Chapter 19
NINETEEN
SILAS
“Motherfucker.”
What the fuck did I think I was doing?
I barely slowed to nab my cut from the back of the chair before I stumbled out of the house like I’d been trapped in noxious fumes and was in desperate need of a fresh breath of air.
Ripping at my hair and blundering around like a fool.
How could this woman affect me this way when no one else had ever held the power?
I had enough on my fucking shoulders to last fifteen lifetimes.
Enough baggage that nothing else would fit.
Enough vileness running through my contaminated veins that I knew never to get close.
I would only desolate and destroy.
Not to mention she was so off-limits, it wasn’t funny.
Even looking at her was a crime against my own law, and I’d never taken myself as one of those pathetic hypocrites who meted rules but didn’t follow them himself.
I’d already drilled it into my entire crew. Had warned them of the dire consequences of turning their attention toward our special guest.
Because Brinley was right.
She was a job.
A means to an end.
Because of her, we had the chance to rid the earth of that entire group of scum.
She had one thing wrong, though.
I’d never let anyone touch her. I would protect her to my last breath.
It was an oath I made.
A promise.
And that meant something to me.
What I hadn’t been prepared for was everything that she turned out to be.
That smart mouth almost as keen as her sharp-witted mind that I could see working at a thousand miles a minute.
Way those eyes toiled and whirled with that unrelenting curiosity, pilfering through the bare facts I’d given her like she still might be capable of coming up with the sum.
But it was the tender, genuine care underneath it that made her stand out.
What made her shine in some kind of rarely seen brilliance.
The way she worried about her brother was a true testament to her character.
I mean, fuck, I’d nearly been blown back into the wall when I’d come into the kitchen and found her holding Kai. Expression verging between bewildered and awed, and her heart gushing out onto the floor.
I’d had to shove down the awe myself.
Then I’d had to sit through that torturous meal with her.
Had to sit and watch her hold that baby. Had to watch her soft smiles and listen to her sweet coos.
Things had gotten insurmountably worse with her groaning and moaning over Meems’s delicious dinner.
Woman humming around her fork every time she placed it into her pouty, sex-pot mouth.
It was a very unfortunate side effect that my cock had pulsed to the point of agony with each little mewl.
It was so bad I had to hide my raging erection under the table for an entire goddamn hour.
But when I found her taking care of my sister in my room? I guess that was when I cracked.
When something had fractured. Watching Brinley lift that fiery chin like she was protecting Elena from me. Protecting her secrets and her needs and whatever confessions Elena had given her.
Brinley fully invested in it in a beat. Barely knowing my sister and still so clearly willing to put up a fight for her.
I should have been pissed by the insubordination. People didn’t talk to me that way and get away with it.
But was I mad?
Nah.
I was fucking floored.
Maybe even inspired.
All while I was wholly terrified of letting that control go. Terrified that I might miss something again, which was why I basically kept my sister under lock and key.
Admittedly, snatching that new vibrator from the stash of condoms and toys that were kept in a storage cabinet in the club might have been a bad idea.
But after that dinner?
I thought she might have been hurting as badly as me.
See.
I wasn’t a total sadist.
Only a masochist, apparently.
Because I looked back at the house as I fumbled out into the night.
Gaze climbing for the second floor and landing on my bedroom window.
The curtains were drawn, so I couldn’t see anything but the glow from a dim light coming from within.
But it was the silhouette of the lush, gorgeous woman that appeared in the smaller bathroom window that captured me like I’d stepped directly into a grizzly trap.
Teeth clamping and breaking skin.
It was just a faint outline. Nothing that I could make out other than knowing she was there.
It shouldn’t matter. Shouldn’t count for anything. But there was something about seeing her that way that made me feel like I might be standing on something profound.
If I were looking for logic, I’d accept she was likely in there ranting and raving about what a jerk I was, which honestly was fully warranted since I’d acted like a total prick on my way out.
Trying to toss up more walls because I couldn’t allow her the power to get to me.
Couldn’t allow her to continue creeping under my skin and winding her way into the places I never allowed anyone to go.
It had been my only option. I had to force some barriers back between us before we collided in a catastrophic way.
I needed to make her hate me.
Fear me.
Realize I was nothing but a dead end because I was pretty sure she and I had been a couple of haphazard seconds from rushing full steam ahead.
But since this woman seemed to steal all logic, I was standing there under the cover of trees wondering if it’d gone the opposite.
Imagining she was making full use of my gift.
Imagining she was making the same desirous sounds she’d been making at the dinner table.
Would it be my name slipping out of that smart mouth as she came?
Fuck me. This wasn’t helping, and I had business to attend to.
You know, just the insignificant task of keeping her and Elena alive.
This whole family alive.
Both my blood and the men who were under my charge.
I scrubbed my palms over my face, hoping it would eradicate the visions from my mind, and I sucked a clearing breath into my lungs before I turned on my heel and forced myself to move.
Night gathered thick, and stars glinted through the breaks in the trees as I trudged across the property in the direction of the clubhouse.
In the distance, I could hear the hoots and hollers of my crew. The dull thud of heavy music echoed through the forest. The drumbeat chanting its depravity that they were undoubtedly losing themselves in.
With each step that I took, the volume increased. It might as well have been the driving force for the way my heart took to hammering at my ribcage.
Every cell in my body hardened as I prepared to take on the severity I wore as Crimson Crows’s president.
No, it wasn’t a facade, per se.
I guess it was just allowing who I really was to rise to the surface.
The second I broke out of the cover of the trees, the clubhouse came into view. My boots thudded on the ground as I crossed over the gravel road that cut through to the back part of the land and led to the houses I’d just left behind.
Lights glowed from the enormous building, and a bonfire leapt high into the darkened sky.
Licking flames that stirred the air like a warning of what was coming.
Omens of blood and death and perversion.
A slew of motorcycles were parked in a semi-circle around the entire boundary, gleaming against the flames, and about a dozen guys drank beers around the fire.
They were laughing and jesting. Giving each other shit the way they always did. My men might have oozed peril, but they were the closest of friends. Sworn to have each other’s backs.
There were no women tonight. They were forbidden on Church nights.
When Dice saw me coming, he put two fingers into his mouth and gave a shrill whistle.
“Yo, President,” he shouted behind it.
Everyone’s heads swiveled my way.
“Ah, the man of the hour,” Brody called, full tease in his voice.
“That’s the man of every hour,” Trevan corrected with a grin.
“Ah, he likes to think so, but his younger brother just might steal some of the limelight.” Brody was all cocky arrogance but with that goodness interlacing it.
I fought a smirk. “You think so, huh?”
“Gonna give it a good go.”
“You’ve got big shoes to fill,” Phoenix tossed out with his normal grumble.
“But my dick’s just as big, soooo…”
“I think you’ve mistaken it for your head,” Trevan razzed.
“Well, obviously,” Brody deadpanned.
A riot of laughter broke out, and I let a smile go before my mood shifted.
“All right, time for Church.”
Second I said it, the mood changed.
Standing a little straighter, my main guys drained their beers before everyone broke apart like the soldiers they were, getting into formation behind me as I strode through the main club door.
The bar was the same as ever, barring the fact that the women who normally decorated it were missing, the walls plain and drab.
Couldn’t help but think about the way that Little Wildfire had set fire to the place last night, desperate for escape when she thought I was out to do her in.
I thought in that moment, it was the most vibrant it’d ever been.
Flames and light and life filling the space.
Energy alive.
My pulse racing in a way that it never had.
The only female there was Lulu. Mouthwatering aromas wafting from the kitchen as she prepped for tomorrow.
This was her home, so she had an exemption.
Always working late because she’d once told me it was the only thing she could do. Needing to keep her hands busy and thoughts diverted from the pain and the loss, though I could only imagine every time she saw one of us wearing our cuts it reminded her of her husband.
Her husband who’d given his life to further our mission.
Without him, she was alone, so I’d given her a permanent place that would always be hers.
She was the one who insisted on the food. Doing her part to care for us the way she said we were caring for her.
Another twenty or so Crows were inside, along with a handful of prospects.
Every patched-in Crow gathered at my back while the prospects scrambled off to their posts.
Their duty during Church was to guard this compound to the last breath of their bodies. It was where they proved their worth and their right.