11. Anastasia
Isit opposite Silas Balenheizer for the second time, thinking it doesn’t matter how prepared I come, he’ll always make me feel like he can see under my skin. When he looks at me, his dark eyes are all intrigue and business. Frequently, though, his attention is on Kenna, who doesn’t hide her reluctance to be here as she tries to stay out of our conversation, leaning on the back of the sofa behind me.
“I find your back as enthralling as your front, if your intention is not to distract me,” Silas says to her. His ankle is crossed over his knee and his elbow is propped on the arm of the chair.
I swivel my head enough to peer up at her side profile. She’s watching the venue below us. She doesn’t give him a flicker of a reaction, but I’ve come to notice he enjoys that about her.
His eyes are back on me as he drawls, “So when do I hear the proposal?”
My hands start to clam up, and I reach for my martini. “I’m not interested in a man with wandering eyes,” I play along.
“As you shouldn’t be. You’re a stunning, intelligent woman, Anastasia. You deserve no less than a man who will boast his riches not in material things, but in having you by his side.”
I believe his words aren’t just pretty and hollow. Unexpectedly, I think I might be finding a trickle of respect for him. Though I can’t forget I have a lot to learn about him. I don’t doubt his cruelty could switch as fast as the likes of Jacob Forthson. Both he and Alistair fear and respect Silas’s family name, and I remember the evil his half-brother committed and had planned for me too.
“Then won’t you entertain the idea of us?” I ask.
Silas lights a cigarette, and I think it’s disappointment in the furrowing of his brow. “Before I decide, I want to know, what does Alistair Lanshall have over America’s most eligible bachelorette to make her such a bargaining chip to my father?”
“Nothing. I came to him.”
His head tilts as he takes a drag of his cigarette and contemplates each of my words as if he’s dissecting the layers of each one. “Some kind of guilty conscience for what happened to Rhett Kaiser?”
“Something like that.”
He smiles like he’s caught me in a lie, and my skin flushes. His company is exhausting with the intensity of it. Rhett is masterful at reading people, but so is Silas. The only difference is, Silas finds great pleasure in playing with his findings in the moment and watching his prey squirm.
His gaze flicks to Kenna again, and it’s as if he switches to a different layer of the same personality each time. “Sweetheart, as glorious as those heels make your legs look, and as much as I look forward to the day I’ll fuck you with just them on, you must want to rest those feet. Sit,” he says.
It’s the most seriousness I’ve heard in his commands to her. Usually, he speaks them as flirtations he knows she’ll brush over her cold shoulder. This is his concern, and I have to admit, her resilience in those platform heels is impressive.
It earns sharp daggers from her. If it wasn’t for the implication she’ll sleep with him, I think she would have ignored him like she’s been doing all night. Then she does something I don’t expect. She smiles sweetly, and I’m chilled by it.
“You’re right. I am in need of a seat.”
I’m tense as I watch her walk across the space toward a second set of sofas. The man reclining on one has been watching us, and I think most, if not all, of the men here are the same as last time. I’m taken aback, stiffness turning to absolute stone, when she doesn’t hesitate to sink one knee into the mahogany Cheshire couch and sling her other leg over his lap.
I think the air could be cut with a knife, and I can’t even bring myself to see Silas’s reaction. I’m too dumbstruck by her boldness as she takes his face and kisses him. Her tight dress rises to the top of her hips.
It only lasts a beat—until his hands brace on her thighs. That’s the moment Silas stands and I’m drawn back to watch him. His expression is absolutely frightening. Livid. I’ve been waiting to see why people cower at the name “Balenheizer,” and Kenna has provoked front-row fucking seats.
His dark eyes don’t leave Kenna and the man. I can practically see, feel,the meter of unhinged calm climbing in Silas with each second. He wordlessly holds out his hand, which someone places a gun into. Another hands him a magazine, and he loads, pulls back the slide, and clicks off the safety, keeping his simmering sights on the duo. I only know they’ve pulled apart from the man’s protests, which turn more desperate and apologetic the closer he’s dragged this way.
I don’t know what to do. I sit there too stunned to intervene, and it’s not my place to anyway.
Silas takes another inhale of his cigarette before setting it down and accepting a silencer, which he screws on next. He does everything with his eyes glued to this man as his number-one enemy.
Holy shit, is he going to execute him for what Kenna did?
As he’s dragged over to the pool table and held down against it, I snap an incredulous look to Kenna. She merely stands with her arms crossed at the end of my couch, looking pissed off as hell.
“Everyone here remembers what I said the other night,” Silas practically sings.
“I-I didn’t, man. I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the man protests.
Honestly, neither do I.
“You haven’t touched me,” Kenna argues. “And you never will. This is stupid.”
His smile to her isn’t friendly. “I said when I touch you, I’ll send any wandering hands to your doorstep from then on. Until then, this will suffice as a warning.”
The man’s hand is forced to splay out over the pool table by the guy holding him down, face contorted against the deep green velvet. Silas aims the gun, but he drinks in Kenna’s heated stare as he pulls the trigger.
The man is prevented from crying out at the shot through his palm by a towel stuffed into his mouth before he’s dragged away again, down the stairs.
I think I’m watching a movie until my spectator adrenaline starts to wear down. I glance over the balcony, but no one is looking up. Perhaps they didn’t hear over the music that never stops, and if someone happened to catch a glimpse, I guess it’s confirmation this is normal occurrence here.
“Well, shit,” Silas says, examining the tear in the velvet and the fresh blood still soaking into it. “Now this needs replacing.”
Silas hands off his gun, runs a lazy hand through his hair, and picks up his cigarette. He takes a drag and then offers it to Kenna nonchalantly.
“You make it so easy to waste your men and money,” she says, dropping her arms and turning away.
“Keep testing me, little viper. It turns me on.”
She casts one last glare at him as she descends the stairs.
Silas watches her with hunger in his eyes, tracking her with a devilish smile before she dips out of view. Then he remembers I exist. He extends the cigarette to me instead, but I reach for my drink.
“Another martini would be better,” I say, still in a daze over that extreme reaction.
His eyes speak the order to someone through his cloud of smoke as he wanders over to the balcony. I join him, finding Kenna sitting alone at the bar.
“Magnificent, isn’t she?”
“Indeed.”
There’s a lot to admire at a glance about Kenna. Her beauty, maybe even the challenge of her icy exterior.
I say, “You don’t really know her.”
“Not nearly as much as I’d like to, but I know enough. I believe everyone has a certain magnetism about them. The most expensive wine doesn’t always suit the taste of the one wealthy enough to sample it.”
“I hope you’re not calling her cheap wine.”
He chuckles smoothly. “She’s absolutely priceless.”
“How can you tell without getting to know her?”
Silas looks at me. “How did you tell?”
“It was a while before I realized ...” I stop myself with the lump forming in my throat, thinking of the day I knew I’d fallen for Rhett completely.
Then I get what he means. That Christmas Day was when I submitted to the full force of it, but looking back, I’d been falling for Rhett since we met.
“Obsession is a quick root in us all. Some just enjoy embracing the madness of it.”
“I hate to state the obvious, but I don’t think she feels the same.”
His smile borders on fond as he finds her again. “She’s crafted tough armor around herself. All she needs is to realize I’m not going to replace it, but reinforce it.”
I don’t know if I should be alarmed for Kenna, or perhapsI’m insane for thinking her safe in his terrifying sights. No. No way. This is Silas fucking Balenheizer, and I’m falling into some kind of twisted hypnotism to be so at ease around him. I just watched him blast a bullet through a man’s hand for touching a woman he’s interested in. I amthe mad one for not sprinting the fuck out of here.
“Jacob Forthson and Alistair Lanshall speak proudly of women that way too,” I say, testing lethal waters. “Then they buy and sell them like jewelry.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you are,” he says, a deceptively playful warning.
“That this place could be trafficking just like Jacob’s charityauctions? I would never.”
He cuts me with a look, and I’m more than mildly relieved to see his smile rather than the flash of darkness he wears before he retrieves a gun. “Those kinds of men are the most vile of the underworld. I don’t associate. I quite like our dance, Anastasia, but I’m in the mood to be kind.You can stop wasting your breath trying to convince me to side with Lanshall or Forthson. However, I do hope you’ll still visit me with your friend.”
I don’t reiterate that Kenna is not a friend. And should this mission fail, I doubt he’ll ever see her again.
My heart is racing. I shouldn’t trust what he says, shouldn’t believe he could be above trafficking all together, but I’m running out of options.
“Your father is notorious. Your mere name has both of them willing to draw as much blood as it takes to ally with you. How am I to believe you’re not just as heinous as them?”
“Because I am. You just watched me shoot a hole through a man’s hand for touching what is mine, and I’ll warn you, that was highly merciful of me. But I don’t want to frighten my little viper too much too soon.”
“I don’t think you could frighten her,” I mutter.
“Oh?”
“She’s Alistair’s most trusted spy and assassin. I haven’t seen all she’s capable of, but the glimpse I’ve had is enough to see why.”
Silas’s eyes flex as he stares at her, shifting his weight. “Fascinating.” Then he eyes me with a note of suspicion. “Why are you telling me this? I don’t think your master would appreciate the intel.”
“He doesn’t own me.”
“You’re turning out to be more intriguing than I anticipated, Miss Kinsley. It’s not often I’m surprised.”
I have no choice but to trust my instinct, but I try to tread carefully since this could all blow up in my face at any moment.
“I knew your brother,” I say.
“I have two.”
“Your half-brother.”
From Silas’s dark shift as he straightens from the rail, I can tell he knows about Matthew.
“Well then, I think we’d best have a seat for this.”
I take my martini slowly this time as I’ve stepped onto a minefield with my exposure, and I can’t be certain what will end the risky game I’m playing. If I lose Silas, it’s all over.
“You’d better not be fooling me, Anastasia. I will warn you, I don’t react kindly to lies or betrayal, no matter how pretty they are.”
“I knew him as Matthew Forbes,” I say.
Silas finishes his cigarette, and it’s the first I’ve seen him light another straight away. “That son of a bitch.” I’ve noticed he runs a hand through his hair when he’s mildly or very stressed. The chain-smoking suggests the latter.
“Did you know him?”
Silas looks at me as if it’s a joke, but when he sees I’m serious, he huffs out a laugh with the shake of his head.
“I don’t know what he told you under his new name, but he’s Matt Balenheizer. He lived with us part-time, spending the rest with his mother. He’s only a year older than me. You could say we were close.”
So Silas is thirty years old. I’m eager to dive deeper into the trove of the infamous Silas Balenheizer as it begins to crack open.
“He said his father tried to kill him,” I say.
“You keep talking of him in the past-tense.”
“He’s dead.”
Silas isn’t surprised, but he’s curious. “When?”
“Just last winter, he ... he tried to buy me. He’d previously held my friend in captivity for five years, and I never knew. All because she looked like me.” I swallow over the marble of guilt that forms in my throat.
Silas leans forward, his expression turning frightening and serious.
I go on. “I watched him die. Jacob orchestrated the sale of me and knew he would never be able to pay what he owed. He shot him in the head. Then he planted the idea of an alliance in my mind if I wanted to take down Alistair Lanshall.”
It spills out of me before I can stop it. I don’t know why. It’s reckless, but Silas has this bewitchment about him that pulls it from me before I know what I’ve done. My pulse is racing. He could take all of this to Alistair tonight, or perhaps he knows exactly what he’s doing and is waiting to gather all his evidence before he feeds me to the hounds.
Fuck. What have I done?
“I should go,” I say.
I find it easy to keep my cards to my chest and be patient, smart, with Alistair and Jacob. But with Silas, I’ve exposed too much too fast. Opened a door of vulnerability for him to exploit.
“Don’t leave,” Silas says as I stand. It’s the softest tone I’ve heard from him. He pushes up from the sofa, coming closer. “Trust is a series of coin flips. Let me show you my side of this one.”