Until Fools Find Gold (Providence Gold 1)

Fuck, how was I going to help her get past this?

“What exactly has she told you?” I asked and braced myself for the details.

I needn’t have bothered. Levi was fiercely loyal to everyone. If you told him something, it went no further.

“Not my place to tell you, bro,” he said firmly. “If she wants you to know, Luna will tell you herself.” Sitting down in the chair near me, he leaned forward and glared. “Now, you need to tell me what you’re doing.”

“I already did,” I sighed. “Look, you know that I would never do anything at all to hurt her. I want to make her smile, to look after her, to keep her safe…she’s…” I wasn’t being trite or corny when I said she was everything or that she was a one in a million. She was special and priceless. She was just everything. I wasn’t going to divulge any of that to Levi though.

Making eye contact with him, I watched as he took in the expression on my face. Thankfully, it must have shown what I was feeling because he took a deep breath in and then stretched his neck from side to side making it pop.

“You will listen to what I have to say,” he growled. “These are the rules and if you break even one of them, they’ll never find your body parts.”

“Okay,” I nodded, looking as obedient as I could muster.

I held back from laughing in his face or saying, ‘as if’. If he needed to lay this all out for me, then I’d listen and nod like a good doggy, but he wouldn’t be calling the shots when it came to me and Luna.

“One, she is the one in control.” I went to interrupt, but he held his hand up and shook his head. “No, you will listen. She controls what or if anything happens between y’all.”

I was struggling not to punch the little shit.

“Two, don’t just listen to her words, listen to her body language. She’s never been able to hide the truth because her body and face give it all away.”

This was true. She was a terrible poker player, and we’d always ended up playing along and letting her win because of it.

“If she says she’s fine, watch and see what her body is saying. If she has a nightmare or an anxiety episode, she’ll tell you it’s no biggy, but a majority of the time that is far from the truth. Pay attention to the rest of her and make your judgements on that.” I was genuinely agreeable with this rule. “The next rule is linked to number two. Make the judgement call based on anxiety episodes and shit like that to make an appointment with her therapist. She decided that she didn’t need to continue and that she was wasting money by going when she figured that she was okay. Since then, I’ve had to take her three times, and she still refuses to continue with therapy regularly. If you think she’s struggling, even slightly, make the appointment.” He paused, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Four, treat her like a princess. I know I don’t need to tell you this, but I’m reiterating it all the same. That woman has been treated like shit all her life by her family, apart from Madix. She will never ever have another moment like that. This doesn’t just apply to you, it applies to everyone. Make sure they treat her like one, and if they don’t, then kick their asses.”

“How many rules do you have?” I was genuinely curious about this. These all seemed like unnecessary reminders to me, apart from the therapist one.

“Five,” he bit out, glaring at me and ignoring the question. “At no point is she to be left alone. Keep checking to make sure the rest of the guys are doing their rounds and keep in contact with Coleman,” he said, mentioning the head of security for our cousins.

They’d had numerous issues that had almost resulted in death, and Coleman was one of the best. He knew his shit. I’d been in regular contact with him about my cousins’ situations as well as Luna’s since she came back. In fact, before she had, I’d asked Coleman to see if he could find her. He’d been running searches and trying to track down her father when she’d turned up again. It might have seemed like an easy task to find her father at least, but the bastard was lying low from all the people he owed money to, so he paid for things in cash and had never used his real name.

“Six, please don’t break her heart,” this one was said so softly that I almost didn’t hear it. “Please! She…she just…she doesn’t deserve that,” he struggled to say as he clenched his fists repeatedly.