20. Silas
Silas
It’s been just over an hour since I got the text from Jack. I’m not worried, because I know how he likes to chat when he shops.
Half the town stops him to chat, and it gets a little embarrassing. My dove is gorgeous and they know it.
He humors them, smiles, flirts a little. Makes their day, but he comes home to me, and that is why I’m not worried.
I concentrate on my computer screen as code flies over it. My fingers on the keys make the only sound in the room.
My office sits next to Deck’s. Mine is smaller, because he needs big things. I had joked one day that he must feel like he has to have bigger things because he has to compensate for… well, you get the drift.
I glance down at my watch. It’s been an hour since I last checked. I tap my screen. Zero notifications. A cold, quiet knot tightens behind my ribs.
Picking up my phone, I call Jack, but there is no answer. So I text him.
Jack:
Flirting again, dove?
I wait a minute, but no dots appear. All I get is silence. So, I try again.
Jack, you okay? You're late. Thought you were bringing lunch.
Again no response.
I’m frowning at my phone when CJ and Deck walk in, but they stop the minute they see my face.
“Everything okay?” CJ asks.
I shake my head. “Jack said he was bringing me lunch. He was supposed to be here over two hours ago, and he isn’t answering his phone or texts.”
I look up at them, concern on my face.
“I’ll try.” Deck pulls out his phone, but all I hear over the speaker is it ringing then hear it click to voicemail.
“Strange.” Deck mutters. “What did he say in his text”
“He told me he was going to the store, then grabbing lunch then he was going to come here and we were going to eat together.”
CJ fingers held his brow tightly. “Tell me what you said. Please tell me you didn’t brush him off.”
“I said, Okay. See you soon”
“Oh dude.” Deck starts laughing. “You fucked up.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
CJ starts laughing. “You gave him four words. Four words, Silas. That isn’t smart. Just wrong.”
“What the actual fuck are you two talking about?”
“Silas. Let me let you in on a little secret. Do not… and I mean do not, just give your partner one word or even four word answer. They want sentences, not fucking grunts.” Deck says, leaning on my desk. His voice full of humor and mockery.
“But that’s how I normally reply.”
“And he still likes you?” CJ says. “Holy shit. He’s more forgiving than Eli is.”
“And Finn.” Deck smiles, “I sent Finn a simple ‘Okay’ once. He had said he was waiting at home for me, and when I got home later that night he was gone. Left a note saying he was staying with Jack. Still don’t know what I did wrong.”
I smile quietly, because I knew. Finn had spent all day setting up a romantic night for the two of them, even brought some fancy male lingerie and Decks’ response had set him right off.
So, Finn left and spent the night complaining to Jack. I had been there when he had arrived. I may have mentioned that we could pull a prank on his lumberjack. Apparently that wasn’t the best thing to say at the time, and I barely escaped with my life.
I wave them off like the idiots they are. “Let’s get back to Jack missing. I’m worried; especially with his dad and uncle still in town.”
We had been keeping tabs of the two men, and we knew they were staying at a hotel in downtown Campbell River. They hadn’t made contact with Jack since the house, but I knew it was just a matter of time.
“Ring him again. Maybe he was in the shower or outside or something.” CJ suggests.
I pull up his contact and ring him again, but it goes to voicemail.
I stand, throwing my laptop in my bag and grabbing my jacket. “I’m going to his apartment. I need to talk to him.”
* * *
CJ and Deck pull in behind me, and we head straight up to Jack’s apartment. He had given me a key months ago, so I let myself in without knocking.
“Jack!” My voice cracks through the silence, loud and desperate.
Nothing.
I move quickly through the apartment, heading straight for his room; and what I see stops me cold. Jack never leaves anything out of place. Ever. But his room is a disaster. Drawers yanked open, clothes thrown across the bed, shoes abandoned in the middle of the floor.
My stomach drops.
I push into the bathroom. Same chaos. Products scattered across the basin, clothes on the tiles. It looks like someone tore through the space in a panic.
My heart lodges in my throat, and my breathing becomes near impossible. Panic slams into me so hard my knees almost buckle.
My fingers dig into my hair as I try to make sense of it. He isn’t answering his calls. He isn’t answering his texts. His room looks like he ran. Or was taken.
Where are you, my dove?
“Silas!” CJ’s voice snaps through the apartment. “Get in here. Now.”
I move on instinct, my body responding to the urgency in his tone. When I step into the bedroom, CJ is standing there holding a notepad. His eyes meet mine, full of sadness.
He shakes his head.
His words hit like a bullet.
“I’m so sorry, Silas.” He holds a note pad out to me.
My boots feel like they’re forged from lead as I force my legs to move. I take the paper from CJ’s hand. My fingers trembling so hard the edges rattle.
My eyes burn. My chest caves in. Every part of me fractures as I read Jack’s handwriting.
Silas,
Don’t come after me. If you try, they’ll take Hale, and I couldn’t survive in a world where you both pay for my past. I have to go back so they can’t touch him.
I tried so hard to fight it, but you gave me the sky, Silas. You loved every broken, ugly piece of me until I couldn’t imagine existing anywhere else.
You are my whole world. You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me, and carrying your love is the only reason I can walk back into that nightmare.
This is my mother’s ring. She told me to give it to the man I love. I want you to have it, Sol, because I love you. God, I love you so much it terrifies me.
Please don’t look for me. Keep Hale safe.
Forgive me, Silas.
I’m yours, always.
Your dove.
CJ steps into my blurred vision and gently places something in my hand. “He left this.”
Jack’s ring, but it’s a woman’s ring. Small and delicate.
My fingers curl around it instinctively, and the sound that tears out of me is raw, broken, and ripped straight from the deepest part of my chest. I sink to the floor, clutching the ring like it’s the last piece of him I’ll ever have.
“Dove.”
The word shatters in my throat.
* * *
My fingers close over the heavy metal, my thumb automatically catching the familiar edges of the ring. It shouldn’t feel different, but it does. When I slide it onto my pinkie finger, the gold and steel absorb the fever-pitch heat of my pulse, burning against my skin like a brand.
Hot. Too hot.
It bites into the base of my finger, a searing reminder that Jack’s skin was just there. My fingers can’t stop touching it. They brush over the metal frantically, turning it, rubbing the smooth surface, searching for a phantom warmth he left behind, even as my mind screams that Jack is gone.
Gone back to the wolves. Gone back to the men who thought they owned him.
“Silas…” CJ’s voice sounds miles away, muffled through the rushing blood in my ears. Deck stands in the doorway, his usual smart-ass bravado stripped away, looking at me like he’s staring at a ghost.
I don’t answer. I can’t. If I open my mouth, the jagged pieces of my shattered ribs will spill out onto the floor.
So I move.
Instinct takes over, replacing the paralysis of grief with the cold, calculated fury of a predator whose mate has been stolen.
I stride out of the bedroom, my boots echoing through the apartment, and head straight for the small leather messenger bag I always carry. I pull out my weapon of choice, my laptop, the tool I’ve used to build empires, breach firewalls, and tear down digital walls.
I slam it onto the kitchen island and flip the lid open. The screen flashes to life, casting a harsh glow across my face. My fingers hit the keyboard with violent precision. Code cascades down the display in a waterfall of emerald red, green and white.
I am yours, always.
Jack’s words echo in my skull, looping, mocking, tearing at me.
Don’t look for me.
“Watch me,” I mutter, my voice cracking, thick with a sob I refuse to let fall. “Try and stop me, Jack.”
I hit every system I’ve wired into this town; the cameras, the grid, the cell towers. I built all of it for one reason: Jack. I never thought I’d have to use it.
I’m tearing through every system I have, searching for anything; a phone ping, a camera angle, a single frame of his face in a car window.
I am hunting for my boy.
Every time my hand leaves the keyboard, my pinkie brushes the ring. It’s hot against my skin; sharp enough to sting, sharp enough to cut through the numbness trying to swallow me whole. It’s the only thing keeping me grounded.
Jack thought he could sacrifice himself to keep us safe. He thought I’d just sit here and let him walk into hell alone.
He doesn’t understand that without him, I am nothing. Without him, nothing makes sense. Without him, there’s just a dark, empty space where my heart used to beat.
“Deck,” I say, my eyes never leaving the screen, my fingers a blur. “Get Hale. Tell him.”
Deck flinches at the name. Hale; the fragile link holding our patchwork family together. The one person Jack was trying desperately to protect.
“Silas… if we pull the string on this, it’s war,” CJ warns quietly, stepping closer.
I stop typing for a fraction of a second, staring down at my hand.
The ring burns against my skin, a blistering circle of fire.
I remember the way Jack laughed this morning.
The way his soft, chocolate-coloured eyes looked at me before I left.
The way he kissed me awake, warm and gentle, trusting me with everything he had.
My jaw clenches so hard a muscle ticks in my cheek. I turn back to the screen, fingers striking the keys with deadly efficiency as a traffic camera pings a match.
“Then let it burn,” I whisper into the room. “Tell everyone; we’re going to war.”