, though I knew this man wouldn’t give a shit about that.

“So you know why I’m here?”

I nodded.

“You don’t deny it?”

“No,” I said. “I did it.”

“I knew giving you a second chance was a mistake,” Ronan murmured. “I told Seth as much, but he was adamant that people can change…that you could change.”

His comment confused me, but I kept quiet. What did he expect me to say? Did he expect me to defend myself? Beg for mercy?

“There’s an alley outside…can you do it…do it out there?” I asked. I knew my priorities were fucked up that I was more worried about messing up Father O’s church, but I wasn’t exactly at my best.

“Ronan.”

The sound of Phoenix’s voice had me closing my eyes. I forced myself to open them and saw Phoenix standing in the doorway to the right of the altar that led to the back of the church where the soup kitchen was housed. The sight of him had my heart swelling with love and that feeling was instantly followed by a cruel, sharp pain at the reminder that this man had betrayed me. Like Ronan, Phoenix was armed, but his gun was also at his side as he moved farther into the room. By the time he was standing at the other end of the aisle, I felt like I was caught in some fucked up O.K. Corral showdown.

The men stared each other down. Phoenix never took his eyes off Ronan as he said, “Levi, get behind me.”

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

“You know each other?” I asked.

“I work for him,” Phoenix said.

I shook my head. “So that day in the alley, you weren’t going to your car, were you?”

“No,” he responded quietly. He still wouldn’t look at me. “I was hired to follow you…and to eliminate you if you stepped out of line.”

He was a hitman.

I did laugh then, but it was because my emotions were so far beyond my control that I could do nothing else. I’d been played for a fool and I’d fallen for every line he’d fed me.

“So it was all a lie?” I whispered, though I hadn’t meant to ask that. Because it changed absolutely nothing.

“No,” he said and then he did look at me. “It wasn’t. Please get behind me, Levi.”

I finally saw the fear in his eyes and I looked back and forth between the two men. I let the sting of betrayal fade away for the moment as I realized what was happening.

Phoenix was choosing me.

For whatever reason, he was going against his boss. Even knowing everything I’d done to the man’s husband, he was still siding with me.

I stepped forward out of the pew, but I didn’t go to him. I backed away from him so he couldn’t easily reach forward and grab me. “I don’t want to run anymore, Phoenix. I’m tired,” I said softly. “So fucking tired.”

“I know you are, baby, but we can figure this out.”

I shook my head as he stepped forward and I took several more steps back, putting myself closer to the man behind me. His eyes went from me to Ronan.

“Ronan, don’t do this! He’s no threat to Seth anymore.”

I turned to face Ronan and saw his cold eyes shift between me and Phoenix. “If you knew that for a fact, you would have proved it to me,” he said.

“I do know it! But I knew you wouldn’t listen. I knew you wouldn’t see reason-”

Ronan suddenly lifted his gun and pointed it at me. “You come talk to me about seeing reason when the man you love’s life is at stake!” he snapped.

“I am!” Phoenix retorted and a glance over my shoulder showed Phoenix had raised his gun too and he’d shifted enough so that he could shoot around me if he had to.

Fuck, this was getting out of control.

Before I could say anything, the church door opened and I stiffened at the sight of Seth entering the church, followed by a tall, dark-haired man. It wasn’t the same man from the rehab center.

“Ronan?”

Ronan flinched at the sound of his husband’s voice.

“What are you doing here, Seth?”

Seth walked to his husband’s side and then stepped in front of his raised arm without any kind of hesitation. Ronan instantly lowered the weapon, but kept his eyes on me.

“I called Memphis after I recognized Levi. Reese called you, didn’t he?”

Ronan nodded. “He told me he” – Ronan motioned towards me with the gun, but kept it lowered – “was there.”