6. Silas
Ophelia shudders at my words. She takes a step away, then turns, looks up at me and, panic in her wide eyes, runs.
I catch her arm, tug her to me. Her breath is ragged, and her pulse throbs at her throat. I can almost hear the blood pounding against her ears. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
Never taking my eyes from Ophelia, I motion over her head to Lourdes and Father Emiliano. They make some excuse about having forgotten something at the cabin and hurry out, leaving us alone in the chapel.
“Tell me.” I lean my face closer to hers. “Is it still not real?”
She sets her hands flat against my chest as she tries to free herself. “Let me go.”
I can’t because the game has changed. The stakes have grown significantly higher. Nigella’s call was to tell me that Hart was attacked in prison last night.
I consider how much to tell Ophelia, how to tell her that an inmate stabbed her father in the gut with a shiv. According to Nigella’s sources, the wound would have been painful, but not deadly.
It was a message.
Hart is recovering at a hospital in Boston now and will remain there for at least the next few days.
I had thought I’d tell Ophelia once this is done and she’s safely my wife and out of harm’s reach. She’ll want to see her father, which I understand, but I have to prioritize now, and Hart can wait.
“Silas, let me go.”
I search her eyes and what I see is a woman cornered, a woman out of options.
Sly, Ethan, and even her own father have done this to her. What about me? Do I not rank among those men who have manipulated her to their own ends? In some way, if I’m honest, she is a pawn to me as much as she is to them. Yes, what I am doing I am doing to protect her from them. But what about me? Will I truly be able to let her go if she does want out when this is done?
I drop my hands and step around Ophelia to go to the altar. I stop before it, the fire crackling, flames casting shadows, the small windows barely letting in light. This place, there’s a feel to it, an almost tangible scent that belongs to it and a deep and complete silence between these stone walls that seem to permeate every pore of my body. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I don’t believe in any god. But there is an undeniable presence here.
A golden crucifix stands at the center of the altar. It’s been here forever. The son of God who sacrificed himself to save the very human beings who crucified him, who never wanted to be saved. I remember what Ophelia said to me the night I thought—the night I believed—things had changed between us. The night that was supposed to be a beginning for us.
She told me I was always rescuing her.
I told her she always needed rescuing.
She’s never asked to be rescued though. Never asked for me to save her. I need to be honest with her. That piece of paper she wanted me to sign last night, that’s not going to work. The marriage will need to be consummated. It needs to be real to keep her safe. If I’m not honest about that part, at least, then I am no better than any of the other men in her life.
I run my fingers along the cool stone of the altar before turning back to Ophelia. She is standing where I left her, in the middle of the aisle, in her borrowed wedding dress, her hair wild, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a fucking bulldozer.
Right now, I am that bulldozer.
“My mother used to come here to hear Mass most Sundays of her life.”
I make my way to the baptismal font, which I am not sure has been used in this century. I walk around it, my footsteps echoing off the stone floors and walls. Ophelia watches me as I follow the stations of the cross marking the path Jesus took on his way to the top of the hill of Golgotha where he was crucified.
“In the end, I’d bring her up here when she wasn’t too weak, and Father Emiliano would say Mass just to her even as she drifted off when she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.” I circle back to the front, touch the beads of a wooden rosary wrapped around the feet of the dying Jesus. “She believed and believed right up until the end. Not that it mattered. God had turned his back on her a long time ago. But she just kept on believing in the goodness of people. In truth and honesty and doing the right thing, the good thing, when she never got any of that back.”
When I turn to Ophelia, she hasn’t moved, but tears wet her cheeks. She loved my mother too. I know that.
I go to her, brush them away with my thumbs, because I’m not telling her this to gain any favor, any sympathy. I’m telling her because it’s what my mother would have expected from me. Truth. Doing the right thing. It’s how she lived her life, and to lie outright to Ophelia now, it goes against the memory of Esmerelda Cruz. Ophelia should know the truth, as much of it as I can tell, even though she has no choice in what will happen today.
“You should know something before we do this,” I say, and I hear the shift in my tone, the coolness in it.
She must feel it too because she wraps her arms around herself.
I reach into my pocket and take out that scrap of paper she had me sign. I hold it between us and watch how her eyes harden and narrow as she realizes what it is. She’d left it on the desk. I’d taken it before we’d come here. Maybe I intended to do the right thing all along. Who the fuck knows?
“This? This isn’t the way this is going to work.” I rip the paper in half before her eyes.
Her mouth drops open, gaze shifting from that scrap of paper up to me.
“This, you can have,” I say, holding out the part about letting her go once this is over. She snatches it. “But this?” I rip the other half again, the part that says I won’t touch her—because I will touch her, and we will consummate our union. “This marriage cannot be contested. This won’t work.”
She lunges for me. “You fucking bastard!”
I hold the piece of paper just out of reach and tear it again twice more before letting it slip from my fingers, the scraps landing at our feet.
“You can’t do that,” she says, looking down at the torn contract between us. “You promised!” She drops down to her knees to collect the scraps.
I watch her gather them up, then crouch down to take her arms and make her look at me because I’m going to give her something in exchange for what I just did. Something important.
“Love,” I say, my own heart racing, the word one I’m not sure I’ve ever used with anyone apart from my mother. It’s foreign-sounding and strange as it echoes off the walls of this place.
Ophelia is clearly confused. She shakes her head, and I can imagine her thinking she misheard me.
I straighten, pulling her to her feet. I don’t let her go because I think she’ll bolt if I do. Although there’s nowhere for her to go, I know Father Emiliano will not perform the ceremony if she is not willing. It was his one requirement.
“Last night, you asked me what I’d marry for,” I say, hearing the gruffness of my voice.
Her eyes search mine, confusion, and disbelief and, ultimately, distrust inside them. She’s never looked at me like this before, and I don’t like it.
“Love,” I repeat the word and it’s a little easier to say this time. Not so odd-sounding. Not so wrong. “I’d marry for love, Ophelia.”
Her cheeks flush. She shakes her head as if to clear it. “You’re a liar.”
That’s not what I expect, not after my confession, and this time, it’s me who is taken aback.
“Do you remember what I told you last night?” she asks, her eyes aflame. “I told you that I don’t love you. That I will never love you. What you’re doing now, saying that, it’s cruel. And I don’t believe you love me. You’re a liar. It has taken me far too long to see that truth. To see you truly are your father’s son.”
Her words slam into me more painfully than if she’d have slapped me, and I find myself reeling backward.
She tries to free herself, but I tighten my grip, processing. Not understanding.
“Did you hear me?” I ask, voice hoarse and not like my own.
“Yeah. I heard you. And I saw what you did. I saw you sign that piece of paper agreeing to what I wanted for a change, and then I watched you tear it up because what I wanted never truly mattered to you, did it? It never has. Let me go.” She twists against my grip, pushing at my chest.
“Did you fucking hear me?”
“Did you just sign it to humor me? Were you having a good laugh, yet another one, at my expense? I mean, all you need from me is my I do, right? And once we are married, you can do whatever you want. I know that. You can do whatever you want whenever you want no matter what we agreed on. I mean, look at us. Here and now. If I want to walk out of here, are you going to let me go?”
“Things have changed, Ophelia. Last night?—”
“Would you let me walk out of here?” she demands.
“No.”
“Exactly,” she says, anger, hurt, and frustration warring in her eyes, making them burn a deep amber. “At least don’t be cruel, Silas.”
“I’m not being?—”
“Let go.”
“Listen to me, Ophelia.”
“Let go of me, Silas.”
“No. Fuck! Something happened last night.”
“Let go!”
“Fucking listen.” I shake her once. “It’s your father.”
She stops fighting, then blinks up at me as if not quite sure what to do.
The chapel door opens in that moment, and Father Emiliano and Lourdes appear, alarm in their expressions.
“Silas,” Father Emiliano says.
I pull Ophelia closer out of instinct because something is wrong.
“They know you’re here,” he says. “It’s all over the news.”
“What happened to my dad?” Ophelia asks, voice small.
I keep hold of her with one hand, scrub my chin with the other. “We need to get this done. Now,” I say, not sure if it’s to Ophelia or to Father Emiliano or what.
Father Emiliano’s eyes move from me to Ophelia, taking in the fact that she is not standing beside me of her own free will.
“Silas, I told you, I won’t do it without her consent.”
“You’ll have it.” Any way I need to get it. I turn to Ophelia. “There was an attack in the prison last night.”
Her face goes white this time. “What attack?”
“Your father was stabbed.”
“What?”
“He’s going to be all right.” I rush to fill in. “He’s in the hospital.”
“I have to go to him.”
“I’ll take you. I promise. As soon as I can. But Ophelia, we need to do this now. The game has changed. The stakes are too high. Too dangerous.”
“It’s not a game, Silas. It’s never been a game. This is my life. Please let me go to him. Please.”
“Agree to this. Say the words, and I’ll make sure you see him. Whether you believe me or not, I am doing this to keep you safe. And all those things you think about me, well, you’re not right—not about all of it at least. Not about me being cruel. Being like Sullivan Fox. And I’ll prove it to you, after. Once you’re safe, I’ll prove it to you by letting you go. I promise.”
“Whatever you say, whatever you promise, whether I believe you or not, I have no choice but to consent.”
I can’t give her a choice. Doesn’t she see that?
She shakes her head, and the way she looks at me wounds worse than her words did earlier. But I can’t think about that now. Can’t focus on that. Because saving Ophelia is what matters and if I need to be the villain to do it, so be it.
“Say yes, Ophelia.”
She looks from me to Father Emiliano and, after a long moment, closes her eyes and nods.
Father Emiliano sighs a heaving breath and squeezes her shoulder as he makes his way to the altar. Lourdes follows him, and we turn to face that crucifix. Father Emiliano begins the ceremony.