“Careful,” Bay warned. “That sounds awfully romantic.”
He quirked a brow. “Most people would be horrified if I told them what I just told you.”
“Is that why you drugged Castle?” Bay asked. “Because I went after August and Lan for you? It was for you,” he added before Sila could argue. “Sure, the fact they were Shepards helped weight my decision, but up until today, I’d had no clue either of them knew anything about what happened to my grandmother. They weren’t even in the gang then.”
“Drugging Castle was a good way to return the favor,” Sila agreed. “And it also provided me with the perfect excuse to come to you. Two birds, one stone—or, should I say one white pill.”
“Are you ever going to delete those videos?”
“No.”
“Even though I’ve already agreed to be yours?”
“You could change your mind,” Sila said, and an inkling of displeasure slipped through his stony exterior then. “People have a tendency to do that. I won’t leave it up to chance. Since you say you’re mine anyway, what does it matter if I keep them?”
“Holding leverage over my head isn’t exactly a kind thing to do,” Bay pointed out, only to have him snort. “Right. You aren’t kind.”
“I’d have to be caring for that,” Sila agreed.
Bay turned toward the window, not wanting him to see the flash of disappointment that raced through him then. He should have known nothing got past the younger man’s notice though.
“Hey.” Sila captured Bay’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and gently eased him back so he was forced to look at him. “I can care to an extent, it’s just not in the traditional way. For example, it bothers me when I see my brother upset. I don’t like it. There’s pretty much nothing I won’t do to make him feel better.”
He ran the pad of his thumb over Bay’s bottom lip, then in a quieter voice divulged, “I don’t like seeing you upset either.”
Bay sucked in a breath before he could help it.
“You just found out your grandmother may have been murdered,” Sila continued. “My guy is still looking, but I’ll be honest, it doesn’t seem like there’s any evidence left to find. Haroon covered his tracks—mostly with dead corpses.”
Bay’s grandmother may have been one of them. The thing was, whether she’d really died from panic because she’d been forced to sign everything over to him, or Haroon had slipped her something, either way, as far as he saw it, it was Haroon’s fault. A guy Bay had been friends with. The only reason he would have known about Idle’s assets was because he’d known Bay, even if they two of them had never actually spoken about such things.
It was still hard for him to wrap his head around that and he dropped back against the inside of the door, effectively pulling away from Sila in the process.
He didn’t seem pleased by the sudden separation, but he dropped his arm and remained silent while Bay thought things through.
How had he gone from walking around numb to the world to this?
“Up until a couple of months ago,” Bay admitted, “I wasn’t all that interested in getting justice or revenge. I wasn’t interested in anything at all.”
“Except for speeding and fucking,” Sila corrected, smirking when Bay’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry. That’s right. No talk about cock and your grandmother at the same time.”
“What I mean is, if we can’t,” he circled a finger in the air, “find evidence, it’ll suck, yeah, but I’ll mostly just feel bad for her. She deserved so much better than what she got in the end. And if Haroon used me as his reason for being there?”
“She didn’t think you helped kill her, Bay,” Sila stopped him firmly.
“How can you be sure?” He hated how weak he sounded, but he supposed experiencing self-doubt came with the territory of having his emotions restored.
“She knew you as well as you knew her,” he said matter-of-factly. “You insisted she would never gamble. You were right.”
“I gave up.” He dropped his head in his hand. “I almost—”
“But you didn’t. You’re still here and breathing.”
For now. Bay didn’t say it, but he thought it, and he wondered if Sila thought the same thing. This tumultuous thing between them could come to a screeching halt at any given moment and if that ever happened…Sila had the videos to keep him tethered, but what about Bay? What pull did Bay have on the younger man?
He’d been trying but to no avail it seemed. What could Bay possibly do to ensure Sila never got the chance to leave him?
“We’re close,” Sila told him. “Do you have a preference?”
