67. Lilith
CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN
S ilas jabbed the call button. Then again. “Come on…”
Rain streaked down the windshield in frantic little rivers, turning the gravel and rows of trees into a blurry, waterlogged mess. His hand hovered over the button like he was seconds away from punching it into oblivion when the gates finally groaned open.
The house at the end of the driveway was beautiful—deep charcoal paint, crisp white trim, neat little window boxes. The kind of place that was aggressively put together, like someone had spent weeks picking the perfect shade of black paint and probably bragged about it at brunch.
But the porch swing gave it away. It swayed gently in the breeze under the canopy, ropes worn soft with age. Not neglected. Just… lived in. Like someone had spent quiet mornings there with coffee and a book, or sat there on restless nights waiting for their brain to chill out.
I was still clocking the lineup of cars on the driveway when I spotted him.
Finn.
Leaning in the doorway like he’d just woken up there, one arm propped against the frame, sandy hair a sleep-mussed mess, grey PJ pants hung low on his hips. A half-empty beer bottle dangled from his fingers like it was either his nightcap or his morning routine.
Silas killed the engine, and we climbed out of the car.
Finn blinked at us blearily, eyes narrowing like he was still deciding if we were real or just a weird dream. “What the fuck’s going on? It’s not even six-thirty.”
Before I could answer, Silas barrelled past him, muttering low under his breath, “Need your system. Now.”
Finn twisted after him, baffled. “Yeah, sure, just head on in, asshole!”
His gaze flicked back to me, eyes dragging over me from head to toe. My hair was plastered to my face, clothes still clung damp to my skin. And then there was the bloo d—wet and dark, smeared across my hoodie, streaked down the sleeves, still tacky where it clung to my fingers.
“Lils,” he said, serious in a way that made my chest tighten. “What happened?”
I swallowed hard. “Clark.”
His whole body stiffened, eyes going wide like I’d just detonated a grenade right there on his porch. “No fucking way.”
His arm was around my shoulder before I knew what was happening. “Come on,” he muttered. “Come on in.”
I didn’t argue. Didn’t even think about it. Just let him steer me up the steps, one foot dragging in front of the other, my legs heavy and uncooperative, like they weren’t entirely convinced I wasn’t still fighting.
The door thudded shut behind us, locking out the cold morning air, and with it, the sharp taste of saltwater still clinging to my lips.
I stood there for a second, swaying slightly, blinking hard, eyes dragging over the room.
A huge dark grey couch sprawled across the living room, practically drowning in a mess of tangled blankets.
A massive flat-screen sat on the wall, dark and still.
Below it, the coffee table was a warzone—half-empty glasses, scattered tech magazines, and a handful of papers, their scribbled notes curling at the edges like they’d been left there a little too long.
I let out a shaky breath and turned, but Finn was already gone.
For a second, I stood there and considered just giving up.
Dropping onto that couch, dragging one of those blankets over my head, and pretending none of this had ever happened.
Pretending Clark wasn’t still tangled up in my thoughts.
Pretending my knuckles weren’t aching, and he wasn’t in a hospital bed because of me.
But I couldn’t. I had to find them.
I kicked off my shoes and trailed down the hall, following the low murmur of Finn’s voice. His words were too soft to make out, but the sound pulled me closer, like a thread I couldn’t help but tug on.
Six monitors glowed from Finn’s desk, their screens flickering with endless lines of code, security feeds, and data that looked complicated enough to launch a spaceship.
Wires sprawled across the surface like tangled roots, snaking into servers and hardware that I didn’t even want to guess the purpose of.
Finn was already in his chair, fingers flying over the keyboard like he was trying to out-type the apocalypse.
“Dude,” he snapped, eyes locked on the screen. “Speak to me.”
Silas didn’t answer. He stood just behind Finn, pacing like a caged animal, hands dragging through his hair, shoulders coiled so tight I half-expected him to implode.
Finn twisted toward him. “Speak, Graves.”
“Wipe everything,” Silas barked, sharp enough to slice the air in half. “Traffic cams, ATMs, parking lot feeds between my penthouse, the hospital, the East Side Marina and here. I want every single second of footage from the last three hours removed.”
“I can’t nuke every camera without setting off alarms,” he muttered. “But I can corrupt the timestamps. Throw them out of sync so nothing lines up properly.”
“Do it,” Silas said, voice tight, clipped.
I stayed quiet, leaning back against the wall, and let my gaze drifted downward.
His hands.
Knuckles torn and swollen, split open in jagged lines, blood crusted deep into the cuts, still wet in places where it had smeared across his skin.
My stomach twisted, sharp and sour as my pulse throbbed in my temples, too loud and fast, like my heart was trying to hammer its way out through my skull.
Finn’s voice cut through the suffocating silence.
“I’ve finished the first phase,” he said. “It’ll take another twenty minutes to overwrite everything properly.”
Silas barely grunted in response, just paced some more.
“Come here,” Finn muttered, getting up from his chair and nudging my arm.
I blinked at him, mind still lagging about five steps behind.
“Lilith,” he said again, quieter this time. “Come on.”
He led me up a set of stairs and down a hall.
We stopped at what I assumed was his bedroom, and he went straight for the wardrobe, rifling through his clothes with way too much force.
Hangers rattled, shirts flew, the whole situation laced with frustrated energy, like he was trying to fight the mess with sheer violence.
Eventually, he grabbed a pair of sweats and tossed them onto the bed without looking at me. Then he turned back, holding up a pink T-shirt, bright enough to burn my retinas.
“This might be a little tight,” he said, grimacing. “Sorry.”
I blinked at it. At him. At the ridiculous Barbie-pink shirt in his hand.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Did you rob a twelve-year-old?”
Finn snorted, short and sharp.
“Here,” he added, dragging a fluffy pink bathrobe from the wardrobe and dumping it on top of the pile. “Just… whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“What happened?” he asked after a beat of silence.
Finn’s kindness felt like something too gentle in a moment that still had my brain spinning on high alert.
“Clark…” I started, then stopped. The words hitched in my throat, thick and sticky like tar. “We found him,” I muttered eventually. “We… The yacht started sinking… and I couldn’t—” I shook my head, swallowing hard. “I couldn’t leave him there. ”
“Jesus,” he muttered.
I opened my mouth to say something else, but footsteps creaked down the hall, slow and heavy.
I turned just as Silas filled the doorway. “Yeah,” he muttered. “She let him live.”
I stiffened. “Oh, here we go again.”
His laugh was cold and humourless. “Yeah,” he shot back. “Here we fucking go.”
“Silas,” Finn warned, voice tight. His gaze flicked between us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing talking to her like that, man?”
“I’m not doing this with you,” I snapped at Silas.
But I knew better.
We were definitely doing this.
“Why not?” Silas shot back, his voice rough and splintered like something that had been cracked too many times to stay whole. “Because you know I’m right? Because you know he should be dead right now? Because you fu—”
“For the love of God, Silas, I understand you’re angry right now, but would you just shut your mouth and let me talk for five goddamn minutes? Then I’ll tell you why I wanted him to live!”
Finn cleared his throat from the corner. “Uh… should I leave?”
“No,” I shouted out before Silas could answer. I ran a shaky hand down my face, dragging in a breath that didn’t do a damn thing to steady me. “It’s fine, Finn. You can stay if you want. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Finn’s eyebrows shot up and he leaned against the wall, arms crossed tight over his chest, his expression settling somewhere between ‘I’m staying out of this’ and ‘I swear to God, don’t break my house.’
Silas didn’t move. He just stood there, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone stark white.
His breathing was sharp, uneven, like every inhale barely held him together.
But his eyes stayed locked on me, burning and furious, waiting for me to say something that would give him an excuse to blow.
“Well?” he said. “I’m listening.”
I didn’t want to do this.
God , I really didn’t want to do this.
My head felt too full, like the air itself was suffocating me, like the walls were about two seconds from caving in. My pulse pounded in my ears, fast and frantic, and my ribs felt too tight, like my lungs were fighting for space they couldn’t have.
“I told you earlier,” I muttered. “Dead people can’t suffer.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he snapped.
“If he dies,” I said slowly, “it’s over. He’s gone. That’s it. No more consequences. No more fallout. No more anything. But leaving him to live?” My breath hitched. “That means he has to wake up every single day knowing what he’s done.”
“He doesn’t give a fuck about what he did to you, Lilith,” he said, voice cold and hard. “He won’t suffer for anything.”
“No,” I shot back. “But he has to live with the fact that he’s nothing now.
Knowing that his whole life—his career, his name, his reputation—all of it’s gone.
He has to live with the fact that he destroyed himself.
That he’s a washed up, bitter has-been who torched everything good in his life, because he couldn’t pull his head out of his own ass long enough to stop being such a miserable, abusive piece of shit. ”
The words spilled out too fast. Quick, messy, and mean. Too sharp-edged to grip onto.
“He lost everything,” I bit out. “And now he gets to choke on that for the rest of his life. Every single day.”
Silas’ jaw flexed, but he didn’t speak.
“What about when he comes to visit you in your sleep?” The words splintered out of my throat. “What about when he’s standing at the end of your bed? What about when you have to live with the choice of killing him for the rest of your life?”
My voice cracked on that last word, and I hated how raw it sounded. How scared.
“What about when you lose yourself entirely? If he dies, Silas—” I swallowed hard, my voice thin and frayed “—it doesn’t fix it. It doesn’t make any of it go away. It just means we’d have his blood on our hands. He wouldn’t leave us.”
He shook his head like I was speaking in riddles. Like I was the one who didn’t understand what was going on. “You’re scared of ghosts now, Lilith?”
“Yes, Silas,” I shot back, my voice breaking. “Yes. I fucking am.”