11. Silas
Chapter 11
Silas
I should have stayed next door. At least there, the lines were drawn. But standing here in her kitchen, so close I can breathe in the scent of her ocean-pine shampoo, I can’t think straight.
An enemy?
Is that how I’ve been thinking of her?
“You’re not my enemy.”
“No?” she asks, then wipes a tear away. I long to reach forward and erase the pain from her heart. “You could have fooled me.”
“Lucian slaughtered my team. Those men were my friends. My brothers. He killed them in front of me, discarded their bodies like trash, then River spent a month torturing me. I bled. Over and over again. My bones broken. My soul practically ripped from my chest and thrown to the side like garbage right alongside my will to live.”
“I know.”
“No,” I reply. “You don’t. When that man came and freed me, I thought I was either hallucinating, or it was another trick of theirs. A way to taunt me with freedom only to rip it away at the last second. And every time I took a step forward, I wondered if it might be my last.” I move a bit closer, and Bianca tips her beautiful face to look up at me. “And then I heard you.” The words are spoken so softly they might as well be a whisper. “I heard a voice say save her , and I knew I couldn’t leave you behind.”
Even though there’s a warning screeching in my head, even though I know it might be a mistake, I reach out and touch her face.
Gently. Just a whisper of contact.
But she closes her eyes and her lips part. I have to fight the urge to lean in and taste the lips I’ve been dreaming about. The woman I’ve been in love with for over a decade.
“With the first look at your face, I couldn’t help but wonder if you were some kind of angel in captivity. You were too beautiful for a place like that. Too beautiful to have blood splattered on your clothes, your face bruised.”
She snorts. “I was never an angel.”
“I know that now,” I reply as I drop my hand and take a step back to put some distance between us. “But I let you in. And I don’t let people in.”
Realization hits her, and her expression falters. “I’m sorry, Silas. If I could take it back, I would.”
“I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since that day, no matter how hard I tried. I locked myself in a cabin in the middle of the woods in Montana, but even that wasn’t far enough to outrun the ghost of you. I’d been determined to die out there in that cabin, until my sister had her accident and I was made sole guardian of Eloise.”
Bianca’s walls haven’t gone up once during this conversation, which is yet another first. Normally, her cheeks are red, her eyes hard and lacking all emotion as she buries anything that makes her feel.
But she’s open now, hearing my words.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” she says. “But I wish I would have told you. Even if it meant you hated me from the moment we met, or you left me to die in that jungle. I wish I would have been honest, Silas.”
“I want to feel the peace you’re feeling right now. I want to find a way to let go of the anger I still carry. For my sister, my team, my brother-in-law, you—” It’s been so long since I spoke this much. Since I unloaded any kind of—anything, really.
“I was at their funeral.”
“What?” The words catch me off guard. “Who’s funeral?”
She swallows hard as though she’s afraid to continue. “Your sister and brother-in-law’s. I stayed in the back, as out of sight as I could be, but I wanted to be there even though I knew you wouldn’t want me there.”
Her confession forms a pit in my stomach as I recall one of the worst days of my life. Since our parents passed shortly after we’d graduated high school, and we’d never known any of our grandparents, it had just been Sierra and me.
The two of us against the world.
Then she’d met her husband while I was on my first tour, and the three of us grew close despite me trying to keep my distance so they could flourish as a couple.
The day I buried her, part of me died. And I know, without a doubt, had I not been standing there holding Eloise as they lowered my sister’s body into the ground, I might have just jumped into the grave right alongside her.
Losing her felt like losing a vital piece of myself, and I haven’t been the same since.
I try to recall seeing Bianca or anyone who looked like her, but I’d been so overwhelmed with grief I doubt I would have recognized anyone, least of all someone I was earnestly trying to forget.
“How did you know?” I ask. “That she was gone?”
“You weren’t the only one who couldn’t forget the other.” Bianca crosses her arms, the closest she’s come to putting up those walls, though her eyes remain clear. Soft. “I couldn’t let you go, either. You were constantly on my mind, and one day I had the urge to look in on you, so I did an internet search and saw an article on the accident. I know how much Sierra meant to you. How much you loved her, and that you had no one else. The thought of you suffering through that alone was too much for me, so I booked a flight to Texas.”
I’m not a man of many words by choice, but right now, even if I wanted to, I have no idea what I would say. The fact that she was there, that in the pain of losing my sister, Bianca showed up.
Bianca continues, “You were wearing a dark suit, your face clean-shaven. You looked so broken.” A tear slips down her cheek. “Eloise was in a black dress, but you’d given her a bright yellow flower to hold. I remember it being such a happy color. A splash of life amidst death.”
“A yellow tulip,” I recall. “I’d picked it outside of their house so she could take it with her.”
She smiles. “I was going to say something. Talk to you. But when I saw you with Eloise, for a moment, I thought?—”
“She was mine?”
Bianca nods, tears glistening in her eyes. “I thought that maybe you’d found someone else and moved on, and the last thing I wanted to do was be a reminder of the nightmare we suffered through. Not when you may have found some sliver of happiness.”
I open my mouth to respond—with what, I’m not sure—but right as I’m about to start speaking, a shrill cell tone slices through the air. Bianca reaches onto the countertop behind her and checks the readout, then answers.
“What’s up?” Her gaze locks with mine. “We’ll be right there.”
After battling with myself over the need to be close to Bianca and the desire to shove her away, I drive the both of us over to the hospital, where the shooter was currently recovering.
Was being the key word there because, according to Lance, he’s now dead despite being expected to make a full recovery.
Lance and Jaxson are both waiting for us at the entrance.
“Jaxson, good to see you back,” Bianca says as she embraces him.
I try not to be jealous. After all, Jaxson is happily married to Michael’s sister, Margot, but seeing Bianca wrap her arms around another man makes my stomach churn. I want it to be me. I’ve always wanted it to be me.
“Glad you’ve come back,” I say, offering my hand.
“When Lance told me Bianca was shot and we had a potential crime war on our doorstep, I knew I needed to come back.”
“You shouldn’t have left because of me,” Bianca insists. “You’ve had a lot going on yourself.”
After being estranged from his father for most of his life, they reconnected when his father showed up to apologize after receiving a terminal diagnosis. He passed almost two months ago, and Jaxson has been in California ever since.
“Things were wrapped up,” Jaxson replies. “I was ready to come home. How’s the arm?”
“I’m managing.”
“Glad he missed.”
Bianca smiles. “Same.”
“So, what happened?” I ask, desperately needing a change in subject.
“We’re not sure yet. Doc says it could have been a blood clot, but we won’t know until the autopsy comes back. Personally, I’m betting on foul play. I think somehow, someone got to him. Elijah is with Sheriff Vick running down the names of everyone who had access to his room.”
That’s where I’d place my bet, too. If I were a gambling man, that is.
“You said you found something strange in his room?” Bianca questions. Her skin is a bit pale, and she’d been silent the entire drive over, her thoughts elsewhere. I wanted to ask if they were on me and what might have been, or on the man who was yet another loose end to be tied up.
“Yeah. Let’s go take a look. I asked Sheriff Vick to wait to bag it until you saw it. It’s untouched right now, and while I know it could be nothing, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s—well—you’ll see.”
A deputy’s stationed outside the door, and he offers us a nod as we move into the room. Bianca stops in the doorway, her gaze traveling around the space. I do the same, scanning for something that feels out of?—
“Oh no.” Bianca turns white as a sheet, her eyes going wide as she narrows in on a stuffed teddy bear sitting on the windowsill.
It’s worn, and honestly, I might have thought it was just something the nurses put in the rooms to make patients feel better.
“The bear?” I ask, my gaze traveling to Jaxson and Lance as though either of them can answer me.
“I—” She crosses toward it, gaze locked on it like it’s a magnet drawing her in and she’s helpless to its pull.
“Bianca, what is it?”
She reaches out with trembling fingers and lifts the bear. As soon as she removes it, a folded-up sheet of paper is revealed.
With her gaze locked on the stuffed animal, I reach for the paper and unfold it.
Selena Culvers, you and one guest are formally invited to a dinner party held at the Boston Harbor Hotel tomorrow at seven p.m. This will be a black-tie affair, and no weapons will be allowed through the door.
This is a peaceful invitation.
A white flag, if you will. Consider your now-deceased shooter a gift, showing you that I mean you no harm.
If you ignore me, then things will escalate. Something I assure you I have no time for and you truly do not want. Tell your SEAL I said hello.
Your uncle, River
Fury burns in my veins, and I have to actively fight the urge to crumple the paper in my hands. My gaze lands on the name at the top. Selena Culvers. I raise my gaze to Bianca, who is still studying the bear. “Selena.”
Her gaze flies to mine, eyes wide. “What did you say?”
I ignore her, gesturing to the bear. “Your uncle left that for you.”
She nods. “It was mine. When I was little. My mother gave it to me. I had to leave it behind when I ran. I never thought I’d see it again.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks and offers it to Lance. “Can you have Elijah check for any recording devices?”
“Done.” He takes the bear. “What does the note say?”
“It seems Bianca’s uncle wants to catch up over dinner. He also confessed to this murder.” I hold the note out for her to see, and both Lance and Jaxson flank her to get a better look.
“Selena. No one has called me that in nearly two decades.”
“That’s your name?” Jaxson asks.
She nods. “This doesn’t make any sense, though.” Bianca hands the note to Lance. “He takes out the man he clearly hired to kill me, then offers me a white-flag dinner party?”
“The murder is likely punishment for failing,” Jaxson offers.
“This dinner invitation is clearly a trap,” Lance adds.
“His threat isn’t subtle, though,” Bianca says. “And he will carry through. Today was just the beginning.”
Lance’s jaw hardens. He nearly lost his wife today. I imagine he’s a lot angrier than he’s showing right now. “We can head to Boston and do some recon at the hotel.”
“If my uncle senses anyone sniffing around, he’s bound to react,” she tells him. “And I can promise you he already knows everyone who works with us.” She walks to the window and looks out. “He’s playing with me. It’s all a game to him. ‘Come see the wealth that could have been yours.’” Furious, she turns to face us. “And if I don’t go, he’s going to wreak havoc on everyone here.”
“And if you do go, he’s going to kill you.” I consider his sign-off. Tell your SEAL I said hello.
“My guess is he’s coming for you, too,” Jaxson says after rereading the note. “He calls you out right here.”
“This can’t continue,” I say, feeling the choking fingers of fear gripping my throat.
“You don’t have to be involved,” Bianca says. “Take Eloise, leave town for a while. You said you could go back home, right?”
“And what?” I demand. “Leave you here to die?” Even as Eloise’s safety is my top priority, and I told myself I’d put the both of us on a plane at the first sign of trouble, the idea of leaving Bianca here to fend for herself against someone we both know is capable of evil is unthinkable.
“I’m not going to die. We’ll find a way to catch him, and then you can come back.”
“I’m not leaving, Bianca. I had face-to-face interactions with River. I know him—well. Possibly better than you do. There’s no way I’m leaving everyone I care about behind so I can run and hide.”
“What about Eloise?” she demands, cheeks reddening. “She has to be your top priority.”
“She is my top priority,” I snap. “But that doesn’t mean I have to run and hide. I can keep Eloise safe and stand my ground. I came to Hope Springs for a fresh start for both Eloise and me. I wanted safety. Security. Both of which are not possible while River walks free. You and I both know that he’s caught my scent. If I run, he’ll track me down as soon as he’s finished with you.” I’m not entirely sure that’s correct, but I know River to be vengeful. I recall his ferocity when he drove a blade into my shoulder because I’d shot him when my team was first attacked.
He doesn’t let things go, and he’s incredibly patient.
Bianca’s gaze is dark, her glare furious. She wants me to leave. But why? Is it truly about Eloise’s safety? Or is it me she wants gone?
The thought creeps into my mind, pushing out all others.
I raise my gaze to Lance. “I’m not leaving.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he replies. “As far as I’m concerned, we need everyone on this.” His phone buzzes, and he lifts it and checks the readout. “Elijah’s got something. We need to get to the office.”