Chapter 30 – Silas - Teeth Bared
The safehouse feels different when we drag ourselves back inside.
It’s not the walls. They’re the same cracked plaster, the same blinds hanging crooked, the same floorboards that creak in all the wrong places. What’s different is what we’ve brought in with us.
The stench of cordite clings to our clothes, smoke woven into our jackets, the metallic tang of dried blood on our skin. Gunpowder and grit follow us in, settling into a place that was supposed to be clean.
The SUV sits outside with two shredded tires, glass webbed in spider cracks, paint peppered with bullet scars. It limped the last few miles like a dying animal, the wheel grinding metal on metal, Elias muscling it through on sheer stubbornness. It’s a wonder it made it back at all.
Now, inside, the weight of Bellamy clings to everyone. Boots scuff the floorboards, too many men tracking dirt and ash through a place meant to be safe.
Elias doesn’t waste words. “Jax, take the prisoner to the basement. Ren, perimeter.”
They nod, pale and twitchy. They almost lost it back at Bellamy, and if Drazen’s men so much as breathe near this door, they’ll lose it again.
Lydia doesn’t even look at them. She’s at the table, her hair pulled back into a knot, unveiling streaks of grime on her jaw. She’s got dried blood at her temple where a splinter caught her, but when Mara moves towards her with gauze, Lydia waves her off.
“I’m fine.”
Her tone leaves no space for argument. Mara, to her credit, only tilts her head once, then lays the gauze on the table in case she changes her mind.
I’m standing across the room, but my eyes keep tracking back to Lydia. The way her shirt clings from sweat, the scrape along her wrist where Jori’s hand had been before Elias put a bullet in him. She should look broken. Instead, she looks carved out of stone.
My hands are a mess: knuckles raw, one split open deep enough to sting when I curl my fist. I clean them anyway, pouring whiskey over the torn skin, watching it swirl a ruddy pink into the basin.
When I glance up, she’s watching me too. The second I catch her, she looks away. But it isn’t quick enough. It had already been long enough to see the steel in her eyes, the defiance that hasn’t dimmed an inch. Her attention, all mine.
I cross the space before I think better of it.
She doesn’t move, even when my thumb brushes the streak of dirt from her cheekbone.
Doesn’t soften either, but I’ve never needed that from her.
I can take her, any way she lets me have her.
It’s enough, even this: how she stubbornly holds my stare, daring me to say something I can’t take back.
The tension splits the space like a live wire.
And then, of fucking course, Elias ruins it.
“Come,” he says, stepping out from the shadow of the kitchen, his voice flat as a hammer. “Our guest is waiting.”
I don’t ask who. I know. The one we dragged from Bellamy, half-conscious in the back of the SUV. Drazen’s man. Now chained up downstairs like a rat.
The tension in the room shifts. Mara exhales, slow, setting her hands on her hips.
Elias doesn’t look at her, but I catch the flicker of it—the way his shoulders ease a fraction when she’s near him.
The kind of thing a man like him never admits.
How strange, that even a man as infamous as Elias Voss wears his weakness so plainly for all to see. Mara is who matters to him, truly.
With a heavy sigh, I step back from Lydia, my hand dropping away. I roll my sore knuckles once. “I’ll take him.”
Elias studies me like he’s already measuring the body count I’ll rack up if he lets me. Then he nods once. “Don’t get carried away. I need him to talk, not choke on his own teeth.”
I don’t bother answering. My rage has been simmering since Bellamy, since Jori’s gun swung toward my spine. Since Lydia threw herself into the line of fire to stop him.
Now, finally, I have somewhere to put it.
I head for the basement door, each step heavier than the last. The handle turns without resistance, and I start down, the sound of my footsteps swallowed by the dark below.
The single bulb at the bottom flickers against the ceiling, casting light that’s more shadow than clarity.
There, Drazen’s man sits slumped against the support beam, wrists chained above his head, ankles bound tight enough that he couldn’t kick even if he tried.
His face is swollen; one eye split purple, lip torn, a line of blood dried along his chin.
Somebody got a head start. Probably Jax, when he brought him in here, he probably didn’t cooperate well enough
The prisoner’s head lifts when he hears my footsteps. There’s a smile in it, teeth cracked and pink with blood. It’s not defiance. It’s recognition.
“Ward,” he rasps, my name dragging like gravel across his tongue. “Drazen said you’d come with them to Bellamy. Predictable.”
I stop at the base of the stairs, weight settling heavy in my stance. Hearing my name from him doesn’t sting. It confirms what I already know: Drazen’s closer than we thought.
I pull the knife from my belt, spin it once in my hand, not for show but for feel. The metal fits against my palm like an old habit. I step forward slowly, each footstep loud in the stillness.
“You’ve got three good teeth left,” I say, voice flat. “Which one do you want to keep?”
He chuckles. A wet sound, broken, like his lungs can’t quite keep up. “You think I’m afraid of you?”
“No,” I answer, crouching until the knife’s edge rests against the soft inside of his thigh. The point doesn’t press hard, just enough for him to feel it’s bite. “I think you’re afraid of dying without Drazen’s name in your mouth. So I’ll give you the chance to say it.”
His smirk falters. Not much, but enough.
Behind me, I hear the stairs creak. Elias. He doesn’t announce himself, doesn’t need to. I don’t look back, but I feel his presence settle into the room like a shadow in its rightful place.
The prisoner spits blood, some of it landing near my boot. “He’ll gut you, Fed. He’ll gut your girl first, make you watch.”
The rage spikes fast, running up my spine. My hand doesn’t shake when I drag the knife higher, cutting fabric, not skin. Yet. “Then tell me where to find him.”
The prisoner laughs again, weaker now. “Ask Jori.”
Elias finally speaks, voice clipped. “Jori’s not an option.”
I glance over my shoulder. He stands halfway in the dark, arms folded, face unreadable. His eyes don’t leave the man chained to the beam. He wants answers, not corpses. But he’s letting me be the one to dig for them.
I turn back, pressing the knife harder until the man flinches. His breath catches in his chest. The fear’s there now, trying to stay hidden, but it’s bleeding through the cracks.
“You’ve got one chance,” I say. “Talk, or I start taking pieces.”
The bulb overhead hums, the chain rattles, and for the first time, he doesn’t laugh.
The knife traces a line higher up his thigh, the tip resting just shy of the femoral artery. One slip, one ounce more pressure, and he’d bleed out in seconds. He knows it. I know it. Elias knows it.
His chest heaves, breath sawing in ragged bursts through swollen lips. Still, he tries to grin. “You won’t. You need me talking.”
I lean in, close enough that the stink of blood and stale sweat burns the back of my throat. My voice doesn’t rise; it doesn’t have to. “Talking is optional. Screaming works just as well.”
Then I drive the knife in. Not into any major arteries, but I’ve found it does the trick to tear through muscle. People’s tolerance for pain is never what they imagine it to be.
His howl rips up the walls, chains rattling, until the bulb swings.
That’s predictable, too.
I don’t pull back. I let the sound fill me. Let it echo against the rage simmering in my veins. This man isn’t Jori, but he’s Drazen’s. And Drazen deserves every scream.
I twist the blade, just a fraction. His body jerks like a puppet yanked by its strings.
“You’ve got two legs,” I murmur, my lips almost against his ear. “This is the first one. You want to keep the other intact, you start telling me about Petrov Station. About the vault. About who Drazen’s got holding his leash.”
He gasps, blood slicking his teeth. “Fuck you.”
“Wrong answer.”
I pull the blade free, wipe it against his shirt, then slam my fist into his ribs. Bone cracks under my knuckles. Pain blooms through my hand, but I don’t stop. Another hit, harder. His head snaps back against the beam. His eyes roll before dragging back to me, glassy but awake.
Words spill out like instinct. “Two teeth down. One left. Want to place a bet on which one survives the night?”
The sound of the door makes me glance up. Lydia’s there.
She shouldn’t be. Elias stands there, observing, eyes on her, but he doesn’t stop her. Doesn’t even try. He lets her step down into the circle of shadows, into the stink of blood and fear.
Her eyes catch mine first. They don’t flinch. Then they drop to the knife in my hand, to the blood dripping slow off the point.
The prisoner tries for bravado, spits red on the floor. “See? Even she knows what you are.”
I slam the blade into the beam beside his head, the vibration rattling chains above him. His smirk dies fast.
Lydia’s voice cuts through, low but lethal. “You’re a monster.”
For a second, the word lands heavier than the blood on my hands. My grip tightens on the knife, my knuckles white, but my eyes don’t leave hers.
“Yeah,” I rasp. My chest heaves once, twice. “And that means you’re safe with me.”
The prisoner whimpers. It’s faint, but it’s there. The fear that even Drazen’s name can’t shield him now.
I rip the knife free, press the tip into the soft hollow of his other thigh. He breaks. Words tumble out between sobs, jagged and fast.
Petrov Station. Drazen’s leverage. Payoffs to judges, cops, names stacked in files like dominoes. And Jori feeding Drazen the angles that nearly bled us out at Bellamy.