Chapter 11 – Lydia – Threadbare #2
Dom smirks. “You’re too smart to fall in love with something that bleeds for a living.”
“I’m not in love.”
“No,” he says, “but you’re in something.”
He pulls the car to a stop in front of my building.
People pass by, none of them looking up. This part of the street is where privacy goes to be forgotten. Everyone’s got secrets, so no one asks.
Dom doesn’t unlock the doors right away.
He turns in his seat and looks at me. “Useful turns into owned real fast around here,” he says. “Be careful who you serve. And be even more careful who you let protect you.”
I don’t blink. “I’ve never needed protection.”
He unlocks the door with a crisp click.
“But maybe you want it now.”
I step out.
Close the door behind me.
And only then do I let my lungs expand again.
The moment the car peels away, I pull out my phone.
The screen is blank. There are no new messages.
Of course not.
Silas plays his games like shadows play time: always stretching, never giving you the shape of what you’re standing next to.
I stare at the blank screen for a few seconds.
Then type.
Come over. I’m done pretending.
I don’t wait to see if it delivers.
I slide the phone into my pocket, climb the stairs two at a time, and leave the door unlocked behind me.
Let him decide whether the invitation is worth the risk.
The knock comes twenty minutes later.
Despite my impulsive summons, I can’t move right away. I sit clutching the edge of the couch and stare at the door. The kind of stillness around me is like the one that settles when you know what’s coming and still can’t decide whether you want it or not.
Yet, when I finally rise, my heart’s not racing. The beat holds steady. Isn’t that so much worse?
I get up and move to the door, I open it without hesitation, and Silas stands there like he never had reason to waver or doubt. As if it was obvious that I’d open it.
He’s wearing a dark jacket, clean shirt, all neat and spruced up in that casual way of his. Still, something in his face looks bruised anyway. Like the morning pulled too hard at him. Like something broke open overnight, and he’s still deciding whether to bury it or bring it inside.
But he must make some decision, since the door swings shut behind him, latching clicking into place with finality.
I fold my arms but don’t speak.
We stare at each other across the room like there’s glass between us.
I walk toward the kitchen. Not because I need water. Because I need distance.
Silas follows.
“I’ve been trying to figure you out,” I say, still facing the sink. “Whether you’re a threat, or a shield. Whether you’re a ghost or a man with bad timing.”
“I’m not either.”
“Then what are you?”
A pause.
Then, calmly:
“Wreckage.”
I turn slowly.
“That’s not a real answer, Silas.”
“It’s the only one I trust right now.”
The fridge hums behind us. A bird chirps once outside the window like the universe wants to remind us it’s still daylight. Still afternoon. Still a world where real people do real things that don’t involve staring each other down over wiretaps and veiled betrayal.
“You didn’t answer my message,” I say.
“I came, didn’t I?”
“You always come when I don’t expect it.”
“I only come because you let me.”
I step forward.
“Is that what this is? Permission?”
His voice stays even. “No. This is a risk.”
Another step.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
He reaches into his coat pocket. I tense, enough to feel it in the way my jaw locks.
He pulls out a burner phone. Slim. Unlabeled.
He offers it to me.
I take it. Don’t ask what number he pre-programmed. I already know it’s one of his.
“You’re not going to say it, are you?” I ask.
“Say what?”
“What you are. What this is.”
“No.”
“Because you don’t trust me?”
“Because I don’t want to hear it out loud.”
I nod slowly.
That, at least, I understand.
Words make things real. And once they’re real, you can’t walk them back.
We stand there too long.
He’s close enough now that I can see the pulse in his neck. See the line of his throat shift when he swallows. See the way his fingers twitch like he’s holding back a dozen things.
He says: “You weren’t wrong. About what kind of world this is.”
My voice comes quieter than I expect. “And what kind is that?”
“The kind that doesn’t forgive softness. Not in women. Not in men. Not in people like us who confuse control with survival.”
I look at him. “Then why keep showing up here? With me?”
“Because when I’m with you,” he says, “I forget that survival is supposed to mean being alone.”
The stillness that follows isn’t dead.
It’s alive.
It’s us.
Somewhere in the loft, the heat ticks on. A pipe shudders. The building reminds us we’re standing in the middle of something ancient and broken, and still trying to work.
Silas steps back first.
Not far. Just enough to breathe.
“You’re not his, either,” he says. I don’t have to search my memory to know he’s mirroring my own words back at me.
“That doesn’t make me yours,” I insist.
“No,” he agrees. “But it does mean you don’t have to be alone in purgatory.”
I nod. I don’t know if I believe it, but wanting to believe it, that feels close enough.
I don’t tell him to sit.
He doesn’t ask.
We just stand there, suspended in the kind of pause that feels like it’s waiting to see who will blink first.
The burner phone is still in my hand, its weight unfamiliar. Heavy in a way that says it wasn’t meant to be passed between strangers. It’s a lifeline disguised as a trap, or maybe the other way around.
I set it down on the counter without looking at it again.
My eyes can’t peel themselves off of him. My mouth moves of its own accord, murmuring, “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
Silas doesn’t move. His throat works, once. “I thought I did.”
“And now?”
He looks around the room, like he’s measuring the exits, the angles, the ways to get out of this conversation.
He doesn’t find one.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I know I’m not supposed to care this much.”
My throat tightens. Not because I’m moved, but because I’m surprised, just a little, hearing it out loud.
“And yet you do.”
He nods.
I step forward. The distance between us may as well go up in vapors from the burgeoning heat. “So… what happens now?”
Silas exhales through his nose, steady but quiet. Not a sigh. A release.
“We lie,” he says.
“To who?”
“To everyone who isn’t standing in this room.”
I nod again.
Then I ask the question that’s been pressing at the inside of my ribs since the first time I saw his eyes under that rooftop haze.
“What do you see when you look at me?”
He doesn’t blink.
“I see the reason I haven’t pulled the trigger.”
My chest tightens.
I don’t know what he means.
And I do.
He’s still standing in the same place — but I can feel him closer. The energy between us is crawling now, hot and bare, like it doesn’t care what we call it anymore.
“I’m not afraid of Drazen,” I say.
“I know.”
“I’m afraid of not knowing who I’m handing pieces of myself to.”
His hand shifts slightly. No movement toward me. Just a twitch of muscle, a flicker of impulse.
“You already know,” he says. “You just want me to say it out loud.”
And then—
A knock.
Not hard.
But not hesitant, either.
Neither of us moves.
Another knock. Two taps, brisk and clipped.
My whole body stiffens.
Silas straightens, head turning just slightly toward the door.
The sound wasn’t loud.
But it cut through the moment like a scalpel.
I move first. Step toward the door, but not close enough to touch the knob.
Silas doesn’t say a word, but I feel him shift behind me. Calculating. Listening.
No voice. No footsteps retreating. Just that cold stillness.
He says, very quietly, “Expecting someone?”
I shake my head.
He moves past me, calm and cool, and stops just to the side of the door.
I unlock it. Grip the handle. Pause.
Then open it two inches.
No one stands there.
No sound.
Just an envelope on the floor. Thick. Cream-colored. No markings.
I pick it up and close the door before opening it.
Inside: a single piece of paper. Handwritten.
One line.
You don’t belong to him.
I stare at the ink. My fingers go numb.
Silas reaches for it.
Reads.
Tension bleeds into his face.
I whisper, “Is this Drazen’s handwriting?”
I already know the answer before he says it.
“No.”
“Then who?”
His eyes meet mine. And for the first time since I’ve known him, I see something that looks like fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
"Must be someone who's been watching you, us," he says carefully. “They knew exactly when to deliver this. Right after I arrived." My stomach lurches.
We both look toward the monitor again.
Still normal.
Still looping.
But suddenly, I don’t trust it at all.
I take one breath. Just one.
Then I speak, voice steady. “You said I wasn’t safe.”
“I meant it.”
“Prove it.”
He nods.