Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
ANGELICA
Headlights cut through the dark like a knife. Dark shadows splashed across Theo’s bedroom walls, but it was the haunted expression on Gabe’s face that held me transfixed.
The second the engine was killed, the room fell into silence.
A thick, expectant kind of silence.
Silas was home.
And he knew.
The rear door of the house slammed open, the sound like a gunshot cracking through the air, rattling against the frame, shaking the walls, sending a ripple of tension through the house. Footsteps—heavy, deliberate, dragging.
Not slow, not cautious.
Angry.
The kind of rage that could level cities.
Theo exhaled sharply beside me, dragging a hand through his hair. Jude rocked back on his heels, rolling his shoulders like he was preparing for a fight.
And Gabe?—
Gabe just looked at me like he’d already put something together that he wasn’t ready to say out loud.
I turned away before I could see what was written on his face. Theo was the first to move, pushing past the rest of us and headed out of his room.
The others followed, leaving me behind. Panic set in, and that need to run surfaced once more. But I knew where that road led—right back to them.
Reluctantly I followed, my bare feet skimming the hardwood floors as I followed the sound of the others to the kitchen. The moment I stepped inside I felt him—even before I saw him.
But then I did and I couldn’t move.
Silas stood beyond the doorframe, one shoulder braced against the wall, blood streaked down his arms and splattered across the base of his neck.
His breathing was shallow, controlled. Too controlled.
He looked at Theo first.
Not me.
Theo tensed. “Silas?—”
But before he could finish, Silas was moving.
Too fast. Too unsteady.
He lunged, slamming Theo back against the wall, his forearm pining him in place.
“Where the fuck were you?” His voice was raw, torn open by something deeper than anger.
Theo winced, jaw tightening beneath the pressure. “I?—”
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Silas’s voice dropped into a snarl. “Did you even hear it? Or were you too busy fucking her?”
The last word hit like a slap.
Theo’s fingers twitched at his sides. He didn’t deny it. Instead his face turned red…which told me everything. He wasn’t…but he wanted to.
Jude whistled low, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Well, that escalated.”
Gabe cut him a savage glare.
Silas’s breaths came out ragged, his body trembling from the effort of staying upright.
Theo clenched his teeth. “You don’t?—”
“I don’t what?” Silas cut him off. “ Get to be mad? Get to feel this .” He slammed a fist into the middle of his chest, the thud sounding hard and heavy.
My own pulse skipped in response. What was he saying…that he was hurting at the idea of his brothers taking me? My mind raced trying to understand what that meant. But I didn’t have time to explore that before Silas’s weight faltered.
His knee buckled.
He caught himself before hitting the floor, but just barely.
A sick, cold feeling slid down my spine.
He was hurt.
Really hurt.
Theo made a move to grab him, to hold his brother steady as a look of anguish tore across his face. But that only incensed the rage in Silas. The fear and the thing he wouldn’t say out loud.
His gaze flicked to me.
Dark, sharp. Wild.
And in them, I saw everything.
The things he wouldn’t say.
The things he couldn’t admit.
The way he wanted me.
And the way he hated that he did.
Silas shoved off Theo, stumbling slightly, but he didn’t let himself fall. His hands clenched into fists. His breath left him in short, violent exhales.
“Do you have any idea,” he rasped. “What they did to Sloane?”
Theo’s expression tightened before he shook his head.
Silas’s features twisted with pure rage. “They gutted him like a fucking animal!”
Theo winced.
Jude looked away.
But I was transfixed by the terror on Silas’s face and the harrowing realisation that this could’ve been him. I swallowed hard—it could’ve been any of them.
I glanced to Gabe as agony ripped across my chest. It could’ve been him—Dear God, it could’ve been him.
“There was a note,” Silas continued, his tone guttural and strained. “One stabbed into the middle of his chest.”
“What note?” Theo muttered.
Silas’ gaze found me. “They’re coming…and they want her.”
The entire room stilled. My breath caught. My brain misfired…her? Who? Then it hit me. Me.
Something cold and sick curled in my stomach.
“You already know,” he took a step toward me. “Don’t you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t?—”
“Liar.”
The word cracked across the room, hitting me like a slap. Jude’s dark, cutting gaze settled on me, crawling under my skin.
Use it on me.
Jude’s words still lingered in my head as Silas stalked toward me, like a wounded animal still looking for something to tear apart.
“You always fucking lie,” he said quieter now, lower, rougher. His hand shot out as I dragged my fingers through my hair, grabbing my wrist.
Too tight.
Too desperate.
My breath hitched.
The blood on his fingers smudged on my skin.
Warm. Sticky. Real.
“You’re been keeping things from us,” he murmured. “And I’m done playing fucking games with you. I want to know what it is.”
The air thickened.
His fingers tightened.
And in that moment, I felt the ache in him.
The hunger.
Not just for answers.
For me.
And it was killing him.
I didn’t pull away. I should have. But I didn’t. Because he was slipping. The mask was cracking. His breath came in short, uneven bursts against my skin. And then?—
His body gave out.
It happened fast .
One second, he was looming over me, shaking with a rage that barely held itself together. The next?—
His knees buckled.
He dropped.
I caught him before he hit the ground, my hands gripping his arms, lowering with him, feeling the heat radiating off his body. But beneath that heat was something else. Something just as volatile.
Pain.
Desperation .
He tried to push back up, tried to fight it, but this time, his body wouldn’t let him.
His forehead pressed against my shoulder, his breath ragged and uneven.
There was too much blood.
Too much pain.
Theo moved beside me, reaching over the top of me, but before he could touch him, I felt Silas’s fingers tighten in the fabric of his own T-shirt I wore.
“No.” His voice was barely audible. “Don’t.”
I froze.
Because it wasn’t an order.
Not a command.
It was something else.
Something raw. Something broken.
I exhaled slowly, carefully. “You’re hurt,” I whispered.
His fingers tightened again.
“I know,” he admitted.
And that?
That broke me.
I swallowed hard, my hands gripping his arms. “Then stop fighting me.”
His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale.
His forehead still rested against my shoulder. His fingers were still cold, still pressing into me, as though he was desperately seeking the warmth my body gave.
And then—finally?—
He let go.
Theo crouched beside me, his hand firm on Silas’s shoulder. “Come on, man. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Silas exhaled slowly, deeply. And for the first time that night—he didn’t fight.
I helped him up, and Theo studied him as we moved him toward the rear bathroom. I felt his weight pressed into my side—his hard, ragged breaths shuddering against me—and all I wanted was to hold him, to touch him, to search his eyes for that desperate longing for me once more.
That’s the way, that darkness whispered inside me…
Draw him into you.
Make him want you.
Gabe didn’t move—not for a second—as I struggled to guide Silas out of the kitchen doorway and into the hall. I could feel the desperation emanating from him, see the absolute destruction unfolding inside him at that very moment. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
I tore my gaze away from Gabe, hating the way he looked at me—as if he were finally putting the pieces together. And for the first time, I realized—maybe they weren’t the only ones breaking here. Maybe I was breaking too.
And when they finally figured out what I was hiding, what I had buried deep in my mind, stained with the blood of our parents all along—then none of us would survive. But I will , that deep, dark, haunting whisper echoed in my head.
I will always survive.