Chapter Eighteen – Thea
A part of me still can’t believe this is happening. I’m sitting in a booth by myself, in a club full of dimly-lit lights, a club much like the one I first met Silus in. Not a club where you go to dance the night away, but one where men typically come to drink and talk about business.
A glass of dark pop rests in front of me on the table, a black straw sticking out of it. I lean my head down and take a sip, and then I glance over my shoulder at Silus, who stands near the bar, a good thirty feet away.
The man watches me—which isn’t surprising, given I’m the only other person in the place besides the few goons he has stationed near the club’s entrance. I don’t know if he owns this place or if it’s one of the many businesses in his portfolio or whatever, and I don’t really care. The only thing I care about will hopefully join me soon.
It’s been five days since he said he’d arrange something for me and Max. Five whole days since Silus made a fool of me by getting me off with his stupid gun. I still can’t believe that happened. And what’s worse, I can’t believe how good it all felt.
God, it’s like when it comes to that man, all logic and reason gets thrown out of the window and I can’t think straight. It’s stupid. It doesn’t make sense. It’s asking for trouble in every sense of the word, and yet… I just can’t help myself. I turn into another person when I’m with him.
I stop looking at Silus over my shoulder and refocus on the pop in front of me. With a sigh, I take another sip, and then I poke the straw at the ice inside the glass. I don’t know how much time passes before we’re joined in the club by someone else.
Two someones, actually. One big someone and one small, familiar someone. The former hauls the latter across the club and pushes him into the seat across from me, checks me out, and then goes to join Silus near the bar, where he leans over the counter and grabs himself a glass and a bottle of some hard liquor.
Roark, Silus’s brother.
And the small someone he shoved into the booth opposite me? My brother.
“Max,” I say his name as I lean forward. “Are you okay?”
My brother groans, and he lifts his hands onto the table, showing me he’s handcuffed. “Yeah, I’m doing great. You know, just having the time of my freaking life,” he deadpans. “I see I’m the only one in chains, lucky me. Then again, I’m not sleeping with the man who kidnapped us, so…” He chuckles. “Maybe if I did, I’d get special treatment, too.”
I know my brother’s only making a joke—a terrible, awkward joke at that—but even if he was serious, I don’t think he’s Silus’s type.
When I don’t say a word, Max sighs and mutters, “This is all my fault. It was my dumb idea to begin with. You shouldn’t have to sell yourself out just to—”
“I’m not selling myself out,” I whisper, glancing over my shoulder to look at Silus. He and Roark are talking and drinking near the bar. I can’t hear what they’re saying; they’re too hushed. I meet my brother’s light blue gaze and immediately see he’s skeptical. “What? I’m not.”
Max moves his hands so they’re resting on his lap instead of the table, and then he leans as close to the table as he can, staring at me all the while. “You’re sleeping with our kidnapper. If that’s not selling yourself out, I don’t know what is. I just hope you’re being smart. I hope you know it can’t go anywhere. We’re going to die once he gets tired of us… of you, really. So, no pressure.”
I shrug. “So, what do you want me to do, huh? You want me to stop selling myself out, or should I sell myself out more?” The expression my brother gives me as a response only makes me groan. “I tried to tell you the other day it’s not like that, but you obviously don’t believe me.”
He glances at the two men at the bar before he whispers, “I’m sorry. I’m just… a little on edge, I guess. Never been kidnapped before so I don’t know how this all works. But I do know how Silus McLean works. He’s never going to let us go. Maybe it’s all fun and games for you right now, but sooner or later he’s going to get tired of you, and then he’s going to throw us both away like trash.” Max pauses for dramatic effect. “Don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be trash.”
I’m not stupid. I realize he’s not wrong. Still, I can’t help but feel like Max doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Logic might say this is going to end with us both dead, but sometimes logic doesn’t lead to the right outcome.
“Well,” I say, “I hope you learned your lesson about kidnapping mafia bosses.”
Max chuckles, and then he shakes his head and says, “I did. If we make it out of this, I’m staying in my own lane. No more kidnapping anyone. I’ll leave that to the pros. My skills lie elsewhere.”
“Tell me about it. You can talk just about anyone into anything.” Like convincing me to drug someone so we can kidnap them and try to ransom them off to their enemy. I don’t say that part out loud, though; still hits too close to home.
He sighs. “Yeah. To think, I actually spoke with Cormac himself before Roark and his men found me.”
The news comes as a shock to me, and I find the only thing I can do is blink and ask, “You met Cormac? Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I didn’t meet him. I did talk to him on the phone when I was with his guys. It was touch and go there for a bit. Being a little nobody and demanding to talk to the big boss ain’t easy, but I can sell a book of colors to a blind person. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know if Silus was listening. He set up all that equipment, so—”
Oh, shit. Why did it not occur to me that Silus could be recording and eavesdropping on every conversation me and Max have when we video chat? The thought honestly never came to mind. I’m so stupid.
“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” Max huffs. “Silus and Roark’s men were faster, and now we’re the poor idiots who’ve been kidnapped.” As if to prove his point, he pulls at his handcuffs beneath the table, rattling the metal a bit. “I do find it odd, though, that we’re here.”
My brows furrow. “What do you mean?”
“I think it’s weird we’re here, since, you know, we’re the kidnapees. There’s no reason we should be here, just like there’s no reason we should be able to talk and see each other at all.” The more Max talks, the more he sounds confused. “It’s almost like…”
I don’t know where he’s going with this. “Like what?”
“Like maybe you’re able to get shit out of him you normally wouldn’t because you’re…” He drops his voice, “Banging the dude.”
My cheeks heat up. “So should I keep banging him or should I stop? One moment it sounds like you think it’s the stupidest thing ever, and the next you’re admitting it’s kind of nice. It can’t be both.”
“Thea, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t exactly normal circumstances. I’ve never been in a situation like this, so I don’t really know how to act, how to think. I’m sorry if I’m not my normal self.” My brother actually sounds annoyed with me when he says all this, which is just ridiculous.
“Need I remind you that we wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for you,” I tell him.
“Hey, I apologized a few minutes ago. I know this is my shit. It’s why I feel so bad that you have to sell yourself out to that asshole just so we’re not tied up in a warehouse somewhere—”
I have to force myself to take a sip of my pop before I respond, otherwise I’m liable to smack my brother upside the head. It’s only when I calm down somewhat that I tell him in a hush whisper, “I’m not selling myself out.”
Max tilts his head. “If you’re not selling yourself out, then he’s either raping you or it’s what I said a few days ago. Obviously, raping would be the worst out of those three options, but you know what’s the second worst?”
“Don’t say it.”
“You being in love with the asshole,” Max goes and says it, but at least he says it quietly so it’s not shouted across the empty club. A quick glance at the two men at the bar tells me they didn’t hear the L-word get spoken.
When I don’t say a word, my brother asks, “Well? What is it? Which one? Are you selling yourself out or do you actually love that jerk?”
This isn’t a conversation I want to have with my brother. Not now, not ever. We’re close, but we’re not that close. He doesn’t tell me about the girls he’s been with and I don’t speak of the guys I’ve been with. It’s literally the one thing that’s off-limits for us.
I run my hands along my face as I mutter, “Falling in love with Silus McLean would be pretty stupid, huh?”
“Yeah, it would,” Max is quick to say. He’s much slower in saying this next part. “But… maybe it’s not the stupidest thing in the world. One could argue that it is, that there’s no way this can ever work itself out—and one would probably be right—but look at where we are. I’m in chains, but you’re not. It’s dangerous as hell to try to get close to someone like that, but maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe it’s not as stupid as I thought.” Max leans forward over the table, and I mimic him to hear him better when he whispers, “A man like that has no reason to care. By all logic, he shouldn’t be swayed by a pretty face—not that I’m calling you pretty or anything.”
I frown at him. “Thanks, bro.”
“You know what I’m saying, though. He can get whoever he wants. He doesn’t need to do favors for someone he kidnapped. This whole meeting—hell, even our chats—none of it should be happening, and honestly?”
Max faces the bar from where he sits, so unlike me he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder to see the two men there. All it takes is a quick flick of his eyes and he sees them, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint in me to not look at Silus over my shoulder.
“Honestly,” Max mutters, “it makes me wonder if it’s not just you.”
If it’s not just me. What the hell does he mean by that? He’s not saying… I mean, it sounds like my brother is wondering if Silus is in love with me, but that can’t be what he’s getting at.
Can it?
No, no. That’s just not possible. Just because Silus and I have amazing sex doesn’t automatically mean either one of us is in love with the other. It’s just sex. And he’s just being nice by letting me have more freedom and letting me see Max in person. That’s all. There’s no hidden, deep feelings of love behind any of it.
After Max’s words finally hit me, and I mentally debate them for a while, I bust out laughing. I can’t help myself. There is absolutely no freaking way Silus McLean could be in love with me. It’s just not possible.
“Really?” Max huffs, clearly annoyed at my reaction. “You’re laughing?”
I shrug. “What else am I supposed to do? You just insinuated that Silus is—” I whisper this next part. “—in love with me, and there’s just no way. There’s no way, Max. We’re sleeping together, that’s all.”
“That’s all, huh? Is that all as in that’s all you want it to be, or is that all because you think that’s all it can be?”
I could strangle my brother, I swear. “Weren’t you just going on about how falling in love with him would be stupid?”
“Yes, but that was when I was assuming it was one-sided. If it’s two-sided, as in, if you’re both head over heels like some weirdos, then maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe you can get him to let us go—”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and mutter, “You’re giving me whiplash. And you know what? It doesn’t matter, because I don’t have those feelings and neither does he. That I swear to you, Max. As for letting us go… I do think he’s a man of his word. Once we serve our time, he’ll let us go.”
The way Max stares at me after I say that makes me feel uneasy. It’s like he’s somehow, without speaking a single word, twisting around what I said and using it as evidence of love. Oh, I trust Silus to let us go? Then I must be in love with him.
My face must say it all, because Max goes off on a tangent: “Did I ever tell you about the first time I fell in love? It was at winter formal, freshman year. I don’t think you went. Molly Trudell. Five-foot-nine, pink hair, arms that could break me in two. God, she looked so good in that hot pink dress… I knew she could stomp on me, but I didn’t care. I asked her to dance, anyway. What was the worst she could do, say no?”
I vaguely remember the morning after this dance. I didn’t go because I was working that night—my fast food days, don’t remind me—but Max couldn’t shut up about it afterward. “Where are you going with this?”
He dutifully ignores me. “But she said yes. We danced, and then we made out in the restroom in the art hallway. I was flying high—and then Monday rolled around and she acted like I didn’t exist. First love, first heartbreak.” He sighs with a heavy heart.
Is Max trying to compare the feelings he thinks I have for Silus to the horniness he had for Molly when he was fourteen years old? Yeah, I don’t think they’re the same. The feelings are not remotely similar in any way.
When Max notices my unimpressed look, he adds, “All I’m trying to say is, even if we know things will end badly, sometimes we can’t help it. The heart wants what it wants and all that crap.” His thin shoulders go up and down once. “I just want you to be careful, Thea. Both our lives are in your hands right now. No pressure.”
Yeah, no pressure at all. There are a million and one things I could say to Max in response to that story, but I don’t say anything. Nothing I do or say right now will convince him that I’m not hopelessly in love with Silus. And now that he sort of thinks Silus is in love with me, too?
I mean, that’s just stupid. It’s just sex. That’s all. Hot, addicting, earth-shattering sex. Just two adults coming together and using each other’s bodies to find release. There is nothing deep about it.
Besides, assuming I am noteworthy enough for someone to fall in love with, could a man like Silus ever really love someone else? He’s not the worst psychopath out there, but he’s definitely up there.
Fuck. It doesn’t matter, because there are no feelings of love at all inside me. I don’t love him, and I never will.