Chapter Fourteen—Blake
As we drive back to my place, I glance at her out of the corner of my eye.
She’s not looking at me. Her eyes are pinned to the window, staring out into the city streets beyond the glass, like she wishes she could be anywhere in the world but here with me right now. I could have offered to drive her back to her place, but I want to keep her close tonight.
Not just because of the intense sexual encounter we just had, either. No, when she mentioned Silencio, everything fell away for a moment. There’s no way she should know about that, but she does. How? Who told her? I need to know where the leak has sprung so I can plug it up.
We pull to a halt outside the apartment building where I keep my penthouse in the city. I could have taken her to my father’s estate, but I don’t want my family asking questions about her. I don’t want to explain how easy it has been for me to fall for someone like her, someone I barely even know, someone who could, all too easily, compromise everything I’ve been working for all this time. If she finds out the ins and outs of what my family does, she might expose us.
And if she does, I’m going to have to deal with her, once and for all. And I don’t want to do that.
I offer her a hand to get out of the car, but she brushes it off, ignoring me. I can smell myself on her skin, our encounter right there outside the restaurant still written all over her. My cock twitches just at the memory. Fuck, it was hot as all hell. Seeing her finally give in to how badly she desired me, it was a turn-on like nothing else. And the way she responded to my roughness tells me that she has a whole lot going on beneath the good-girl facade that she doesn’t let anyone else know about.
We head to my penthouse apartment, the doorman stepping aside to let us in. It's not the first time he’s seen me here with a woman, but he doesn’t say a word about it, much to my relief. I don't want to get into the details of this with him. As far as he’s concerned, this is just another in a long line of one-night stands.
As she reaches the penthouse and steps through the door, her eyes widen.
"You live here?" she gasps as she flicks her gaze around.
"Not full-time," I reply. I head inside to make myself a drink at the cart positioned next to the picture windows overlooking the city.
"So, you have other places?"
"Of course."
I pour her a vodka on the rocks and hand it to her. For a moment, she hesitates, staring down at the liquid as though she thinks I might have spiked it with something. And then, she takes a sip and crosses her arms over her chest.
"So, what am I doing here, exactly?"
"I need to know why you said that name to me," I tell her. I’m doing my best to keep my voice steady. The last thing I want is for her to realize how close she’s come to busting open the truth about me or how dangerous it might be if she goes any further. I feel a surge of protectiveness toward her, knowing what the Silencio crew might do to her if they found out an outsider was looking in.
"I... I..." She trails off. She’s trying to come up with a lie. I pour myself a drink, letting the silence flood around us, letting her know I’m not going to give her any sort of out here. Finally, her shoulders slump.
"When we kissed at the party, I felt something in your blazer pocket. I know I shouldn’t have, but I... I took it."
My heart skips a beat. The pin, the Silencio pin. It’s been handed down through generations of the leaders of the club, and since it was gifted to me, I’ve been calling the shots. I always keep it on me when I’m out and about, just in case I might need to prove my credentials, but she took it?
"I’m sorry," she blurts out. "I-I don’t usually steal things, I promise. I just... I wanted a piece of you. That's all."
My chest softens slightly. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or just spinning me what she thinks I want to hear, but I don’t care. I want her to give me a reason to trust her right now.
"And when I saw what it was, that thistle, I realized I had seen that same symbol all over campus," she goes on. "And I started looking into what it might have meant. I was going through this old book on the history of the university, and I found an invitation in the pages, an invitation to a Silencio meeting. That’s how I found out the name."
She chews on her lip, then sips her drink as I take in what she’s just told me. Is it the truth? It’s a convincing lie, if not. I narrow my eyes at her.
"What do you know about Silencio?"
She shakes her head. "Nothing, really. Just the name. And that you’ve got something to do with it...?" She poses that last statement like a question, asking me to fill in the blanks for her. "What is that place?"
I grit my teeth and stare back at her for a moment, calculating.
If I’m being honest, telling her anything here is a real risk, and I don’t want to give in to it. But there’s a part of me, a stupid part of me, that wants to tell her everything. I’ve been holding on to so many secrets for so damn long now, I don’t even know where to start, how to begin to unpack all of it. But if she wants to know, maybe I can give her something, just enough, that will make her lose interest in pursuing it any further and accept everything I tell her at face value.
"It’s a society for the most powerful people at our university," I tell her bluntly. "Not the kind of place you can earn your way into. Either you’re from one of the families who’ve been part of that place for generations, or you’re not, and you never hear about Silencio. Hence the thistle. Sharp. Hard to get close to."
She nods, taking it in.
"And you’re... you’re part of it?"
"I’m the head of it."
Her eyes widen. "The head of it?"
"I’m a Devereaux," I reply, as though it should have been obvious. "With who my father is, it’s not like they were going to give it to anyone else."
"Your father?"
"My late father, yes," I reply, gritting my teeth slightly. It still stings to think of his death, even though it has been long enough now that it shouldn’t.
"He’s a... he was a man with a lot of influence in this city," I explain to her. "He ran a few... successful businesses."
"Like the restaurant?" she prompts me. I can’t help but smirk.
"You could say that, yes."
"What does that mean? I don’t— I don’t get it, Blake. You keep talking like there’s something I’m missing, and I can never put the pieces together. What is that restaurant? Is it a front for something?"
I fall silent. I can’t give her details. That much, I know for sure. She can’t know the ins and outs of the truth of my father’s business, the weapons we sell across the city, the businesses we roll that money through to clean it up. She’s clearly principled, and she’ll do whatever she can to distance herself from people who are involved in stuff like that.
Or expose us. And I’m not willing to take that risk.
"It is," I reply evenly. She’s not going to believe me if I try to spin her anything else. She's already close enough as it is, and there’s no point giving her reason to delve any deeper.
"For what?"
"It's better that you don’t know."
I can see how frustrated she is as she finishes her drink and glances out the window to the streets outside. Up here, they seem so far away, as though the people who crowd them are nothing more than pieces being moved around a board.
"I don’t know what the hell you’re involved with, Blake," she tells me softly as she stares down. "But I... I know I don’t want to be involved with it."
"You’re not. You’re not involved with any part of it. You work for the restaurant, that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less."
She lifts her gaze up to meet mine. "You’re not going to let me leave the restaurant, are you?"
"You need that job," I remind her.
She smiles slightly. "I could find a new one, if I wanted."
"And do you want to?"
She falls silent for a second again. It’s clear she doesn’t have an answer for that.
I fear, for a moment, that I’ve exposed more than I should have. This woman, after all, is still new to me. As much as I’ve obsessed over her and discovered so much about her, I don’t know if I can trust her.
But the feel of us together like that, it’s still burning through my system, demanding and commanding and impossible to ignore. There’s no way I can pretend I don’t notice it. If telling her some small piece of the truth is going to keep her around, then that’s what I’ll do.
"You should get some rest," I tell her. "I have a spare bedroom here you can sleep in—"
"I’ll just get a cab back to my dorm room."
I shoot her a look. "It’s late. And besides, don’t you have an early shift at the restaurant tomorrow? I can drive you over there."
She sighs, conceding the point.
"Yeah, okay. But I... I want to sleep alone tonight, Blake. All of this, it’s... it’s so much for me to wrap my head around, I—"
"That’s fine," I reply, cutting her off, though, underneath it all, I’m a little disappointed. I’d hoped that she might want to sleep next to me. Something about the thought of her like that, so vulnerable, so close to me, sets off a rush of excitement in my chest.
I take the glass from her and lead her to the spare bedroom, which overlooks a swimming pool at the back of the apartment block. She glances around the place and lets out a small chuckle.
"I think I grew up in an apartment smaller than this entire room," she remarks. I manage to smile. I appreciate her attempt to lighten the mood, especially in the face of everything I just told her.
"You ever need a place to stay, you know it’s always here," I promise her. She turns to me, cocking an eyebrow.
"Oh yeah? And you’re not going to go demanding any unscrupulous rent from me, are you?"
I grin. My mind floods with the possibilities, everything I could do to her if I wanted her to pay her bills on time.
"You should get some rest," I reply before I can stray too far down that path. If I let myself linger on it for too much longer, I’m going to be tempted to fuck her again, and she’s made it clear that’s not where her head is at right now.
Before I can stop myself, I lean forward and plant a kiss on her forehead. There’s no intent behind it, nothing sexual, at least. She’s the first person I’ve talked to about any of this stuff in a long time, the first person I’ve wanted to trust in longer than I would care to admit. And I... I don’t know where that leaves us. I don’t know if she’s going to see me the same way, if I can even trust her with everything I’ve said.
But, right now, it doesn’t matter. She tenses slightly when I touch her, but when I pull back, there’s a slight smile on her face.
"Goodnight, Blake."
"Goodnight, Sophia."
I linger there for a moment longer than I have to, half hoping she’ll change her mind and ask me to come to bed with her. But, after a moment, I take my cue and go. There will be time to catch up on that kind of stuff later. For now, she needs to get her rest.
And I need to figure out just what kind of a mistake I might have made.