Chapter 22 #3
“I should have ended that bastard years ago when I had the chance. When he stamped out every beautiful thing I’d ever known in my life. Nothing but a pathetic alcoholic who doesn’t deserve to breathe.”
He croaked over every syllable.
“Silas…”
He gave a harsh shake of his head. “And after all of that, there’s no question I should have ended him the night I went to save Kai from his grips, but I didn’t, thinking I’d lose the last shred of humanity that I possessed.
And now that fucker and junkie bitch think they’re actually going to get him back. ”
I gasped when Silas suddenly whirled, and in a blurry instant, he was on his feet and standing at the end of the bed.
Wearing only his underwear. Chest bare. Scars littered his body, and the morbid, grotesque faces on his throat wound down with the rest of the ink that covered the entirety of his chest and abdomen.
That similar depiction of the crows on the grave all of his motorcycle club wore was painted across his chest, though the scene was embellished. Crows flying through the air and carrying corpses.
Stamped right in the middle of it was It’s Your Heart, the letters dripping blood over a date from fifteen years ago onto the grave below it.
He clearly believed his was hopeless.
But after what he had just told me? Did I believe that?
He gripped the sheets on either side of me, and he dove in close, our noses bumping as he did.
“I won’t let it happen, Brinley. I won’t let anyone hurt that little boy.
Won’t let anyone hurt Elena. Won’t let anyone hurt you.
I’ll lose every last shred of humanity that I have to see it through.
Good thing since there’s not much of it left, anyway. ”
Then he whipped away, snatching his jeans from the floor and shoving into them, doing the same with his shirt, before he snagged his boots from the floor and stomped out without looking back.
The door slammed shut behind him right as gutting pain slashed through my middle.
Pain for Kai.
Pain for Elena.
Pain for the man.
Crap.
I was in so much trouble.
I inched down the stairs, freshly showered and ready for the day.
Unsure that I could face the people I could feel rustling around on the bottom floor, their laughter and voices carrying from the kitchen.
Not with everything that had been revealed, even though I was fully aware there were a thousand more concealed secrets lingering in the corners.
I kept easing down, my footsteps quieted on the wooden planks.
A television droned quietly from the living room, and as I stepped onto the bottom landing, I paused, caught by the news story playing out on the screen.
A male reporter stood in front of yellow tape that cordoned off an area near the shore.
His voice was muted by the volume level, but it was still loud enough that I could make out what he was saying.
“I’m here in Southern Oregon, twelve miles south of Harrisburg Beach where the bodies of five men were discovered early this morning by local fishermen.
At this time, neither the cause of death nor the victims’ identities have been released, but we are told this is being considered a homicide investigation. ”
He gestured behind him. “As you see, we’ve had constant activity by law enforcement agents, but so far, no official statement has been made.”
He returned facing forward. “But a local resident who wanted to remain anonymous spoke with me, telling a sordid story about this corridor being used for drug trafficking, their small community wrought with a string of fentanyl overdoses. While we have no confirmation of a connection, there is speculation that this morning’s grisly discovery may be related.
We’ll bring you more details as we have them. ”
The camera cut to the female reporter in the studio. “Thank you, Greg. And after this break, we’ll be back with your weather forecast…”
The peel of giggles coming from the kitchen ripped my attention away, and I shook off the chills that slid down my spine.
I hated it.
Hated the violence and cruelness and the horrible things that infiltrated our homes and communities.
The things that destroyed our families.
That shiver cut deeper, the sickening thought of Dereck getting involved in something so deplorable turning my stomach. Last night, every scenario had spun through my brain as I tried to piece together what he had done that was so awful.
I just couldn’t imagine it or accept it. Not after he’d promised he would clean his life up. That he’d never repeat his mistakes.
But he hadn’t exactly been honest about that, had he?
I inhaled a cleansing breath, forcing it off, then fortified my armor again as I inched toward the kitchen archway.
Stalling at the threshold, I peeked inside.
Meems was on the other side of the bar, dumping ingredients for what looked to be a dessert into a big mixing bowl, while Elena was beside her with Kai in her arms.
She swayed and danced with him, the little boy’s soft curls bouncing around his chubby, pink cheeks, his eyes full of joy and mirth as she spun him around, nonstop giggles rolling out of his precious cherub mouth.
My heart squeezed. Squeezed so fiercely I didn’t recognize the sensation.
Sorrow and hope and this perception of protectiveness that came completely unbidden.
Silas had it all wrong. His determination to fight for that little boy with everything he had was what made him human.
I should be afraid of it. Of the clear threat that he had made. But standing right there, I realized the lengths I would go, too.
Because that little grin only grew when Kai noticed me, and he reached a hand in my direction.
“Bwinwey!”
Elena stopped spinning him, and her expression brightened even further when she turned toward me. “Well, good morning, sleepyhead.”
I arched a brow. “It’s not even eight.”
She giggled. “We’re early risers around here. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
For real? There was a biker club across the property. You’d think everyone would be dead to the world until two.
And I would not be getting used to it. I wasn’t going to be around that long. This had to end, and it had to end soon. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it.
Not when Silas kept confusing every rationality that I possessed.
“We’re almost ready for breakfast dessert,” Elena added with a grin.
“Breakfast dessert?” I asked in a cloud of amused perplexity.
Meems hummed as she started to mix the batter. “I always figured there was no reason for holding off on the best things in life, so rather than capping the day off with sweets, we tend to start them that way.”
A single one of my brows arched for the sky. “I do remember the cherry pie we capped the night off with last night.”
It was probably the reason Silas smelled like cherries all the time. Decadently sweet while the man dripped with poison.
He was nothing but confliction.
Meems chuckled. “Well, that is because we had a very special guest at the table, and besides, we do a whole lot of indulging around here. You might as well sample the good if it’s sitting right out in front of you.”
My stomach twisted. I wanted that. To live that way. To reach out and take a little of what I wanted when it was offered to me.
Too bad that offering usually bit me on the hand.
“And was a little good going down in that bedroom last night?” Elena wagged her brows.
Pure suggestion.
My throat grew thick.
“Um…no. Absolutely not.”
Whatever had gone down between Silas and me last night and this morning definitely could not be considered good.
At best, it was greed and gluttony and dipping your toes in dangerous waters. That was if you were one of those ‘look on the bright side’, positive sorts of people.
Tantamount to tossing around a nuclear grenade if we were at all being practical.
Because I was pretty sure the small amount of safety I’d built around myself was close to being blasted to smithereens.
Kaboom.
Obliterated with a brush of his malicious hands.
Meems’s gaze swept over me, looking me up and down, as if she could see the imprint of her grandson’s hands plastered all over my body.
Not that we’d really gotten up to much, but to me, it felt illicit since I hadn’t experienced anything close to that in a long, long time.
In discomfort, I shifted on my feet.
“It sure looks like someone wanted it to,” she speculated.
Did this woman read minds?
I huffed. “No way.”
“Yes, way!” Kai peeped like it was a game, holding onto Elena’s neck with both hands as he leaned back and beamed my way.
Elena laughed. “I think it’s written all over you, Brinley Webber.”
“And what’s that?”
“That you have a thing for my brother.”
“No, I’m not, I can’t…”
I didn’t mean for the last to come out, and I wrung my hands when I realized the way it sounded.
Exactly the way I meant it.
But I didn’t need either of them privy to that. No one got that piece of me, not that there was ever anyone there to hold it.
Except everything slowed, and the playfulness drained as Meems set her mixing spoon aside.
The woman looked at me as if she’d known me my entire life.
Like she cared about me.
Wanted the best for me.
“You are worth every good thing in this world, sweet one. Don’t you ever question it or let anyone make you believe that you don’t deserve it.”
“I…” I couldn’t force real words out around the lump in my throat, but I finally managed to whisper, “You don’t even know me.”
She eased around the counter, and there was no stopping the burn at the back of my eyes as she approached.
She simply took my hand and squeezed it. “But I can see you. Hear you. Feel you. And I feel your pain the same way as I’ve had to feel it in every single one of my grandchildren.”
Sorrow wisped through her aged features. “I couldn’t stop it, though Lord knows I wish I could have, but somehow I’ve been blessed enough to get the chance to try to see them through the other side of it.”
A rush of tenderness and understanding gushed out of Elena, and she held Kai tighter as she stepped toward us like she was drawn.
That same pain that I’d sensed in her last night was present, but it was muddled by the type of hope that her grandmother was talking about.
“And no, I can never take away the atrocities that were inflicted on them. Can never erase the horrors or the memories or the scars. But I can love them through it. I can be there to urge them to accept every good thing that is set in front of them rather than them rejecting it because they’re afraid of it being ripped away. ”
She squeezed my hand a bit tighter. “Trauma does that to you. It tries to steal the joy from your future, too.”
Her voice shifted to a desperate wheeze. “You can’t let it.”
A tear slipped free. I didn’t even know it was there. I’d never felt so vulnerable or exposed in all my life.
It appeared the harsh facade I normally wore had been left at this house’s front door.
Part of me wanted to run out and grab it. Don it the way I did my clothes and shoes.
Protect myself the only way I knew how.
But Elena was looking at me with her spirit splayed wide, soft hazel eyes shining with moisture, and she was hugging that little boy.
I was still reeling from the bare glimpse Silas had given me into what the child had likely suffered.
“Meems is right, just like you were last night,” Elena prodded, dragging me back to when I’d been trying to give her encouragement. And there they were, turning around and doing the same for me.
“Your heart will know,” she emphasized.
Then she laughed a tinkling sound. “And I’m not saying it’s my brother who will make you feel that way because that man is about as overbearing as they come and you can do a million times better…”
Playfulness ridged her brows, and I knew she wasn’t truly trashing Silas since she grinned this wry, overindulgent grin as she mumbled out of the side of her mouth, “But I can’t help but feel a little somethin’ somethin’ when the two of you are in the room together.”
“Oh, you aren’t the only one,” Meems agreed. “Two of them are nothing but flame and gasoline.”
“You should have felt it, Meems, when Silas came waltzing back late last night and I was in there having a chat with our Brinley? The energy was as heavy as a bomb.”
Kaboom.
Obliterated.
Just like I’d worried.
“There’s nothing between us,” I defended on a shaky breath. “I’m only here until we get this thing sorted with my brother.”
Whatever the hell that was.
“Mmhmm…well, you might as well take a little good while you’re here.” It was pure suggestion out of the mouth of Silas’s grandmother.
I choked over a disoriented laugh. Was she actually suggesting what I thought she was?
But I didn’t have a grandmother or an anyone to give me crap, and I’d be a liar if I denied that I loved it just a little bit.
And that was the whole problem.
I was pretty sure I could love far too easily when it came to them.
Reckless girl, just begging to get her heart bashed in a little more.
I lifted my chin and tried to shove all the emotion down, playing it light, an attempt at a joke as I forced out the rebuttal. “I think I’ll have to pass on that certain kind of indulgence, thank you very much. I’m usually a safe road kind of girl.”
And I wasn’t about to allow myself to be a doormat anymore.
I forced a giant grin. “But I will take a little something of whatever you’re getting ready to bake over there.”
Meems chuckled as she started to waddle back toward the kitchen area. “We’ll see about that. But at least you’re taking a little of the good that I have to offer.”
Then she paused and looked back. “It doesn’t matter where it comes from, Brinley. The good. The joy. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t shun it. Live it.”
I stood there dazed for a moment before I was being jolted back in surprise when chubby hands were suddenly reaching for me.
Kai basically jumped out of Elena’s hold and into mine. Giggling and wiggling as he wrapped his little arms around my neck.
His weight so perfect and right, and my heart was getting filled to capacity again. If I wasn’t careful, it would burst from the pressure.
Then he edged back so he could see my face, his tiny palm patting his chest. “My Bwinwey?”
More of that insecurity. More of his fear that he was going to be forgotten or left behind. But in spite of it, he was still brave enough to ask for what his little soul needed.
One of my hands curled up to cup the back of his head as I held him close, and I pressed a kiss to his temple, fighting the words that broke loose in a jagged whisper. “Yeah, baby, your Brinley.”