Chapter 6
SILAS
T he text came through at dusk, a burner number I hadn’t seen in months.
No name, no details, just the kind of blunt summons that meant trouble or answers. Sometimes both.
I didn’t reply. Didn’t need to. My source, a weaselly ex-CIA spook named Doyle, knew I’d show. He always had something worth hearing, and I always had cash to loosen his tongue.
The Rusty Anchor squatted on the edge of downtown Charleston, a dive bar so locals-only it didn’t bother with a sign. The kind of place where the jukebox played Merle Haggard on loop and the bartender kept a sawed-off under the counter.
I pulled my truck into the parking lot, the air thick with salt and stale beer.
Neon flickered through the bar’s grimy windows, casting red shadows on the pavement.
I killed the engine, checked my pistol’s mag out of habit, and tucked it into my waistband.
Not that I expected a fight. Doyle was a coward, not a threat.
But I hadn’t survived this long by assuming.
Inside, the place was a haze of cigarette smoke and bad decisions. A dozen regulars hunched over their drinks, their eyes sliding over me like I was just another shadow.
Good. I liked it that way.
The bar was a U-shape, scarred wood and sticky rings, with a mirror behind it that showed me my own face—harder than it used to be, eyes like ash, jaw tight enough to crack walnuts. I didn’t linger on the reflection. Didn’t need to see the man I’d become.
Doyle was in the back booth, nursing a Pbr and looking like he’d slept in his clothes. His thinning hair was slicked back, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on the table.
He clocked me as I approached, his watery eyes darting to the door before settling.
“Dane,” he muttered, like saying my name might summon something worse.
I slid into the booth across from him, keeping my back to the wall.
“Talk.”
He licked his lips, glancing around like the regulars gave a shit about his secrets.
“Got something for you. Weird one.”
“Weird how?” My voice was low, steady, but my gut was already tightening. Doyle didn’t do “weird.” He did intel—names, dates, coordinates. The kind of shit I need to keep us three steps ahead of Department 77’s ragged remnants.
He reached into his jacket, slow enough not to spook me, and pulled out a phone. A cheap burner, black, scratched to hell. He slid it across the table, along with a crumpled Post-it note.
“This showed up at my drop. Anonymous. Note said to give it to you.”
I didn’t touch the phone. Not yet. The Post-it was yellow, the ink smudged but legible: Give to Silas Dane . My name in block letters, no flourish, no bullshit. I looked at Doyle, searching for a lie in his twitchy face.
“Who dropped it?”
He shrugged, too quick.
“Told you, anonymous. No face, no trace. Just the phone and the note in a bag at my usual spot.”
I leaned forward, letting him feel the weight of my stare.
“You check it?”
“Power’s off. No juice, no boom.” He smirked, like he’d cracked a joke. “No explosives, no trackers. Clean as far as I can tell. But, y’know, maybe get your tech geeks to give it a once-over.”
I didn’t laugh. Didn’t move. Just stared until his smirk died. He was holding out, but I didn’t have time to play interrogator.
I pulled a manila envelope from my jacket—ten grand in crisp hundreds—and slid it across the table. It vanished into his coat faster than a card trick.
He stood, muttering something about a piss, and was gone before I could blink. Typical Doyle. In and out, no footprints.
The phone sat there, a black hole on the table. I didn’t touch it. Not at first.
I ordered a whiskey, neat, and let it burn my throat while I stared at the damn thing.
My gut screamed trap. Department 77 wasn’t subtle—they didn’t leave Easter eggs.
But this? This felt personal. Like someone knew I’d bite, knew I’d chase the bait down whatever rabbit hole they’d dug.
I’d spent months hunting 77’s ghosts, tearing through their networks, their safehouses, their lies.
And now, with Charlie’s sighting of our mother—her face in that window—I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being led. Not my trail, not my choice.
Fuck it.
I grabbed the phone, my thumb hovering over the power button. Doyle said it was clean, but Doyle was a rat who’d sell his own kids for a payday. If this thing blew, I’d be a smear on the bar’s sticky floor. If it didn’t, I might get answers.
I pressed the button, half-expecting a spark or a beep. Nothing. Just a faint hum as the screen flickered to life, dim and grainy.
A prompt popped up: Facial recognition required .
My blood went cold. I held the phone up, letting it scan my face, and the screen shifted, no hesitation, like it’d been waiting for me.
A single frame loaded. White background, black text. Simple. Brutal.
I’ve missed you, My Silas. We’ll see each other again soon.
My heart stopped. Not slowed, not skipped—stopped. Like someone had ripped the wires out of my chest.
My Silas .
Two words, hers and hers alone.
Our mother had a name for each of us, a private thread tying her to her boys. Marcus was My Lion . Atlas, My Oak . But me? I was My Silas .
Her voice echoed in my head, soft but sharp, the way she’d say it when she tucked me in, when she thought I was asleep. Before she vanished. Before Department 77. Before the lies that broke us.
I swiped at the screen, frantic, looking for more. Nothing. No apps, no contacts, no files. Just that message, burned into my retinas.
I tapped again, harder, like I could force the phone to cough up answers. It didn’t. A minute later, the screen went black, the phone powering down with a soft click. Dead.
I pressed the button, shook it, cursed under my breath. Nothing. Like it’d done its job and quit.
I sat there, the whiskey forgotten, my pulse hammering in my ears.
My mother. She was out there. Not a ghost, not a memory—real. Alive. Charlie hadn’t been cracking. He’d seen her, and now she’d reached out. To me. Not my brothers, not the family—just me.
My Silas .
What the hell did it mean? A taunt? A promise? A trap?
My mind spun, chasing threads that didn’t connect. Department 77. Was this them, playing me? Or was it her, breaking free, reaching out?
I paid the tab—five bucks with a hundred-dollar bill, the bartender’s eyes bugging out as I stumbled toward the door. I didn’t care.
The air outside hit me like a slap, thick with humidity and the tang of the harbor.
I walked, no direction, just movement, my boots scuffing the cracked sidewalks of Charleston’s fringes.
I squinted at every face I passed—an old woman with a grocery bag, a drunk swaying under a streetlight, a couple laughing outside a taco joint.
Was she here? Watching? Waiting around the next corner?
My heart thudded in my chest, urging me to keep going, to find her.
For an hour, I wandered. Past dive bars and shuttered shops, through alleys that smelled of piss and regret.
My mother’s face haunted me—I imagined it older now, lined with years I hadn’t seen, but hers. I’d know her anywhere.
My Silas .
I should’ve gone to my brothers. Should’ve called a meet, laid the phone on the war room table, let Elias crack it open and pull whatever data was left inside. They deserved to know. She was their mother, too.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
This was personal, a knife slipped between my ribs, and I wasn’t ready to share the wound.
My Silas .
She’d wanted me to see it, me to feel it. Why? To pull me in? To warn me? To break me?
My feet stopped moving, and I realized where I was. The Palmetto Rose loomed ahead, its porch lights soft against the night, crepe myrtles swaying like they knew my secrets.
Portia was here.
I hadn’t planned it, hadn’t meant to come. But my body had made the choice, dragging me to her like a compass finding north. I needed her. Not for sex, not for the fire we’d lit in that shop—though fuck, I could still feel her, taste her.
I needed her because she’d seen me, really seen me, and hadn’t flinched. Because she’d matched me, blow for blow, and left me standing in the wreckage.
I took the back stairs, avoiding Sasha’s eagle-eyed desk. All the Danes had master keys to the Rose—Ryker’s idea. The halls were quiet, the carpet muffling my steps as I climbed to the second floor, far corner. Portia’s suite.
I stood outside her door, my fist hovering, my chest tight.
What the hell was I doing? I didn’t do this. Didn’t chase women, didn’t beg, didn’t show up like a kicked dog looking for a pat.
But I knocked. Three sharp raps, too loud in the silence.
The door opened, and there she was—Portia Lane, her curls loose now, spilling over a silk robe that clung to her curves. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, searching my face.
I didn’t give her time to speak.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words spilling out, fast and rough. “About the pictures. You can use whatever you get. Portfolio, website, whatever. I was being stupid. Overprotective.”
The word felt heavy, like a stone in my throat.
Overprotective.
It wasn’t just about the weddings, the family. It was her. I’d pushed her away because she’d gotten under my skin, because I couldn’t afford to want her. Not with Department 77 out there, not with my mother’s ghost calling my name.
I thought of my brothers—Marcus’s grin, Atlas’s quiet strength, Charlie’s haunted eyes. My father, gone too soon. My mother, her voice in my head.
My Silas .
The past was a chain, dragging me back.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, softer this time. “I won’t bother you. Won’t get in your way. I’ve got work to do.”
I couldn’t hold her gaze. My eyes kept slipping—to the floor, the doorframe, the curve of her shoulder under that robe. I turned to leave, my chest hollow. I’d said what I needed to. She could keep her job, her legacy. I’d stay out of it. Stay focused. Find my mother, end this war.
But her hand caught mine, warm and firm, stopping me cold.
“You don’t have to go,” she said, her voice low, a quiet command.
She pulled me into the suite, the door clicking shut behind us.