My voice dropped, bitter and low. “So that’s what this is. You got some woman tucked away in the wings and decided I was too much trouble.”
He flinched. Flinched. Just enough for the spark in my gut to ignite into full-on fire.
“Jesus,” I hissed.
Silas dragged a hand down his face like he wanted to scrape the frustration off his skin.
“It’s not—she’s not—” He let out a breath like it burned. “It’s not what you think. It’s not romantic. It’s family.”
I froze, words catching in my throat.
Family?
He met my eyes again, and this time, there was no armor. Just something raw.
“This isn’t about some woman I used to love,” he said quietly. “It’s about the woman who gave birth to me.”
The words hit me like a cold splash of water, snapping the fury right out of my veins. I stared at him, my mind still stuck in the heat of my assumptions.
He rubbed the back of his neck, jaw tight. “She’s alive. I think. After all these years, she might actually be out there. And if that’s true—if someone’s using her to get to me or my brothers—then every person near me is a liability.”
We stood there, chests heaving, the room vibrating with everything we weren’t saying.
I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand how I got here.
I’d met Silas Dane less than twenty-four hours ago.
Twenty-four hours. That was it. I’d barely had time to unpack, to set up a timeline grid, to orient myself to the landscape of Dominion Hall—and here I was, practically nose to nose with a man I’d fought, fucked, and now stood yelling at like he was my ex-husband who forgot our anniversary. The sheer heat of our argument had burned through my restraint, dragging out parts of me I didn’t even show friends. My voice didn’t sound like mine. My hands shook. My chest felt like it was being pulled in two opposite directions—fight or fall.
It didn’t make sense.
None of this made any sense.
We were strangers. I didn’t know what he liked in his coffee, if he believed in fate, or how many times he’d been hurt. I didn’t know what scared him. I didn’t know how he took his bourbon. I didn’t even know if he smiled for real, or only when he was playing pretend.
And yet, it felt like I’d known him forever.
There was something about him that peeled me open, pulled the sharpest parts of me to the surface and made me throw them like daggers, just to see if he could take the hit. And he could. He did. He caught every word like it was foreplay. Pushed back like he wanted me wild. It was terrifying. Addictive. Like being seen for the first time and recognized for something you didn’t know you were hiding.
Why did he get under my skin like this? Why did my body betray me the moment he walked in, tense with fight and flushed with want?
Why did his silence make me want to scream?
I should’ve walked away. Should’ve thrown him out the second he stepped into my room. I didn’t need this. I didn’tdothis.
But here I was.
Wrecked and furious and wanting him again like he’d wired himself into my bloodstream.
And then, suddenly?—
A knock.
We both froze.
Silas reached for his waistband instinctively, his body going still like a soldier mid-mission.
Another knock. This one louder.
