Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
brINLEY
“Are you sure you have everything you need?” Elena poked her head through the doorway of Silas’s bedroom.
I looked up at her from where I rested against the black leather headboard with a leg curled under me. I’d been staring at my stupid phone for the last twenty minutes, praying for it to vibrate with a message after I’d sent yet another text to Dereck.
Another he hadn’t bothered to respond to.
Only a dull lamp glowed from the nightstand, but I could still see well enough to know Elena had gotten ready for bed.
Her deep brown hair was twisted up at the top of her head in a messy knot, and she’d changed into a cute black pajama set. A long-sleeved top with matching shorts.
Her smile was sly and soft. I wasn’t sure how she pulled it off.
“I think I’m good, thank you.”
“Are you sure? You ask for it, and I’ll see that it’s delivered.” She wagged her brows, clearly tempting me into some sort of gluttony.
I let go of a light giggle. “If you’re trying to offer me more food, then you are looking at the wrong woman. I pretty much had to crawl up the stairs, I’m so full.”
That meal of creamy pesto chicken and mashed potatoes had tasted even better than the heaven it’d smelled like.
I was stuffed.
And confused.
Trying to orient myself to yet another change I didn’t fully comprehend.
It was nearing ten, and by some grand mercy, Silas had remained downstairs when I’d come up to get ready for bed, the confounding man sending Meems off as well and promising to clean up the kitchen.
Who freaking knew bikers were so damned helpful.
Kai was long asleep, zonking out halfway through dinner.
Silas had pushed from his chair and swept him off my lap to take him to his room.
A loaded awareness had rippled around us as he’d pulled the sleeping baby into his massive arms, freezing to stare down at me for two elongated beats before he’d turned, snatched his blanket from the floor, and carried him upstairs.
I was still trying to process that one.
The child constantly trying to give me bites of his food.
His sweet laugh.
His even sweeter face.
The way it made me feel when he called me Bwinwey. Something that felt like it might both heal and hurt. But maybe I needed it. Maybe I needed to feel something I hadn’t ever allowed myself to feel.
Elena’s smile widened. “Meems has that way about her.”
“You mean making you feel like you’ve been a part of her family your entire life when you just met her?”
Elena giggled and shuffled deeper into the room. “Give her five minutes, and you’re hers forever. That is, if she likes you.”
“Did I pass the test?” I tried to play it as a quip. I really didn’t care one way or the other.
At least that was what I was telling myself.
But if I was being honest, I felt like I’d witnessed something special during dinner.
Something unexpected.
Something that I’d been missing for a long, long time. The vacancy inside me was so aged by now, the wounds thickened by scars and calluses, that it felt almost foreign.
Watching them chat and tease and play through the entire meal. Like they were this normal family when you could not mistake that there was a seedy underbelly.
Those men weren’t just wearing those cuts because they liked motorcycles.
I’d heard it last night. I had heard the brutish malevolence that had seeped through that rugged door that I imagined protected some sort of dungeon on the other side.
No, I might not have been able to make out the full story, but I knew that story was there.
Locked up like my old diary.
I just had to find a way to crack it.
I’d do best not to get cozy. Blinded by false comfort.
If I wanted to find out if Dereck and I were really going to come out of this thing unscathed, I needed to be proactive.
Not get lulled into a food coma.
Every minute my brother didn’t text me back, the more unsettled I became, and as much as Silas kept trying to weasel his way into my senses, making me trust him, I’d be an idiot to fall for it.
“Um, it’s fair to say you are in.” Elena’s voice was all conspiratorial exuberance as she settled onto the edge of the bed facing me. Amusement tugged at the edges of her lips. “Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t let you leave.”
Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of, though I was pretty sure it wasn’t Meems who was my jailer.
“I have to admit, it is pretty nice to have another woman around here,” she added. “You can see that we are a bit outnumbered.”
She shrugged her shoulder. “And okay, since you’re twisting my arm about it, I should also probably admit that I really like you and I think you fit in pretty great with my family.”
There was absolutely no arm twisting to it, and the cute, shy, confident thing she did was digging its way through the rocks that clogged my spirit in suspicion.
How was she so unbelievably nice when she was surrounded by all these bikers? There was no missing the overbearing masculinity that sucked the oxygen from that clubhouse.
Maybe she was a secret spy that Silas used to infiltrate hearts and minds, and this was all an act.
Then the gold flecks in her hazel eyes were shimmering with moisture, and she glanced away for a beat before she looked back at me with a pinch of pink on her cheeks.
“Honestly, it can get kind of lonely around here. It’s like I’m surrounded by all these people whose main job is to make sure that my every need is met, all while I feel like I’m missing so much.”
She choked a little sound as her chin trembled. “It’s weird having so many people around you and still feeling lonely, you know?”
With her vulnerability, my stomach twisted.
Okay, I sucked.
Was a deplorable, disgusting human being.
Even having an errant derogatory thought about this angel.
Because I was slammed with the torrent of pain that gushed out of her. So deep and heavy it couldn’t be feigned.
I tossed my phone to the bed and sat forward so I could take her hand. I squeezed it hard. “I totally get that, Elena.”
The second I touched her, a tear streaked from the corner of her eye.
The thing popped out so fast I thought she must have been holding it in for so long she was about to bust from the pressure.
With her free hand, she frantically swatted it away.
“I feel like such a jerk.” The quieted words crawled out of her like a dirty secret. “Feeling that way. Like I don’t appreciate every single thing my brother has done for me. Everything he’s sacrificed for me. For this whole family. But God, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird trapped in a cage.”
“You don’t need to feel guilty for recognizing that you’re lacking something.” The words clawed from my mouth, low in emphasis. “Even if you want more, it doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate what you have.”
Emotion wrestled through her features.
Shame and guilt.
Hope and belief.
She leaned closer, desperation cracking on the plea. “But then when I try to go after it, I end up making really terrible mistakes that put my entire family in danger.”
My chest squeezed to the point of breaking.
I was sure what she was referring to.
I hesitated, warred, worried I was about to invade a space that she didn’t want me to enter.
My tongue swept over my suddenly dry lips before I decided to take a chance. “Silas told me that something bad happened to you. That you were kidnapped.”
Surprise jolted her back an inch, a hot gust of air leaving her lungs before another tear slipped free.
“It was my fault.”
I released her hand so I could set my palm on her cheek.
“It’s not your fault.”
It didn’t matter the circumstances or what she thought she might have done. Whoever they were, those sick sadists were responsible.
I could feel it, as sharp as a blade driven into my soul.
It was the kind of hurt that went bone deep and never could be eradicated or erased.
Elena paused before she whispered, “I wasn’t kidnapped. I was duped. I thought this guy who found me on TikTok really liked me, and I was so lonely, I fell for it. Willingly snuck out to meet him, having no idea who he was until he shoved me into the trunk of a car then locked me in a dirty room.”
“Oh God.” The horrified response punched out of me.
How awful. How terrifying.
I sat for a moment in her torment, trying to figure out if I should press for details or if she just needed quiet, undeterred support.
“Did they…” I finally managed, though I couldn’t bring myself to fully say it.
She sniffled and gave a tiny shake of her head, clearly knowing what I was implying. “They beat me up. Taunted me. Laughed at me for being so stupid. But they didn’t do that.”
I couldn’t help it.
Relief heaved out of me.
What had happened to her was appalling, but…
That time she was squeezing my hand. “I’m still afraid sometimes, but I’m okay. I promise. I just feel ignorant and embarrassed. Devastated that I put my brother and the rest of the guys in that position.”
My nod was frantic. “I think it can be really easy to put ourselves in risky situations when we’re trying to find ourselves.”
Then my voice turned urgent. “Most of the time, those risks are worth it. They are life-changing in the best ways. But it is also true that sometimes those risks backfire in such a catastrophic way that we think it will ruin us.”
Another tear slipped down her cheek, her eyes bright in the dim light of Silas’s room.
I edged forward another inch and set my other hand on her opposite cheek.
Framing her face.
“But without those risks, we aren’t going anywhere. We aren’t discovering what we really need or who we are meant to be.”
I angled my head with significance. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for taking one of those risks. The blame lies on those who take advantage of you taking those risks.”
I really hoped I wasn’t giving horrible advice. God knew all the advice I attempted to beat into Dereck’s brain hadn’t worked.
But it wasn’t like he’d actually listened.
Hell, most of the time he’d run out and done the opposite.