Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
brINLEY
The faintest morning light infiltrated the drapes, glittering tendrils of gold that curled through the darkness and brushed across the harsh angles of Silas’s foreboding, beautiful face.
I would have never guessed that the time would come when I would find complete comfort in it.
He kept running the pad of his thumb over my cheek as he stared at me through the gauzy light like he was also having a hard time believing that he could look at me this way.
The connection we shared hummed between us.
Commitment.
The claim he had made in front of his entire MC last night twining us together.
But fear was also present.
A feeling that had crept into the room the moment we’d woken tangled with the first rays of morning light.
“I’m scared,” I finally admitted on a whisper into the stillness that wrapped us whole.
Everything that had brought us together culminated tonight.
Knowing eyes slowly blinked. “I won’t tell you not to be, but I will promise that I will come back to you.
There is nothing in this world that could keep me away from you, Brinley Webber.
Not when I just found you. I would decimate a fucking army.
Topple a thousand cities. Crawl through Hell to get back to you.
Nothing will stop me. Not when I finally have this light to guide me home. ”
Relief swelled, my belief in him, and I scratched my fingernails through the stubble on his jaw.
I was inundated with a rise of old sorrow and pain mixed with the peace of his promise.
My mother’s weathered, broken face.
Her one request of me.
Dereck’s eager, innocent smile before everything had gone to shit.
I felt overwhelmed by the love I would always have for him, no matter what.
“Bring my brother back to me?” It was a coarse, harrowed plea.
The arrow that slaked down Silas’s spine was almost imperceptible, but I felt it like I was the one being staked.
His gaze churned in unease for a beat before his chin dipped. “I promise you.”
He paused, attention darting to the wall as he gathered himself, swiping his tongue over his dried lips, before his focus returned.
“You probably won’t see me for the rest of the day. We need to prep and prepare before we roll out. I’ll have seven Crows here standing guard, plus a bunch of prospects.”
He winced with the last. I could tell he hated it. Hated that he had to leave us, and he kept brushing his fingers through my curls like in doing it, he might be able to leave a piece of himself here.
I hated it, too, but I wasn’t so selfish that I’d beg him to stay even though I kind of felt like getting onto my knees. Maybe find some handcuffs so I could shackle him to my wrist.
“We’ll be fine and waiting for you when you return.”
His nod was jerky, and he took my hand and pressed a bunch of kisses to the knuckles. “I love you, Brinley. You are my redemption that I never saw coming.”
His eyes flicked all over my face, his hands so tender as they kept weaving through the ringlets of my hair. “I swear I will spend my life cherishing you. Adoring you. Protecting you and uplifting you. Both feeding your desires and satisfying them.”
Intensity blazed from him. “I have every intention of putting a property patch on you the second I get back, but what that really means is that I’m yours. Always and fucking forever.”
My chest expanded. This love thrashing and pressing within its confines. “I think I’m going to like being your old lady.”
I attempted to say it light, but it was lumpy and unpolished.
Silas’s grin was soft. “Yeah, baby, I’m going to make sure you do.”
I showered and dressed with shaky hands. Wandered downstairs, held Kai and peppered a million kisses over his face.
Uncertain looks were shared with Meems and Elena. Both of them were so much more somber in their morning greetings than normal.
There was no missing the dread and worry that filled each second that passed.
Or maybe we were just feeding it into each other. The way it’d amped and increased in me the second Silas had grabbed his cut from the back of the bedroom sofa and strode out the door.
On a mission I didn’t completely understand but supported one hundred percent.
Elena had thought it was strange that I was going into the office, but the truth was, there was no chance I could sit idle in that house for the entire day and night and not completely go out of my mind.
Wondering.
Worrying.
Waiting.
Wanting to know all the answers to the questions swirling in a vortex in my brain.
But I had to trust that Silas would give me all of that once everything was said and done.
Trust that it was better that I remained in the dark until it was over.
So I headed to the shop office, opened the laptop, and set to work.
Trying to organize this aspect of Silas’s life while a charged yet bated chaos took to the property. The air thick and heavy as motorcycles came and went.
I focused the best that I could on the receivables that had come in. Depositing checks on the app, marking the accounts as paid, sending out reminder invoices to the few that still hadn’t been received.
Anxiety burned through every beat. My skin prickling and my heart pounding.
I tried to focus, but my attention kept snagging on the row of icons at the bottom of the laptop where every few minutes a little folder symbol would pop up before it would recede.
It was clearly a shared folder.
I didn’t know what it was, but every time that icon shot into my vision, it felt like a coming implosion.
Awareness came on fast. Pins and needles skittered across my flesh.
There were all those old folders I’d checked out before, and never once had I noticed one of those icons flash before.
I tried to ignore it, clicking into a new program so I could pay some of the shop’s bills, only it flashed again.
Disquiet gripped my throat, and I glanced around the empty office. All covert and sneaky.
I hated that it was the same sensation I’d gotten the first night I was here and sneaked out of the room where I’d been placed.
Knowing I was traversing dangerous ground that was about to open from below and swallow me.
Following the path anyway since I was reckless like that.
I wavered, hesitated, before I finally clicked on the icon.
It was easy to tell myself that Silas had given me the laptop and he hadn’t given me any instructions about staying out of certain things.
As far as I was concerned, it was free range.
Except this folder?
It came with a passcode.
My stomach twined in a torturous twist, and my heart rattled in my chest.
Why I was so unsettled, I wasn’t sure. But some things in life triggered a sixth sense, and this was one of them.
I swept my tongue over my bottom lip. Why couldn’t I just freaking trust the way that Silas had asked me to?
I loved the man.
Desperately.
Wholly.
Didn’t I?
So why was I looking over my shoulder again to make sure no one was around before I turned back, fingers poised over the keys?
Contemplating.
Adding.
Solving.
My nails clacked over the keys.
Silas’s birthdate.
Nope.
Elena’s.
Nu-uh.
Kai’s.
Frustration spun through me when I found it wasn’t his, either.
Crap, I didn’t even know Meems’s or Brody’s birthdays.
I tried a few different variations of Crimson Crows, though I was pretty sure that would be way too generic and obvious.
And then it hit me.
A solid piece of reality.
My heart jackhammered as I typed in the code, already knowing it would grant me access.
It’s your heart followed by the date below it.
He never confirmed it, but I knew it was the day his mother had been killed.
A surprised gasp left me when it granted me access, and I realized there had to be a hundred different files inside.
Different than in every other folder that I’d clicked into the moment Silas had originally left me with this laptop, though I’d given up halfway through since there was nothing of value. Assuming they were all the same and contained old invoices, I’d never opened this one.
I clicked into a random file. It was just a regular Word document. In every way, it appeared inconsequential.
Somehow, I knew it was not.
It was a date and a town in central California.
I fumbled for my phone and inputted both into the search.
The results populated, and there was a news article that stood out above the others.
Eight men found slaughtered at a house on the outskirts of town.
My spirit stretched taut like a rubber band, and I inhaled a steadying breath and clicked into another.
Another document.
Another date and town.
Seven men. All dead. Their murders remained an unsolved mystery.
I clicked through more.
More dates and towns.
More dead men.
All with suspected ties to criminal organizations.
Mafia. Cartels. Gangs.
My blood sloshed, a flood that I could feel gushing through my veins.
I knew.
Of course I knew, and I promised him that I didn’t care, but seeing this threw me off balance.
Shuddered through me on a torrent of uncertainty.
It was the whys that made it so hard to comprehend. No longer could I fathom Silas a cold-blooded killer.
Then there were different documents.
Money.
So much money.
Money so different from the shop money I’d been tasked to track.
Millions and millions.
No documents to indicate its origination or its destination.
Just numbers without dollar signs, though instinct told me what they represented.
I wondered if stacks of cash were buried at the back of the property with a heap of bodies.
I thought I could handle it, everything that Silas was, but right then, my stomach was revolting.
Bile climbing my throat as the horrors were marked like lashes across my conscience.
How deep did this go?
How far?
How horrible?
I attempted to tamp it back. Come tomorrow, Silas would explain and everything would be okay.
Or was I only lying to myself?
Falling for a killer and pretending like all was fine and dandy?
No big deal.
Is this how decent people were led astray?