Chapter 2
SILAS
The darkness here is complete. There’s no light pollution this far from Sinistral, an hour away from any town in any direction.
That darkness is only broken by headlights in the very far distance.
Snow is coming down hard. You’d have to be a fool to drive the winding, narrow road along the cliffs tonight.
My gaze shifts from the thick, densely packed white flakes falling beyond the single-paned window to my own face reflected in the glass.
I look like hell. I haven’t slept apart from an hour snatched here or there when I can’t keep my eyes open.
My usual five o’clock shadow has grown into a beard, and circles ring the skin around my eyes.
I turn to look into the room. The fire in the wood stove is burning down. I go to it, open the glass door and set another log on. I remain crouched and watch it as it takes, a flame shooting high, wood crackling as fire engulfs it. I close the door and stand, thinking about her house.
Did the flames take as quickly there as they have here? According to Nigella, who has read the detective’s reports, they did. Fueled by gasoline, it had taken no time at all for the years of memories to turn to ash in a matter of minutes.
I brush off my hands, turn my back to the fire, and watch Ophelia lying still and small in the bed that seems too large for her. It’s been almost a week since Sly had me dragged out of The Sinistral in handcuffs. In that time, I’ve learned what Horatio Hart’s box contained and why he was hiding it.
My shoes are quiet on the threadbare carpet as I cross the room to stand over the bed.
I look down at Ophelia, pushing my hands into my pockets.
She’s asleep, has been since I got her here.
Ethan drugged her. I know that much. But she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when I crashed my SUV into their limo.
None of them were. She smashed her head against the window so maybe it’s not quite that she’s asleep but unable to wake.
The thought is terrifying.
Driving my SUV into their limo was the only thing I could think to do. I didn’t realize it would cause the damage it did. All I knew was that I needed to stop Ethan from taking her.
It all makes sense now. The lack of a prenup had never been a matter of trust—not that I’d thought it was.
Sly and Ethan must have known for some time about the Carlisle-Bents.
Sly Fox was playing the long game. He was in no rush.
My guess as far as his plan was that once Ophelia came of age, she and Ethan would marry.
After that, he would reunite Ophelia with her long-lost and very wealthy grandfather, Gordon Carlisle-Bent.
One man stood in his way, though: Horatio Hart.
Did Sly make a call and tip off the FBI about the missing funds that landed Hart in prison?
Did he plant evidence and set Horatio Hart up for embezzling funds from a company Hart had built from nothing?
A company I do not see him stealing from.
Was it to remove him from the picture altogether or am I wrong about Hart?
Had he truly stolen that money? Greed is greed, after all, and no man is immune.
Money corrupts. Once you have it, you want more of it.
But was it Sly Fox who pinned the crime on Horatio?
If so, didn’t he expect that he, too, might get swept up in the investigation and be charged as an accomplice?
In striking that match and setting that fire, Sly had left himself exposed not only to prosecution but also to me.
If he defaults on the loan I made him, Hart & Fox Enterprises falls to me.
Something about the contract we agreed on has always niggled at me. It was too easy, and it isn’t like Sly to leave himself without options, without some out where he’d walk away smelling like a fucking rose all the way to the bank.
I’d chalked it up to desperation after the charges were filed, after he got off by a hair. A misjudgment on his part, I’d thought.
But he has known for years who Ophelia’s grandfather is.
I am sure of that. He’s well aware of Gordon Carlisle-Bent’s net worth.
When he learned about the old man’s health, though, did that accelerate his plans?
Does that explain the fire? Did he need to get me gone, too, to leave Ophelia defenseless?
But how would he have known I was even at the house? He wouldn’t.
Gordon Carlisle-Bent does not have much time left. Hell, he’d be lucky to see another Christmas. With both Horatio and me out of the way, Ophelia would be left unprotected, never suspecting them of any wrongdoing.
But there is something I’m still missing, one piece of the puzzle that is just out of reach, and I have a feeling that piece is crucial.
Why would Horatio take the fall like he did? If he knew that Fox had knowledge about who Ophelia’s grandfather is, about what he’d done in kidnapping Claire, why would he remove himself from the picture altogether and leave his daughter unprotected against a powerful enemy? It doesn’t add up.
Ophelia mutters something, her forehead creasing, agitated in sleep.
“Shh. You’re safe,” I tell her, brushing hair from her face but pulling my hand away when she flinches at my touch.
He beat her. Ethan Fox beat her black and blue.
The thought of what she endured because of me, because I, like her father, left her exposed and defenseless, makes me want to kill that son of a bitch.
He broke skin with his belt. Took out divots when the buckle dug into soft flesh. He whipped the bottoms of her feet raw.
I will kill him. I will kill Ethan Fox for what he did to her. I will kill Sullivan Fox. Hell, maybe Mira too. Maybe I should set their house on fire, like I am sure they did to hers. I am sure it was them. Who else would it be? Who would have cause?
But I’m back again to the same question.
What would they have to gain? Nothing. Fox doesn’t take risks, and a fire is too risky.
My having been at the house was a lucky break for him, but he wouldn’t have known my intention.
He couldn’t have known about the box Horatio had hidden beneath the floorboards of his study.
A soft knock on the door has me clearing my throat. I turn to watch Lourdes walk inside.
She smiles and nods in greeting. Lourdes is Father Emiliano’s sister. My mother knew them both for years, and I’d gotten to know them when I brought her up here at the end when she could no longer drive herself.
When I was little, we’d come together to hear Mass at the chapel, but that stopped by the time I was fourteen.
By then, I’d lost any belief I’d had in any higher being with any sort of plan for the human race.
No god could exist, or, if he did, he certainly wasn’t worth my time because he’d very clearly forgotten us.
As soon as I was old enough to stay home alone, I refused to accompany her.
I know it broke her heart to know I did not believe in her god, but I couldn’t.
In the end, though, in those last weeks when she could no longer drive herself, or even walk on her own without help, I moved us into the Boston brownstone and brought her up to that freezing chapel every fucking Sunday.
It was a comfort to her, and I sat beside her, she and I and Lourdes the only three in the pews as Father Emiliano said Mass.
All those times, as I held my mother’s frail, bird-like body close to mine, I’d cursed the very god she prayed to. She who was eternally grateful in the face of every shitty thing he sent her way, because fuck him. Fuck him for what he did to her. For forgetting her.
“Have you been here all day, Silas?” Lourdes asks in an accent so familiar, so similar to my mother’s, that it makes something ache inside me. I miss my mom. I miss her so much.
But I can’t think about that now. Ophelia needs me.
I nod. Nowhere to go, really, not with the snow.
Not with the arrest warrant hanging over my head.
It’s not just a charge of arson against me now.
There’s also that car wreck I caused. The one where witnesses watched me ram my SUV into Ethan Fox’s limo, where they recorded me pulling Ethan out of the wreckage and beating him before I kidnapped—yes, fucking kidnapped—Ophelia.
“I’m fine.” I gesture to Ophelia as Lourdes lifts her wrist and checks her pulse. “How long until she wakes up?”
“She will wake up when she’s ready.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“You have to trust, Silas.”
“Trust what? God?”
She smiles at me kindly as I snort. “If not God, then trust the miracle of the human body. She has a good, strong pulse, but you said yourself she has had a shock.”
“Several.” I look at Ophelia, shoving my hands back into my pockets.
“I made dinner. Come and eat.”
I shake my head. “I want to be here when she opens her eyes.”
She nods. She’s a kind woman my mom’s age.
“I’ll bring some to you then.” With that, she leaves, and I take a seat on the chair by the bed.
A phone rings, and it takes me a minute to realize it’s mine.
Nigella had sent a new one up with Hamish.
I couldn’t use the old one since the authorities could track me by it.
I stand up to answer, walking away from the bed in case Ophelia can hear me. “Nigella, you have news?”
“How is she?” Nigella asks.
“Still asleep.”
A beat passes. “Well, I do have some news. Good, actually. Chandler has been released from the hospital. He’ll be fine.”
I grunt. I couldn’t give a fuck about Chandler or Ethan’s well-being, but I realize Nigella as my attorney is happy there won’t be a murder charge added to the ever-growing list of shit they can put me behind bars with.
“I also know Gordon Carlisle-Bent flew into town. Sullivan Fox picked him up, along with his medical team, a few hours ago.”
“Shit.”
“He didn’t go to the hospital to see his son though, which is odd, don’t you think?”
“Not necessarily, not if he disowned him.”
“I don’t know. It’s still strange to me.”
“Where is he?”
“Where else? The Sinistral.”
Of course. “Horatio Hart—did you get a meeting arranged?”
“Silas, I already told you, you go near the prison, and you’ll be arrested on sight.”
“And you’ll be there to bail me out.”
“We can’t guarantee they’ll set bail given what is being circulated on social media. You’ve gone viral. Congratulations.”
I push a hand into my hair and watch the fire burn. Someone shot a video of me beating the shit out of Ethan before taking Ophelia and uploaded it to TikTok. Apparently, it was a big hit.
“You don’t make my job easy, Silas.”
“It’s why you get paid the big bucks, Nigella.
Did you get the other thing handled?” I ask, changing the subject because she’s right.
I can’t go anywhere just yet, not until I’m sure Ophelia is protected.
I can just see Sly spinning the Romeo and Juliet story the papers so loved to Ophelia’s grandfather and getting him on board for her to marry Ethan.
She sighs. “Check your email.”
I pull the phone away and glance at my inbox. There it is. “Good. Thank you.”
As I say it, I hear a sound, a shifting of the springs of the old, creaky bed. I turn slowly, my heart suddenly racing, and watch as Ophelia blinks her eyes open, reaching her hand up to her head. She stares up at the ceiling, her forehead creasing in confusion.
I clear my throat and step toward the bed. The sound and movement have her turning toward me, eyes trying to focus on me in this dimly lit room.
“Call me once you’ve arranged that meeting,” I say, disconnecting the call and tucking the phone into my pocket without waiting for Nigella’s response.
Ophelia pulls herself up to a seat. I watch, seeing the effort it takes her. She never once takes her eyes off me.
I smile, relieved to see her awake and alert.
“Hey, you,” I say, moving toward her. I reach out to touch her cheek but stop, surprised when she draws away from me, accusation in her eyes.
Surely, she couldn’t believe what they told her? That I’d set fire to her house. Surely, she wouldn’t.
“O?”
“Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again!”