Chapter 25 – Lydia - The Ghosts We Loved
I wake to weight.
Not chains. Not guards. Not the walls of Drazen’s penthouse pressing in. This is softer, warmer. A body. An arm cinched around my waist like he thought if he let go, I’d vanish.
Silas.
The memory of last night smolders in my chest before I even open my eyes.
His hands on me. His mouth. The way I let myself unravel against him when I swore I’d never need a man to breathe.
I shift, and the sheet slips against my skin, reminding me I’m bare underneath.
My pulse spikes at the thought of Elias somewhere down the hall while I’m lying here naked, wrapped in a Bureau agent’s hold.
I glance back. Silas is still asleep, for the first time in a while if the bags under his eyes are anything to go by.
His jaw is shadowed with stubble, lips parted just enough that I can almost imagine him soft, human.
He doesn’t look like a man who kills for a living.
He looks like the version of him I can never trust: the same one who makes me forget cages exist.
I should pull away. Slide from under his arm, take the sheet, put distance between us before he opens those eyes and ruins me again.
Instead, I stay.
Because my body remembers what my mind doesn’t want to admit: I wanted him long before last night. And I hate how badly I still want him now, even knowing what he is. Bureau. The leash I never saw coming.
My gaze drifts across the room. Elias’s safehouse is cleaner than anything I’ve stayed in for months.
Sparse furniture, dark wood floors, a single rug beneath the bed.
The curtains are drawn, but pale light bleeds through the edges, catching on the dust in the air.
It’s too still. Too quiet. A place designed for vanishing, not living.
I feel Silas’s fingers twitch against my hip like his body knows I’m awake even if his eyes don’t. The touch brands me, reminding me I’m not free. Not from Drazen. Not from Elias. And definitely not from the man curled around me now.
I push his arm off, careful not to wake him, and slide out of bed. The floor is cold against my bare feet. I drag his shirt from the chair, slip it over my head. It hangs loose on me, the hem brushing my thighs, and that alone makes me want to curse. Even his clothes feel like a claim.
At the dresser, I find a cracked mirror.
My reflection is pale, hair tangled, lips still swollen.
I look like a woman who’s been ruined and remade in the same night.
My fingers touch my mouth, and I almost laugh.
Drazen warned me only yesterday that men get stupid around me.
He wasn’t wrong. But the crueler truth is that I get stupid around Silas.
A floorboard creaks outside the door. My spine stiffens. For a second, I forgot I'm out of the penthouse, but when the knock comes, it’s taut, controlled. Elias.
“Lydia,” he calls, voice cutting through the wood. “We need to talk.”
Of course we do.
I glance back at Silas, still unmoving in the bed, then step toward the door.
And just like that, the weight of last night tightens in my chest again.
I open the door, and Elias stands there, crisp as ever in a black shirt rolled at the sleeves, hair neat like he hasn’t just orchestrated a midnight war. He doesn’t look at me first. He looks past me. Into the room.
Into the bed.
I cross my arms over my chest even though the shirt I’m wearing covers me enough. His eyes land on the discarded clothes scattered near the foot of the bed. My skin prickles, but I don’t flinch. If he wants to judge, let him. He’s not my priest, and I’m not confessing.
“Comfortable?” he asks, tone even, like it’s not a question about sheets.
“Better than a locked penthouse.”
His mouth twitches, but it isn’t a smile. Elias has never been one for showing amusement. He studies me for a beat longer, then shifts his gaze away from the bed and back to me.
“You’re safe here. For now.”
“For now,” I repeat, voice flat. “That’s comforting.”
“It’s the truth.”
Truth. The word tastes bitter. I wonder what Silas told him while I was being dragged through that rooftop chaos. How much Elias knows. How much he doesn’t.
“You’ve got two problems,” Elias says, stepping into the room without asking.
He doesn’t look at Silas again, though I can feel Silas’s presence like heat radiating off the bed.
Elias focuses on me. “One—Drazen isn’t going to let this go.
You embarrassed him. Twice as it is, with Dom and your…
decision.” He gestures towards Silas as he says ‘Decision’.
He pauses before adding, “That paints a target bigger than you think.”
“And two?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “The Bureau. They’re not going to protect Silas after what went down last night. He went off-map. He’ll be on his own now.”
I glance at Silas. His eyes are open now, awake and burning. He doesn’t rise. Doesn’t argue. Just watches Elias with that stillness that’s more dangerous than shouting.
Elias sees it, too. His expression hardens. “You can stay here as long as you need. Both of you. But make no mistake: every hour we spend here is another hour Drazen has to find us.”
I lean against the dresser, arms crossed. “So, what’s the plan? You’re not the type to hide in safehouses.”
“No. I’m not.” He folds his arms, mirroring me. “But first, you need rest. You’ve been running on adrenaline for days. That gets people killed. Take the room. Lock the door if it makes you feel better. I’ll handle the perimeter.”
His words are clipped, final, like an order disguised as an offer.
And just like that, the distance between us feels wider than the hall. He’s protecting me, yes, but also reminding me of where I stand. Of what I’ve cost him.
Silas finally sits up behind me. His voice comes out low, steady. “We’ll take the space.”
Elias’s eyes cut to him, then back to me. “Then I’ll let you get back to… whatever this is.” He pauses at the door. “But remember what I said. Drazen doesn’t forgive. And the Bureau doesn’t forget.”
He leaves without another word.
The silence he leaves behind feels heavier than his presence.
I turn back to Silas. His gaze pins me in place. He’s shirtless, muscles tense, hair mussed from the pillow, but it’s his eyes that undo me.
Eyes that don’t promise safety. Eyes that demand something I can’t name.
And for a second, I almost wish Elias had stayed. Because the danger in this room feels so much more consuming than the quick death waiting outside.
The door clicks shut, and I’m left with the hum of my pulse and the weight of Silas’s stare.
He’s still on the bed, body coiled like a wire, hands braced on his thighs. For a moment, neither of us speaks. It’s like Elias dragged all the words out with him and left only the pressure behind.
I break first. “You just sit there while he talks about you like that?”
Silas doesn’t flinch. “He’s not wrong.”
“That’s it? No fight back? No explanation?”
“What explanation do you want, Lydia?” His voice cuts across the space. “That the Bureau sent me? That I was supposed to give reports on you and the others in this world, keep you in a cage until they were done? Well, now you already know.”
“I didn’t know any of it,” I snap.
His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t rise to it. That restraint infuriates me more than yelling would.
“You had chances,” I push on. “At the penthouse. At the club. At the goddamn rooftop. You could’ve gotten me out sooner, but you didn’t. What stopped you, Silas? Too many guns? Or was it the mission?”
He stands now, slow, controlled. He doesn’t bother putting on his pants. Every inch of his body radiates heat, and I hate that part of me responds to his nakedness. He closes the distance in three measured steps until he’s in front of me. I have to tip my chin up to meet his eyes.
“I stopped myself,” he says, voice steady but low enough that it scrapes.
“Because if I moved too soon, they’d kill you before you hit the door.
Because if I dragged you out without a plan, we’d both be corpses right now.
You think I wanted to wait? You think I slept while you were locked in that cage? ”
His hand comes up, but he doesn’t touch me yet. His fingers hover near my jaw, like he’s daring himself. “But then, I gave you the option to come with me, right before they got you caged. Remember?”
“I’m not here to argue, Lydia,” he murmurs. “Not after last night. Not after we barely made it out alive. Please—don’t make me waste the only thing I’m certain of.”
“And what’s that?” My voice cuts, but the heat crawling through my chest betrays me.
His hand finally lands, thumb brushing my cheekbone. The touch is firm, grounding, and dangerous.
“You,” he says.
I want to slap him. I want to kiss him. I want to scream at him for making me this weak and this reckless in the same breath.
Instead, I lean forward until my forehead hits his chest. His hand cups the back of my head like he’s been waiting for me to crack open.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t turn this into some tragic devotion story. I’m not yours to save.”
He tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. His mouth is inches from mine, eyes dark, burning.
“Then let me be yours to ruin.”
His mouth crushes mine, and the fight we were having dissolves into a hotter intensity, It isn’t forgiveness or surrender—it’s survival in another language.
I push against his chest, not to break free but to force him back. My body makes the decision before my head does. He stumbles a step, eyes flashing with something between surprise and hunger.
“Sit down,” I tell him.
It’s not soft. It’s a command.
He lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, muscles taut, cock hard and heavy between his thighs. I spread his legs with my hands and sink to my knees on the floor in front of him. His hands fist in the sheets.
“Lydia…” His voice scrapes, ragged, warning threaded through hunger.