Chapter 14 · Confiscate or Tear the Seal

"Confiscate the panel or I tear the seal myself, Levi. Your call."

The voice comes scratchy through the intercom box bolted over the door, and it lands on both of us like a slap. Levi's head snaps toward the speaker. I don't move. I've still got two fingers pressed into the gauze over his ribs, right on the spot where the stitches pull tightest, and I feel his whole body go rigid under my hand.

"Renata." His voice comes out flat. Controlled. Nothing like the sound he made ten minutes ago when I taped that wound down hard enough to make him swear at the ceiling.

"Don't Renata me. I've got the commission's compliance officer on the other line asking why there's a dirty panel sitting in a locked hold with your name stapled to it." A pause, sharp as a scalpel. "And your nephew's."

Danny's name in her mouth does something to Levi's face I haven't seen yet. Not the cold commissioner mask. Something underneath it, raw at the edges.