32. Rhett
We’re sitting at the complete mercy of the most notorious family in the underworld. I knew the gun I had would be taken if we made it inside, and my cock is still semi-hard from how sexy Ana’s stunt was with it. It terrifies me to see her confidence in all this, but I’m also overwhelmed with awe for her.
I don’t have my earpiece in as we were scanned and checked before we could follow Silas in, and I expected that too. I’m placing a whole lot of faith in Ana alone that we’ll emerge from here with a powerful alliance, not a bigger target on our backs.
It’s just me, her, and Silas Balenheizer.
“You know, when you hear of the president’s daughter falling for an infamous criminal, so much so that she puts her own life on the line and steps out of her topside life to save him, the obvious question is, what the fuck does this guy have to offer her?” Silas reaches for the dry martini, sliding it across the table with eyes on Ana. “But I get it. I didn’t until right now. Apart, no one would guess you two were a match. But together, it’s undeniable you’re far more than that.”
Everything Silas does and says has a motive. I don’t take the appraisal as a mere compliment, nor do I give a fuck about his thoughts or feelings regarding me and Ana.
“Your driving motivation for this is Kenna Radley. Why?” I ask.
It’s dangerous to assert myself like this with Silas, but from my assessment of him so far, the only way he communicates is with fire on fire.
“Motivation? No. Make no mistake, Kaiser. I don’t entertain such radical ideas as overthrowing two very powerful cartel lines on a whim because of a beautiful woman seemingly tied to one of them. I’ll admit, I find her fascinating, alluring. I would have been thrilled for her to have joined us, and you would have found me in better spirits. But this is between us. A highly risky business deal if we find everything aligns between us.”
“She’s not tied to him out of want. She’ll make it seem like she is because it would expose her chains to admit she had no other choice,” I say. “As part of the deal, we get her out. Kicking and screaming, if need be.”
Silas reaches for one of the two glasses of scotch, pushing it across to me. “We’re off to a mutual start, it seems,” he says, picking up the other and taking a drink.
I reach for Ana’s martini, passing it to her. I don’t pick up the other scotch.
Silas notices, canting his head a fraction as if he’s reassessing his first instinct about me. His presence holds true to what I’ve heard about the Balenheizers from whispers. He’s a masterful observer of people and a manipulator. He can make a person doubt everything they are as if he can see the truths buried behind their eyes.
“I got the drink right—you just won’t take it,” he decides, more to himself.
“I don’t drink.”
“You’re not a recovering alcoholic, so what happened while you were under the influence that you think you could have prevented if you weren’t?”
Ana’s hand caresses my arm as if she can sense my stiffness.
“We’re not here to talk about me.”
“On the contrary, I like to know exactly who I’m getting into business with before we go any further.”
“It goes both ways,” Ana says. “There’s a reason you took such immediate interest in Kenna and not me. It could be that she reminds you of someone, or perhaps you have some savior complex because you think you failed someone in your past.”
My hand flexes on her thigh in warning, and my senses spike at the dark shift in Silas’s eyes.
“You’re right. And also very dangerously wrong.”
“My fiancée was killed the night I proposed four years ago,” I confess. “We had been drinking. I’ll never be relieved of the torment of wondering if I could have stood a chance at fighting them off if I were sober.”
Silas latches onto my story to my relief. “Then you went on to found Xoid?”
“Yes. I wanted to hunt down Alistair Lanshall and tear his empire apart.”
“I have to say part of what you do causes something of an issue for me. I actually admire your efforts to stop trafficking. But I hear that’s not all you’ve been destroying.”
“I’ll stop anything that’s a harm to innocents.”
“Heroic of you. But you see where this alliance could come to an impasse.”
“You don’t condone trafficking, so we’re aligned there,” Ana says. “Anything else ... well, even you said a little threat keeps you sharp.”
Silas reacts with intrigue to the challenge she lays down. “If your little vigilante group managed to intercept just one of the types of deals I make, I’d lose millions.”
Ana shrugs. “You’ll make more.”
“You want me to agree to help a group knowing what it could potentially cost me with their meddling later?”
“You’ll gain more in assets taking over Lanshall and Forthson than we’d ever prevent you from making through drugs or organ trade or whatever else you deal in,” I say. “Besides, mostly, our efforts go to trafficking, and that certainly doesn’t go away with Lanshall and Forthson. There are many smaller networks that need to be eradicated, and call us little all you want, but Xoid expands through far more States than just D.C.”
“I’m aware,” Silas says, but I think I’ve surprised him somewhat.
He finishes off his drink and crosses his ankle over his knee as he leans back. His shift in demeanor makes me think we’ve made it past his assessment round. I don’t relax.
“So, you wouldn’t disappoint me by coming here without a plan,” Silas says.
Ana takes a deep breath. “I think Forthson could still believe we’re on his side. He knew I wanted to get Rhett out, and that once he was out, Alistair would know I’d betrayed him. His hope was that I’d convince you to ally with us without a marriage, but Jacob would be in on it with us to take down Alistair and get a share of his assets.”
Silas chuckles. It’s a mocking, dark sound. “Forthson might be the biggest idiot of them all. What does he have that gives him a seat at this table?”
“He’s merely a nepotism kid who’s never lost in his life,” I say bitterly.
I want to rip Jacob Forthson’s head from his fucking neck. He sold my little bird. He sold Allie, and if I find out I’m wrong and Jacob’s had her all this time, I’ll struggle to choose where to begin with his suffering.
Silas hums, pulling out a cigarette as he fixes his thoughtful gaze on the ceiling. He offers one to me. “If you’re not going to accept a drink to take your visibly sharp edge off, this might help,” he says.
I glance at Ana. because if she’s even remotely put off by it, I won’t smoke in her presence. She smiles, and it’s all I need to dull my edges really, but this conversation with Silas is far from over. Ana leans over, accepting the cigarette. She puts it between her lips to light it with a Zippo, then she takes it out, reaching out for my mouth with it between her two fingers.
I want to bend her over the pool table to our right so badly with how she’s seducing me with those hazel eyes.
“I’m not a stranger to team sports,” Silas says casually. “This feels like an invitation.”
It might be how Ana leans in, brushing her chest to mine, or how her hand has inched so high on my thigh that stretching her fingers would brush my cock. She shifts away with a devious, coy smile. But my eyes turn firm no matter who the fuck he is. Ana is mine. Only mine.
Before we came, she assured me that despite what Alistair wanted to do—to sell her as a fucking bride—Silas was never interested in her. His sights were fixed on Kenna from the moment he saw her.
I take a deep drag of the cigarette.
Ana says, “If we can set Forthson on Lanshall believing he’ll have your alliance at the end of it, we’ll get to watch them tear each other apart.”
“I’m not convinced Forthson will accept that role so easily. But we can try this your way first, princess.”
Ana’s face firms, and I turn defensive for her without knowing why.
“Why did you let me leave your club that night?” she asks. It’s in her slight tone of hurtthat I realize she feels betrayed. Though she expected it and knew how Silas could be, she made the mistake of believing he could come to be considered a friend.
“Everyone has to make sacrifices,” Silas says. He looks at her with what I think is the best of an apology she’ll never see. “Had I let you in, I never would have let you leave, because Lanshall was coming for you anyway. He sent you here that final night in an attempt to get you to sway me one last time before he planned to take you away to punish Kaiser for something he failed to do.”
I’m slammed by a brick with that insight. It was my fault. The isolation. The assault. Every trauma and torment Ana has been though was because of me, and I had the fucking audacity to think I could chain her to a life of this.
Ana tries to grab my arm as I stand, stubbing out the cigarette and pacing away.
Silas goes on. “Had I kept you in this club, even under the impression I was claiming you like he wanted, there was talk of Kaiser’s death, that no punishment without you would work, and after three months they weren’t any closer to getting him to do what they wanted. You had his location, and I managed to intercept that. I figured if I got Kaiser out, Lanshall isn’t a brash idiot – he’d lose everything in killing the president’s daughter one way or another, so you were safe.”
“Safe,” I huff resentfully. The word is a fucking mockery.
Ana was safe in her life before me. Perhaps Gregory Forbes would have been found out another way, and she would have lived an ordinary and carefree life.
“We should go,” Ana says.
“Meet with Forthson and report back to me,” Silas says. “This is all a ticking grenade we’re passing around now, and I won’t be the last man holding it.”
No, he won’t be. I will. Even if I have to be the one to carry it right to the end and go down in the explosion. If it gets rid of Alistair, I’ll do it.