Chapter Twenty-Four – Silus
The moment Thea bursts out laughing, she gets more than one quizzical glance. Even Cormac lifts an eyebrow and slightly lowers the gun—not enough to make me feel comfortable, but enough to be noticeable. I don’t think anyone in the bar thought she’d laugh.
And it’s a hearty laugh, too. Like she just heard the funniest joke she’d ever heard in her life.
Beside Thea, Max whispers, “Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure you should be laughing right now? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are a lot of guns in this room—”
Thea laughs a bit more before she says, “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just… no, wait. I’m not sorry for laughing. I’m laughing because it’s fucking ridiculous all this is over some stupid card game that happened forty fucking years ago.”
Roark stands a good fifteen feet behind Thea, Max, and Cormac, three men around him, their guns trained on Cormac. “It’s not just about a card game. It’s about respect and honor—” As he speaks, Cormac nods in agreement.
“You guys are fucking insane. Respect? Honor? Who gives a shit? It was a game, and it sounds like both your dads were too proud to admit that they either cheated or lost fair and square,” Thea rattles off, much more blasé than I thought she’d be, given the gun currently held against her head.
She continues, “Like, come on. It’s been almost half a goddamned century. Move on! Do something else with your lives! I mean, shit, if you guys teamed up, you could do so much more if you weren’t at each other’s throats. Aren’t you guys supposed to be businessmen? Think about it for two seconds instead of trying to avenge your stupid dads.”
“Hey,” Roark barks out, “our dad wasn’t stupid.”
“Neither was mine,” Cormac says.
I hate Cormac with my entire being. I’ve spent my life hating him because my father taught me to. Anytime Roark and I could do something to antagonize him, we did, and we took great pleasure out of it. To put our hatred aside… I don’t know if something like that’s possible.
But, as I stare at Thea’s face, as her words truly sink in, I realize she’s not wrong. Perhaps feuding and hating each other over a game of cards that took place forty years ago is foolish. Maybe it’s time to be the bigger man and move on.
That said, kidnapping Thea is not something I can forgive—and holding a gun to her head? Cormac deserves a bullet to the brain just for that.
When no one says a word more, Thea demands an answer: “So what’ll it be, huh? Are we going to all die here for literally the stupidest reason ever, or are we going to say it’s water under the bridge and move the fuck on with our lives?” Quite brazen, given the fact a gun still rests against the side of her head.
A moment passes, and then, out of nowhere, Cormac starts to laugh. The man laughs like he’s never laughed before, as if Thea said the funniest thing he’s ever heard in his life. A hearty, belly laugh that makes his men near the bar glance at each other in confusion.
The next thing I know, my brother’s laughing with him. Maybe I would laugh too, but I can’t even crack a grin when a loaded gun is that close to my girl’s head.
“You know, I think I can finally see why you like her so much,” Cormac muses. “She’s ballsy.” As he speaks, he lowers the gun away from Thea’s head. He then looks to his men. “Get out. I want to have a word with the McLeans.”
As his men drop their arms to their sides and shoot questioning glances at their boss, Roark says something totally inappropriate: “Whatever you do, don’t ask him to share her. He doesn’t like that.”
Thea’s head bobs in surprise, and then she narrows her eyes at me, as if I’m the reason my brother has a fondness for sharing. Please. As if I’d ever share her.
Cormac is slow to stand behind Thea, and he gestures to the bar. “Come join me for a little chat. Let’s see if your girl is right and we should bury the hatchet.” He turns his back to Thea and is the first to reach the bar, where he sets his gun down and searches for three clean glasses.
I’m still aiming at him, but my brother lowered his gun, and I can tell by his expression he’s curious as to how this’ll play out. I want to shoot that fucker; I don’t know that I can ever trust him, let alone like him. And Thea being tied up in front of me is one of the reasons why.
He threatened my girl. I can’t just forget that, can I? What kind of man would that make me?
From the opposite end of the bar, Roark calls out, “Your call, brother. What do you want to do?”
Thea glares at me from her chair, the annoyance on her face plain as day even in this dim lighting. The look she gives me tells me if I don’t play it cool right now, she’s going to be pissed. I don’t think she likes the idea of being in the middle of a firefight.
That, and she really does think the reason behind the anger is stupid.
So even though I don’t want to play nice, I lower my gun and tell mine and my brother’s men, “Go.” They’re shocked at the turn of events, but none of them say a word. None of them question my order. The men behind me are the first to leave. Roark gives a nod of approval, and the ones surrounding him exit the premises.
Now it’s just Cormac, Roark, Thea, Max, and I.
Roark taps his gun against his side as he moves closer to Thea. He glances between me and Cormac, clearly unsure, and I tell him, “Go on. I’ll be right behind you.” Obviously, I’m going to free Thea from her restraints before I sit down and share a fucking drink with Cormac O’Connor.
My brother groans, but he makes his way to the bar counter, where Cormac is now picking out a suitable bottle for us to share. Roark sets his gun down on the counter as he slides his tall frame into one of the old bar stools. I hear him ask, “Does this old place even have any good booze?”
I don’t hear Cormac’s response, mostly because I’m too busy rushing toward Thea. After I tuck my gun into my waistband, I work on untying the many knots holding her wrists behind her back and fixing her to the chair.
“Wow,” Max finally breaks his silence. “That was… I can’t believe you’re the one that diffused the situation.” He sounds like he’s in awe. “I’m normally the one talking out of my ass.”
“I wasn’t talking out of my ass,” Thea is quick to say. “It really is stupid. The whole thing. All of it.” She groans. “We could’ve died because of a dumb card game—” I finally free her wrists, and she immediately rubs them where she must have some rope burn forming.
Before I can move around the chair, Thea spins on it, pointing her glare my direction. “And you, you crazy son of a bitch. Cormac said you went out and bought a ring today. Tell me that’s not true.”
Beside her, Max’s eyes are so wide they look liable to pop right out of the sockets.
I’m basically kneeling beside her, and it’s not a bad place to be. I would rather not be on my knees in an old, shitty bar like this, but I suppose when you live my life, you can’t count on much. Ideally, we’d be somewhere nice, with good food and great lighting so it’d be easier for me to memorize Thea’s reaction when I pop the question.
“I can’t say it’s not true,” I tell her as I reach inside my suit jacket, at the inner pocket. My fingers curl around the box the moment Thea stops me.
“No.”
“No?” I echo, giving her a frown. Is she saying no to the question I haven’t asked yet? She should know that I’ve become addicted to her this past month, so her refusal is out of the question.
“You heard me,” Thea says. “We don’t even know each other that well. You’re fucking crazy if you think you can propose to me after knowing me for a month.”
“Technically, I could propose to you anytime I want.”
Thea’s lips pucker into an adorable pout. “Technically, men don’t propose to women they’ve kidnapped and held against their will, either.”
I smirk. “I guess we’re breaking all expectations, then. Thea, I’m going to pull this ring out of my pocket and slide it onto your finger whether you want me to or not. It’s coming, so you might as well accept it.”
A second passes, and then she groans and rolls her eyes. “Fine, but we’re not getting married anytime soon. I’d like to actually go out on dates and stuff, do things normal people do before they—”
Anything else she might’ve said dies in her throat the moment she sees me pull out the ring box, and when I open it and reveal the hefty chunk of sparkle inside, her mouth falls open. “Wow,” she whispers, her gaze torn between my face and the ring in the box. “You really are one crazy bastard, aren’t you?”
“The fucking craziest,” I’m quick to agree as I pluck the ring out of the box and snap it shut.
Thea can’t take her eyes off the ring as I tuck the box away, and behind her, Max peers around her shoulder as best he can, given the fact he’s still tied up. “Oh, come on,” Max says, “just accept the damn ring. We all know you match each other’s freak. Plus, the sooner you say yes the sooner I can be untied. I don’t know about you, but this chair is very uncomfortable.”
Her brother’s words make her smile, and I get the full-force of that beautiful, wicked grin. “Saying yes, in hindsight, isn’t as crazy as trying to kidnap a mafia boss, so why not?” Thea offers me her left hand.
It wouldn’t be Thea if she didn’t give me some grief over it. I’m smirking as I push the ring onto her finger, and I grin even harder when I grab her by the neck and pull her into me, kissing her so hard I steal the air from her lungs. The way her mouth responds to mine instantly heats me up, makes me forget just where we are and that we aren’t alone.
Max coughs and says, “Uh, some help here would be nice, you know, when you two are done making out or whatever.” He then makes a gagging sound, and that’s enough to make Thea pull away from me.
“I guess I should help him,” she whispers.
The last thing I want to do is let her go, but I know I must, so I settle for murmuring the truth. “I love you, Thea Hill. You might not be my prisoner anymore, but you’re still mine—and you always will be. My wife.”
“Fiancé, actually,” she corrects me.
“I like my wife better.”
Her blue eyes sparkle as she chuckles to herself. “Fuck me. I… I love you too. I guess I am as crazy as you, because in spite of every reason I shouldn’t, I can’t help it. Now…”
Thea grins, gives me a gentle tap on the cheek, and then turns away from me to help her brother. I watch her for a few seconds, every part of me wistful and trapped in longing—I really do wish we were at home, where I could throw her over my shoulder, carry her to my bedroom, and ravish her well into the night.
Alas, the ravishing part will have to wait.
I stand and turn toward the bar, where I find both Roark and Cormac watching me. Or, rather, watching the engagement. “Well, well, well,” Roark says when I join them at the bar. Though there are three small glasses full of an amber liquid, he grabs the bottle that liquid came from and lifts it in the air. “To my little brother and his future wife.”
I take issue with the little part; there’s nothing little about me anymore and hasn’t been for years. But still, I take one of the glasses and clink it against Roark’s bottle before downing the contents in a gulp.
Cormac lifts his glass to me before throwing his head back and taking the shot, while my brother gulps it straight from the source. “So, I suppose the three of us should have a chat,” Cormac says. “How many of my guys did you shoot outside?”
“Three,” Roark answers him. “But they’ll live.”
“What about the rat?” I ask, the only thing of importance to me. Whoever told Cormac about Thea and where she was being held is no man I want in this city. Only a handful of my men know about Thea, and none of them scream traitor.
Cormac nods once. “I’ll give you the rat’s name, and you can do whatever you want with him.” His eyes shift to where Thea and Max are. “I won’t go so far as to say the last forty years were stupid, but… maybe now that both our fathers are gone, it’s time to move past our hatred for each other. Your girl was right when she said we could do anything we want in this city if we work together.”
“That’s assuming I can look past you having Thea kidnapped,” I growl out, feeling the need to punch Cormac right in the nose. Break it. Inflict a little pain on the asshole.
“Come on. If you were in my position and you heard I had a girl I loved holed up in my place, you’d do everything you could to get ahold of her,” Cormac says, pouring another round for himself and me after snatching the bottle from an unhappy Roark. “Besides, she wants us to work it out. Don’t you think you should listen to your girl, Silus?” He throws back another shot.“The feud has gone stale.”
As much as I don’t want to agree with him, he’s not wrong on either count. Over the years, Roark and I have done everything we can to fuck with Cormac and his enterprises. The man has never gotten tied down, so that is a particular weakness we’ve never been able to exploit. And Thea does want us to work it out because, in her words, it’s a stupid grudge.
Stupid. I still can’t believe she called it stupid.
“As much as fucking with you has been a highlight of my life,” Roark is slow to say, “it might be a nice change of pace to do something different for a change. I mean, think about it, Silus: no one will expect us to be on the same side for once.” He shrugs. “We could keep our truce on the downlow. It’d be easy to catch any traitors and see who’s support we really have. Our forces combined, we could own every single street and alley in this city.”
“You’re not wrong,” Cormac says. “It’d be a fun game to play for a while, acting like we’re still at each other’s throats.” He waits a moment, and he spends the time glancing between Roark and me. It’s clear he’s semi-curious how a truce would go between us; whether it would work long-term only time will tell. “What’ll it be, gentlemen? Forgive and forget?”
I’m an engaged man. I’m in love. I’ve found a girl I would raze the city to the ground for. Three things that came out of nowhere. When you look at everything as a whole, what’s one more change?
It’s a while before I say, “I’ll forgive, but I most certainly will never forget.”
“Never forget what?” Max asks as he and Thea join us at the bar. “Kidding. We could hear everything you guys were saying.” He steals Roark’s glass and downs it—and then he grimaces and gags like it’s the worst thing he’s ever tasted. “Fuck. No wonder you guys are so hardcore. This shit’s strong enough to fry your brains.”
“Hey,” Thea says as she huddles next to me, and I respond by draping an arm over her shoulder, “that’s my future husband you’re talking about. Only I’m allowed to call him crazy.”
Max says dryly, “Right.” He glances at Roark and Cormac. “Hey, so, uh, not to abruptly change the subject or anything, but are either of you looking for a personal assistant or anything? I’m available. I’m good with scheduling and coming up with plans that, believe it or not, don’t always backfire spectacularly—”
Roark wears an intense look as he pats Max on the head like a dog. “You really are a tiny man, aren’t you? Ant-sized. Careful, Silus, any kid you have with Thea won’t crack five feet.”
Max huffs as swats Roark’s hand away. Cormac rubs his chin and muses, “You are an enterprising fellow, aren’t you? You’re not afraid to walk headfirst into danger, either. I might have some use for you, provided you’re up for it.”
“I’m down,” Max immediately says. “Or up. Whatever. If the money’s there, I’m up, down, side-to-side, even inside-out—okay, maybe not that last one, but you know what I mean—”
Thea pours Max another drink and shoves it at him, saying, “Here. I think you need another.” Max takes it and drinks it in one shot again, then acts like he wants to throw up. To me, Thea whispers, “I’ve never seen Max drunk before. I wonder if he’ll talk even faster.”
Cormac is the one who pours him his next drink, clearly interested in the outcome. Roark, on the other hand, keeps studying Max like he’s about to grow a second head. “Careful,” he says. “You don’t want to give him alcohol poisoning. He’s probably got a drink limit of one and a half shots.”
Taking the glass Cormac poured for him, Max goes off, “I’ll have you know I can drink four beers before getting dizzy. Four. Now, I know that might not be impressive to fucking mountains like you, but—” He pauses and acts like his tongue is suddenly too large for his mouth. “I think this shit burned my taste buds off. Something doesn’t feel right.”
Thea laughs. My brother even cracks a smile. Cormac looks like he’s debating whether to withdraw the job offer. And me?
The day was a whirlwind. A lot of shit happened. I can’t say I ever expected us to end up here. But all things considered, Thea is safe and in my arms, and that’s really all I give a shit about.
The future of the truce between Cormac O’Connor and the two surviving McLeans is blurry. We’ll give it a shot and see what happens.
But Thea? The girl is mine, and I’m never going to let her go.