Chapter Seven – Thea
Don’t ask me why, but I thought my brother would be back before noon. Silly me assumed that organizing a meeting with a local mafia boss would be easy-peasy, but I haven’t heard from him since he left the house, and when twelve o’clock rolls around, I know I’m in for a long day.
Why is it so long? Oh, you know, just the other mafia boss who’s restrained in the living room. The one who is always watching me, staring at me, smirking that stupidly sexy smirk like he knows he’s in my head.
But he isn’t. Not really. I mean, okay, sure, he’s the kind of guy I wouldn’t mind pinning me down and…
Whatever, right? I’m not really thinking about screwing Silus McLean.
I make myself a sandwich with some nearly-expired turkey, and then I mentally swear at myself because I’ll need to feed the asshole in the living room, too. I pull out some crackers for him. No way am I wasting any meat on him.
I eat first—in the kitchen, away from his eyes, mostly to give myself a break from that pitch-black stare—and then I feed him the crackers and give him a bit of water to drink. Being so close to him again, it makes me feel some kind of way.
Damn it. Leave it to me to be ridiculously attracted to the guy we kidnapped, AKA one of the most dangerous men in the entire city. I’ve heard stories of him, but I didn’t know what he looked like. It’s funny; no one ever mentions how hot he is.
After he’s eaten a few crackers and had some water to wash them down, he grins at me and says, “For my captor, you’re very interested in my well-being. Feeding me, helping me to the bathroom—I don’t think you’re cut out for this, Thea.” It’s the first thing he’s said to me since I threatened him with more duct tape.
I ignore him as I return the small plate and empty cup to the kitchen.
“It makes me wonder if you’re really okay with turning me over to Cormac. You have to know he’s going to kill me. Maybe he’ll have some fun with me and torture me for a while first, but he will definitely kill me in the end. Are you fine with that? Do you think you can live with yourself afterward? Even with the money—”
I grip the edge of the sink and bite the inside of my cheek as I listen to him drone on. I’m not dumb. I know he’s just saying this crap to get me to let him go, but he’s not wrong. Selling him to Cormac O’Connor… it would be Silus’s death sentence, and I don’t know if I’m really the kind of person who can look the other way.
Growing up in the city, you’re supposed to learn the opposite. Never stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. If something ain’t your business, keep on walking. When it gets down to it, you have your own life to pay attention to, to care about.
Max learned the lesson young, but my brother has always had more street smarts than me. It’s why I always followed his lead, even though he’s two years younger than me. It’s always his schemes, not mine. He could smooth talk his way out of anything, and I always admired him for that. Also, I was a bit jealous.
I shake my head and push away from the sink, slow to return to the couch in the living room. I don’t say anything to Silus, nor do I look at him; my gaze rests solely on the TV. His gun sits on the coffee table, close by just in case I need it.
This day could not go any slower. Seriously. It’s like time screeched to a halt, and every second feels like a minute and every minute is an hour. A strange feeling crawls up my back thanks to the bizarre circumstance and the uneasy knot in my stomach. I feel like I should’ve heard from Max by now.
I pull out my phone and text my brother: Any updates? And then I wait.
I wait, I wait, and I wait some more. One-thirty rolls around before I get a text back from him telling me he has a meeting with Cormac’s right-hand man today at three, to keep sitting tight and that he’s got this.
What else can I do besides sit tight?
As I set my phone down, I let out a soft sigh, which Silus instantly notices—you know, cause the guy’s full attention is on me. “Not good news, I take it?”
Rubbing my face with my hands, I mutter, “Looks like you might be here a little while longer.” It’s the last thing I want to admit, especially to Silus himself, because the longer he’s here, the more danger my brother and I are in.
“I already told you, Thea, all of this could be avoided if you let me go. The money’s still on the table.”
A part of me wants to believe him, as silly as it is. Then again, why is it we can trust Cormac and his men but not Silus? Surely both men are on the same level when it comes to trustworthiness, and the easiest way to end this whole situation is to let Silus go right now and accept his money… but in doing so, I’d piss my brother off by going behind his back.
No. We’re on the path he chose and we’re sticking to it.
Silus must sense where my thoughts are at, for he says, “Would it be so bad if you made the executive decision to release me? Surely your brother would understand eventually that in doing so you’d save him worlds of trouble.”
“This plan was always stupid and next to impossible, but I agreed to do it,” I tell Silus. “And I don’t go back on my word.”
He studies me, for once not smirking that blasted smirk. It’s a more serious face, his black gaze squinted, like he’s seeing me for the first time. “I suppose that is commendable. A man—or woman—is only as good as their word. If they’re known not to keep it, then they’re not worth very much at all.”
I shrug. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry about this. It’s nothing personal. It’s not like I enjoy the thought of what’ll happen to you once the deed is done. It’s just business.”
“Business,” Silus echoes. “Yes, I understand that as well. What you should be aware of, love, is that if this business backfires in your face, you are responsible for its consequences. Are you prepared?” The way he asks that question so gravely, he sounds like he’s asking me if I’m ready to take a bullet or something.
I don’t like it, and I don’t like the way he’s staring at me, so I get up and head to the bathroom off the kitchen, mainly to give myself some privacy.
Once I’m locked in the small room, I lean my back on the door and stare at the ceiling. My breathing comes out hard, much harder than it should. My nerves are shot, fried to hell and back. Right now my hands are pressed against the door behind me, but if I take them off I’m sure I’d see them trembling.
This is bad. Very bad. Silus shouldn’t be able to get in my head like this, but it’s as if he has a one-way ticket in. He knows exactly what to say to freak me out, and the asshole probably enjoys it the entire time.
Fuck.
I push away from the door and stumble to the sink, where I turn the water on. I stick both hands under the water and splash my face with the ice-cold water, mentally telling myself to get a grip.
Letting Silus get under my skin? How stupid can I be? He’ll say anything to get me to let him go, and then he’ll probably overpower me, take his gun back, and shoot me. He’ll leave my body for Max to find, and then he’ll come and kill Max just to make sure the message is received. Silus will do all of this without skipping a beat, without fucking blinking. Us little people mean nothing to men like him.
Water drips off my face and into the sink, and I’m sluggish in meeting my own stare in the old mirror hanging on the wall just above the tiny vanity. The edges of the mirror have age spots, places where it doesn’t reflect anymore, a sign of decay. A sign that this house, this whole city, really, has seen better days.
Who are Max and I to think we’re special enough that we deserve a ticket out of here? We’re really no different from everyone else. Having a parent in prison isn’t so out of the norm here; being children of a parent with addiction is probably more common than not. This scheme, kidnapping a mafia boss and then selling him to his archenemy… it’s basically a get rich quick scheme, and those never work out.
What are we doing?
What am I doing?
I turn the water off, wipe my face dry with my shirt, and straighten up. Time to head back out there and—
Before I can finish that thought, a loud sound booms through the house, and I rush out of the bathroom to see what it is. From the kitchen, you can see straight into the living room, and in the far end of the living room is the front door. That sound was someone busting it down.
I try to rush into the living room to grab the gun, but I only make it halfway before a very large, very intimidating man steps foot into the living room and whips his shiny black pistol in my direction. Reflexively, I throw up my hands in surrender the same moment I wonder, is this it? Am I going to die here?
“Don’t shoot her,” Silus calls out as a few other men hurry into the living room, weapons drawn. “She’s alone in the house. There’s no one else here. Can one of you get this tape off me?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I watch as one of the men, one of his underlings, slides his gun into the waistband of his pants and pulls out a switchblade, which he then uses to free Silus. Meanwhile, the first man who barged in is still laser-focused on me, staring me down over the aim of his gun. He’s tall, just like Silus, with dark, handsome features. The only thing that separates him is his scowl.
His brother, I assume. Roark McLean.
Silus stands the moment he’s cut free, and the man whose switchblade freed him is now picking at the lock on his handcuffs. “I was starting to worry you weren’t coming,” he remarks to the man who must be his brother.
“There were some… uncooperative people at the club. I don’t think they’ll be uncooperative again,” the other tall man says with a sneer. “What are we doing with her?”
Silus waits until the handcuffs are off him, and then he stretches out his arms and rubs his wrists as he turns to look at me. That signature smirk is back, and I know exactly what he’s going to say even before he says it. “What time is it, Roark?”
His brother checks his watch. “Just shy of one forty-five, why?”
The way Silus’s black eyes glimmer after that is an omen of what’s to come. To me, he says, “It seems you owe me quite a lot of time, Thea. Are you going to come willingly, or shall we find a new purpose for the handcuffs?”
Roark glances at Silus. “You want to take her with us?”
“I want to take her with me ,” Silus corrects him. “She’s mine now. She’s going to pay me back for helping her brother drug and kidnap me.” He glances at the other men around him. “I want you three to wait here. Her brother will return, and when he does, I want him alive.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” one of the other men says.
Silus grabs his gun from the coffee table and hides it beneath his suit jacket. He notices his brother hasn’t lowered his gun, that he’s still aiming it at me, and says, “I told you I want to take her. Put the gun down.”
Roark is measured in lowering his gun, but the action doesn’t make me feel any better. I might be in my own house, but I’m staring down multiple dangerous men who’ve clearly killed before and who wouldn’t hesitate to kill again if Silus gave the word. Really, the only reason I’m not a corpse right now is because Silus told them not to shoot me, and that means I owe him.
Fuck.
After a few long strides, Silus now stands between the rest of the men and me. “Put down your hands, love. We don’t want you walking out of the house at gunpoint, do we?”
Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands up much longer, anyway. My arms are already shaking like a bitch. Who knew I don’t do well in high-stress situations like this?
As I lower my arms, the smirk on Silus’s face widens into a full-out grin. “I told you,” he whispers low enough that his words draw a chill up my spine, “you and I are going to have some fun. You should’ve taken my offer when it was still on the table, Thea, because you’re out of options. You belong to me now.”
If I wasn’t so anxious and frightened with the number of dangerous men with guns in my living room I might get turned on by that statement, but as it is, I can’t help but be terrified. Terrified not only by what he means but also for me and my future.
Well…
Shit.