“I don’t scare easy, Dane. Portia’s safe with me. No matter what. You get that?”
I smiled, cold and sharp. “Good. Then we’re on the same page.”
We weren’t. Not even close. But I didn’t have time to play alpha dog with her security boy. I had a war to fight, a mother to find.
I shoved past him, my shoulder clipping his, hard enough to make him step back.
He didn’t follow. Smart move. I’d have broken his arm if he’d tried.
I took the back stairs, the same way I’d come in. The night air hit me as I pushed through the exit, thick with humidity and the faint tang of the harbor. My truck was parked a block away, hidden in the shadows of a crepe myrtle. I walked fast, my pulse hammering, my mind a fucking mess.
What the hell had just happened?
I’d gone to Portia’s suite to—what? Fix things? Beg forgiveness? And instead, I’d spilled my guts, kissed her like a drowning man, and gotten cockblocked by Monte fucking Jones.
Now I was out here, feeling like a raw nerve, wishing I had someone to kill instead of this knot of emotions choking me.
Feelings. Too many goddamn feelings.
I’d gone to war to forget—forget my mother’s voice, my father’s death, the lies that tore our family apart.
War was clean. Clear. You had a target, a mission, a trigger to pull. No questions, no regrets.
But this? Portia, Monte, that phone with its two-word gut-punch—My Silas—this was a minefield. Every step risked blowing me apart.
I climbed into my truck, the leather creaking under me, and gripped the wheel like it could anchor my twisted soul. My mother was out there. Alive. I knew it in my bones, the same way I’d known Charlie wasn’t lying when he saw her in that treeline.
Department 77 was playing games, or she was, and I was the pawn they’d picked to move.
My Silas.
Why me? Why not Marcus, Atlas, any of them?
What did she want? Answers, or blood?
I thought of Portia, her eyes when I’d left, that look I couldn’t parse. Anger, I told myself. Had to be. If it was hurt, I’d fucked up worse than I thought. She didn’t need me complicating her life. She had Monte, her loyal shadow, her “family.”
The word tasted like ash. Family didn’t stop a man from wanting a woman, from imagining her naked, moaning his name. I pictured Monte’s hands on her again, and my knuckles whitened on the wheel. I wanted to go back, break his jaw, claim her in a way that left no question who she belonged to.
But she didn’t belong to me. Never would. I was The Ghost, not a husband, not a lover. I was built for killing in quiet, not keeping.
I started the engine, the rumble grounding me. I needed to get back to Dominion Hall, lock myself in the war room, and figure out what that phone meant. Elias could pull the chip, maybe find a trace.
But I hesitated, my hand on the gearshift. Telling my brothers meant opening a wound I wasn’t ready to share.
My Silas.
It was mine, a private cut, and dragging it into the light felt like betrayal. Not to them—to her. My mother. The woman who’d called me hers, then vanished into Department 77’s shadows.
I drove, the streets of Charleston blurring past—gaslit lanterns, cobblestone alleys, tourists laughing like the world wasn’t a war zone. My mind kept circling back to Portia. That kiss in her suite, hard and desperate, like we were fighting for the same air. Her voice, sharp and fearless, calling me out for trying to erase her.
She’d seen through my bullshit, matched my fire with hers, and left me burning. I’d wanted her gone to keep my focus, to keep her safe from the storm coming with 77. But safe wasn’t her style. She was a hurricane, tearing through my walls, and I was worried I was too weak to stop her.
Monte’s face flashed in my head, his cool stare, his arm blocking my path.
“Portia’s my responsibility.”
Fuck him.
