Chapter 30 – Silas - Teeth Bared #2
Every confession hits like gasoline poured on the fire inside me. Proof of the betrayal, proof of the rot that keeps crawling closer.
When I finally step back, the prisoner is slumped, sweat and blood soaking his shirt, his voice cracked raw from screaming.
The knife hangs loose in my hand, my pulse still pounding.
Lydia doesn’t look at him. She looks at me.
And it’s not fear in her eyes. It’s an edge I can’t name without carving myself open.
We leave him chained, slumped in his own mess. Elias doesn’t say a word when I shoulder past him on the stairs, the knife still hanging loose at my side. His silence weighs heavier than any warning.
Upstairs, the safehouse feels wrong. The floorboards groan under my boots, dust motes drift through the weak light, and everything smells of sweat and old wood. Too normal, too intact, compared to what I just left in the basement.
Lydia follows.
I stop halfway to the kitchen, toss the knife into the sink. The clatter rings out deafeningly. My hands brace against the counter, blood drying in black flakes across my knuckles. I step closer to the sink and wash off the blood.
Her voice cuts in behind me. “That wasn’t interrogation.”
I don’t turn. “No. It wasn’t.”
“You enjoyed it.”
I lift my head, meet her reflection in the cracked glass above the sink. Her arms are crossed, her jaw tight, her body coiled like she hasn’t decided if she wants to strike me or walk away.
“Enjoyed?” My laugh is dry, humorless. “That isn’t the right word. But I don’t regret it.”
She takes a step closer. “That’s the problem.”
I spin then, pushing off the counter, closing the space between us in two strides. My chest brushes hers, her chin tilted, defiant, refusing to back down. “Drazen tortures to break. I hurt him to protect you. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” Her eyes spark, daring me to answer. “Because from where I stood, it looked the same.”
My hand snaps out, catching her wrist, pulling it up between us. Her pulse hammers under my thumb. “You think Drazen would stop at a cut? He’d strip you to the bone and call it art. I put the fear of God in him so he’d talk before that ever happens to you.”
Her chest rises fast against mine. She doesn’t pull her wrist free. Doesn’t try. Her voice drops, raw. “You don’t scare me any less.”
The words bite deeper than she knows. I close the last inch, my forehead nearly touching hers, my voice a growl. “Good. Then you’re paying attention.”
Her hand twists, not to pull away, but to fist in my shirt. She yanks me down, her mouth crashing into mine, hard enough to split the skin of my lip. Fury burns between us, a kiss that tastes like copper and defiance.
I slam her back against the wall, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand. Her nails scrape my skin, her teeth catch my lip, and still I can’t let go. The hunger carves through me, the rage laid open.
She gasps against my mouth, eyes blazing. “I don’t know if I hate you or need you.”
My grip tightens, my voice scraping against her throat. “You’ll figure it out. But either way, you’re mine.”
The kiss deepens, rough, messy, more fight than tenderness. My body cages hers against the plaster, every muscle straining with the need to take more, to drag her under. For one breathless moment, I almost do.
But she shoves hard against my chest, breaking the kiss, her wrists slipping free.
We stand locked in each other’s stare, ragged, shaking, like the air itself might shatter if either of us moves.
Her lips are swollen, mine split, her pulse hammering in her throat. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes cutting me open.
Then she turns, leaves me pressed against the wall with my rage still clawing inside me.
The distance between us throbs more viciously than any wound I’ve ever nursed.
The warmth of the wall behind me is solid as her scent surrounds me, locking my muscles in place, until I hear her footsteps fade down the hall, not until the sound of the bedroom door closing slices the tension in two.
I drag a hand through my hair, tasting blood where her teeth split my lip. My chest is heaving, not from the fight, not from the kiss, but from the way she left — like she got the last word without saying a damn thing.
The atmosphere inside is suddenly suffocating. I shove the back door open and step out onto the narrow balcony. The metal railing rattles under my grip, rusted thin, and the city yawns wide beyond the rooftops. Orange streetlights flicker on broken poles, casting shadows that stretch too long.
“You look like shit.”
Elias’s voice cuts in as he steps outside. He doesn’t bring the smell of smoke; he brings antiseptic, coffee, and the iron weight of someone who’s seen me unravel and isn’t impressed.
I don’t turn. “You’re one to talk.”
He leans against the railing, mug in hand. His gaze slides sideways, amused in that quiet way that says he’s already decided what I am. “You nearly took her head off in there.”
“She kissed me first.” I say.
He chuckles. “Yeah. With enough venom to kill a horse.” He sips his coffee, grimaces at the taste, then mutters, “You sure know how to pick your moments.”
I glance at him. “Better than your men. Ren shakes so badly with a gun in his hand, we should tape it to him like a crayon.”
That earns a short laugh, brief but real. He shakes his head, muttering, “Christ.”
The humor doesn’t last. It never does with him. His eyes turn back to the city, shoulders tight. “You’re not going to last like this, Ward. Rage is a leash same as obsession. Drazen tugs either one, you dance.”
Before I can answer, the burner buzzes in my pocket. The vibration jolts against my thigh.
Elias doesn’t even look. “That's your leash now?”
I fish the phone out, press it to my ear without stepping away. Naomi’s voice is there instantly, clipped and clean. “Ward. Where’s your report?”
Her tone is ice over wire.
I watch Elias watching me, his smirk curving like a dare, his silence louder than any words.
“Nothing to report,” I say flatly.
Her inhale crackles down the line. “Bellamy lit up like a warzone. One of Drazen’s men is off the grid. You were there. Are you fucking kidding me?”
I force the words out. “I’m running parallel intel.”
“You’re lying,” she says, too calm. “And if I dig hard enough, I’ll find out why.”
Beside me, Elias mutters low enough for only me to hear: “She sounds like a fun date.”
I ignore him. “Stay out of Bellamy,” I tell Naomi. “Leaks are everywhere. You push now, you hand Drazen every name you’ve got on a silver plate.”
A pause. Then: “Stay put. Don’t move until I say. You hear me?”
I hang up before she can finish.
The night is too still again. Elias tips his mug in my direction, mouth curving. “So. You’re lying to them, you’re lying to her, and you’re lying to yourself.” He sips again. “It should be fun when it all blows up.”
My voice comes out rough. “Let it.”
He studies me a long second, then grins thinly. “Monster suits you, Ward. You wear it well.”
He pushes off the railing and goes back inside, leaving me with the echo of Lydia’s kiss still burning on my mouth and Naomi’s leash still tugging faintly in the dark.
Every one of my muscles is tight. I’ll burn every leash. Every order. Every man who thinks she’s theirs to cage.
Even if she keeps calling me a monster.
Because, whether Lydia can stomach it or not, monsters keep what’s theirs.
I step back in after Elias’s laughter fades, and the safehouse feels too crowded.
Too many bodies, too many ghosts, all moving around under the same roof.
I can hear Jax stomping across the floorboards, Ren muttering to himself as he checks the locks for the fifth time.
Mara’s voice hums low from the kitchen, steadying them both the way only she can.
But none of it holds me.
My feet take me down the hall, past peeling paint and doors that don’t fit their frames. Past the faint stink of antiseptic. I stop at the one door I shouldn’t be near.
Hers. The bedroom assigned to her that we both share.
The light inside is dim, leaking out in a thin strip at the floor. I lean against the door frame, arms folded, letting the wood bite into my shoulders. I should move. I should sleep. I should do a hundred things.
Instead, I stand there.
The door shifts. Not fully opening, just moving with my weight as I watch her change sides on the bed. I can picture it too clearly: the sheet tangled at her hips, her bruises stark against pale skin in the spill of light from the streetlamp outside.
Her face turned away from the door, jaw set even in exhaustion, like she’s still fighting me in her dreams.
She knows I’m here. I feel it in the pause. The moment stalls, charged and brittle, like a wire vibrating on the edge of breaking.
I don’t knock. I don’t enter. I just stay, watching that strip of light, listening to the subtle shift of fabric as she moves again.
It’s not peaceful. It’s not safety. It’s obsession stretched raw.
And when I finally push off the door frame, leaving her to her fragile sleep, the vow that’s been burning since Bellamy sears hotter in my chest.
I’ll burn Drazen to ash. I’ll cut Naomi’s leash for good. I’ll put a bullet in anyone who even thinks of reaching for her.
Even if that makes me look like a monster to her.
Because the truth is simple, brutal even, and I don’t bother lying to myself anymore: I may be a monster, but this monster worships at her altar.