22. Silas
22
SILAS
After Killian’s encounter with Agent fucking Jones, we decided it was time to leave New Orleans and take Mila with us.
Killian scowled when I said it, but thankfully, he shut up for once—probably because he wouldn’t have won this battle—and Maverick didn’t protest, like I’d known he wouldn’t. Like me, he was already under Mila’s spell.
It would only be a matter of time before Killian fell as well, and we could finally work on being a family with a girl who shouldn’t have mattered— but did .
“What are you going to do once we get there?” Maverick asked from the passenger side of the car.
I shrugged. “Play it by ear.”
“You’re going to have to prepare for the fact that she’ll hate you after this,” Maverick said, his voice tight.
Only Maverick and I had any kind of interaction with Mila that was… sexual in nature. She would see this as the betrayal that it was. She would hate us both. Perhaps we should have done things differently. Taken her when we were strangers, with no feelings involved. It was too late now, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
“I know,” I said, looking out the window. There was a tight grip around my lungs, getting tighter the more miles we ate between us and Mila, until it almost felt suffocating.
It was unavoidable. I had prepared for it. Still, it didn’t sit right with me. We pulled up to Mila’s motel room.
She would be there because she still didn’t have her car—and would never get it back, seeing as I was having that piece of shit crushed for scrap metal—and the lights were on. I could see her moving about the room.
Her movements almost looked frantic.
Killian met my eyes through the rearview mirror.
I didn’t exactly need my brothers to extract one woman, and a tiny one at that, but they were here in case we ran into any men from the Heartless Saints, and to make sure Mila would comply.
Now that we knew Sebastian Cline was alive and gathering men—both those who had been loyal to Daniel Hayes and those who had long since left the club—it paid to be vigilant.
“What do you think she’s doing?” I asked out loud.
“Only one way to find out,” Maverick answered.
We got out of the car and headed to the motel room. The door flew open before I could even knock, revealing a panicked Mila. She hadn’t been expecting me there, so she face-planted right into my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly, and something settled inside me from her closeness.
She looked up and for the first time, I saw something on her face that I hadn’t really seen before.
Full-blown, unadulterated fear.
My eyes moved down her body, taking note of her bag, and behind her to the clean motel room, empty of all her belongings.
There could only be one explanation.
She knew.
She knew, and now she was running. Any later, and she would have left without a trace. It wouldn’t have been easy to find her a second time. Not when she knew we were hunting her. The fact that I was tracking her was irrelevant. She could have disposed of her bag halfway there, or run into the Heartless Saints MC. She could have been taken away from us, away from me, and there would have been fuck all I could have done about it.
The thought had my mind darkening.
“Are you going somewhere, angel?” I asked mildly.
She opened her mouth, and my eyes challenged her, daring her to lie to me. She knew it wouldn’t work. She closed her mouth and tried to back away from me. I tightened my arms.
“P-please. I have nothing to do with my father’s club. I never wanted anything to do with it. Please .”
I cupped her cheek, hating her fear, the desperation in her voice, but knowing I would have to use it to my advantage. There was no way in hell I was letting her go now. Not when I’d just found her. Not when I didn’t think I was capable of it.
“It doesn’t matter. You have your father’s blood running through your veins.” The reason sounded flimsy to even my ears. I didn’t want to delve deeper into my reasons for keeping her. The result would be the same, no matter what.
She shook her head, the fire back in her eyes. I almost let out a sigh of relief. She was strong. She needed to be, for how things would be for a while. I didn’t want to break her.
“No, it shouldn’t matter,” she said, pounding her fists on my chest. “Why did you even show up in my life if this is it? If it doesn’t matter, why do all this? Why make me—” Her words cut off and she bit her bottom lip, as if afraid she might say something that would give away her feelings.
“Make you what?” I asked softly, coming closer to her, barely feeling the hits on my chest from her. She must have realized how futile they were because she stopped, tears clinging to her eyelashes.
“Why make me like you? Why make it seem like you’re one of the good guys?”
“I never told you I was a good man.”
“You never told me what a monster you were, either.”
I nodded. She was right.
Defeat weighed down her shoulders, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from telling her not to frown. It wasn’t a good look on her. Not when my girl was a fighter.
“Now what?” she asked softly.
I glanced back at my brothers. They shared a look. The compliance in her eyes would make it easier for us, but fuck if I didn’t want her fire back.
I swallowed, a weight pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Now we go back to Chicago.”
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. I swiped my thumb over them, keeping them from spilling over.
“Please don’t make me go back there,” she begged. “I can’t. I?—”
I pulled her closer, grabbing her bag from her arm and throwing it behind me to Killian. He grabbed it and moved to the car without a word. She began to struggle. I tightened my hold.
“Stop fighting me, angel. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She fought harder. Fuck. I picked her up in my arms and carried her to the car. Maverick opened the door for me, his face impassive, while Mila glared at him with hatred in her eyes. I buckled the seat belt over her and sat beside her, pulling her close, keeping her immobile. Her breathing was harsh, and she turned away from me.
We didn’t say anything on the way back to the hotel.
There was nothing to say.
Mila was coming home with us, and that was all there was to it.