“Months after having my little brother, she started acting…erratic. Saying things that didn’t make sense. Having conversations with people who didn’t exist.” I averted his gaze now. “My father loved her too much. Had faith she would get better.”
“But she didn’t,” he finished.
I shook my head. “She drowned my eight-month-old brother in the creek behind our house while I was at a friend’s and my father away on business.”
“Fuck, Leni, I’m so sorry.”
I let out a shaky chuckle. “You know what was the most fucked-up part? She laid him in his crib and, when I got home, asked me to wake him from his nap so that I’d be the one to find him. I was only seven.”
He framed my face. “You should have never had to go through that.”
“It gets worse,” I continued, and his brow creased. “Years later, after she managed to kill herself while committed in an institution, she left behind a letter where she penned how much she’d loved us, but that motherhood was too overwhelming. And that I…” My words faltered, the door to that pain creeping open. Silas caressed my cheek with his thumb, giving me the strength to continue. “That I was too much of a wild child, my brother, too needy.”
“Leni, love. Look at me. It’s not your fault. And maybe it wasn’t hers either.”
I closed my eyes, willing back tears. “I know that now. I’ve tried to understand. Maybe it’s why I got into my career field, ironic as it is, considering who I am—but it’s definitely why I ensured I’d never get pregnant.”
My choice had been drastic. Permanent. But I wouldn’t risk being like my mother, not only for the life robbed from my brother, but what that tragic day had cost her. What it had cost us all.
Silas cuffed a strand of wet hair behind my ear before leaning in and kissing my forehead.
Forehead kisses.
My stomach was doing things I hadn’t felt since I was young and dumb.
“How’d you end up working for Ares?” His lips were now brushing along mine. “You deserve so much more, love. You deserve everything.”
“Silas, we’re absolutely fucking again,” I said with a slow laugh. “No need for the sweet talk.” Lifting his chin, I melted into the dark pools of his eyes. “I’m yours tonight. Any way you want me.”
The way his hand held my face and how he stared into my soul, I’d never felt so…safe.
“You’re already mine. But you didn’t answer my question.”
I lay my head on his chest again, a smile cresting my lips. “Let’s just say I was a little rebellious as a teenager. Ditched school. Got into some trouble, wrong place, right time. Ended up jabbing my pen into some handsy prick’s neck, who so happened to be the enemy of someone high in the ranks of the organization. They basically made my father an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
Silas’s strokes against my back ceased. “Your father sold you?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that. I was the only family he had left, Silas. He didn’t have a choice. Train to be the woman I am today or die in that warehouse at sixteen.” I looked up at him, chin on his chest. “You know better than anyone. None of us ever had a choice. Just a trail of bodies.”
We stared into each other’s eyes. Maybe waiting for the other to speak first.
“Leni, you’ve been through so much. My life, my problems, many of which I don’t even remember, seem trivial compared to the things you’ve endured.” He paused, eyes flitting back and forth, as though unsure if to ask the question hanging off his tongue.
“Ask what you want to know, Si.”
“The water. The other night.”
I looked away, eyes on fire.
“Sometimes, I’m so good at locking everything up that it leaves me numb, like in a stupor, void of emotions, and behind a veil. The only way out is pain.”
His hands were around my face again. I thought my confession would bring shame and feelings of self-loathing, but somehow, in his arms, I felt lighter.
“We’re both kind of fucked, huh?”
It was exactly what I needed. Laughter bubbled from deep in my belly, and I let it out and laughed like I hadn’t done since…I couldn’t even remember when.
The louder I laughed, the more he did as well. We continued feeding off each other’s euphoria until my stomach could no longer tolerate the spasms. It took another few minutes for us to calm. Again, I found myself content, lying against his hard chest, surprising even myself. I was never one to cuddle. Not even with Kai. We fucked and moved on. But something about being with Silas felt different.
