“What the fuck happened here?” He stopped the car so suddenly that I nearly smashed my head on the dash had it not been for his arm shooting out and holding me back.
Broken windows and smoke billowing from holes in the glass, the front door hanging off its hinges…
I wrenched my phone from my purse and saw no alerts from the security system.
“Fuck,” I whispered, shaking my head in utter disbelief. Once the shock had worn off and the fear gripping my heart had twisted into rage, I threw open the car door and ran toward the house.
“Leni, no!”
I heard Silas’s heavy footfalls behind me, and just as I reached the front steps, he yanked me backward.
“Let me go!” My screams echoed around the secluded hillside, drowned out by the raging fire consuming my house—the home my father had built for my mother. Fat tears scalded my cheeks. “I have to get in there. I have to put it out.” I thrashed in his arms, fighting to break free. But Silas’s grip was like a vise.
“Helena, it’s too dangerous. And we need to leave. Whoever did this knew we’ve been staying here, knew their way around security, and will likely be back.”
“No! No, no, no,” I protested, punching and scratching at his arms. “I have to…I can’t…”
My knees gave out, but he held me up.
“Please, love. I promise we’ll figure this out. But if we get caught here, limited firepower…” He shifted my body and tugged me close, hands framing my face. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Please, trust me. But I can’t protect you like this. Let’s go. I’ll call Santino and—”
“Protect me?” I pushed out of his hold. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t need you or anyone else.”
Silas’s jaw twitched with tension. His hands clutched into fists at his sides. He was on me in the next second and threw me over his shoulder as I kicked and swatted his back.
“Fuck, Leni! Stop.” My ass hit the hood of the car, and I barely had a second to recover from the impact when his hand was around my throat, tight enough to pin me in place. Flashbacks of when we’d first met crossed my thoughts as he was sporting the same wild look in his eyes.
A time that seemed like a lifetime ago.
“What are you doing?” I growled through gritted teeth.
“Listen, I get that you’re upset. That you want to go in there and salvage whatever you can, but you can’t be that stupid.”
“Fuck you!”
“Yeah, fuck me for being the asshole who cares about you.”
His stone glare rooted me in place, brows knitted together and lips tight. I knew what he was saying made sense, and somewhere, deep down, it moved me that he cared. But none of that mattered when my eyes caught the inferno that used to be my sanctuary. The angry flames were climbing, licking so high it seemed they damn near reached the clouds.
Tears pooled in my eyes, distorting the hell unfolding before me.
“Let me go. Please,” I begged, my voice broken. It was like my father’s death all over again. Every last piece of him was forever charred and gone.
Silas slowly released my neck and held my face, using his thumbs to tilt my chin. “I’m going to look out for you whether you want me to, okay? Stop fighting me because you won’t win, even if I have to hog-tie you to this car.”
I averted my gaze, giving in with a nod.
“Take me away from here.”
Silas leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead, the act only pushing more tears from the corners of my eyes.
As he helped me off the hood, we heard an echo of a blast in the distance. Our backs crashed into one another as we pulled our weapons and scanned the area.
“Get in the car, Leni.”
Without hesitation, we ran for the doors and jumped inside. He peeled down the road, veering off into a secluded trail rather than taking the main one into the city. Someone was on their way back to the house. The crunching of gravel and stone beyond the brush was evidence of that. One day, our luck would run out. But fortunately, today was not that day.
“What now?” I asked, brushing away the last droplets from my lashes.
