If she could stop throwing up for a second, she would have laughed.It’s okay?Nothing was okay. She had no idea what was going to happen now, who she could trust, or what she was supposed to do.
For so long she’d been walking on a straight path. First it was following in Max’s footsteps, content with a small life as long as it was a safe one by his side. Then it became a much more dangerous but still straight path toward the truth, toward justice. The end of that path wasn’t one she wanted, but it, too, had a certain comforting finality to it.
What now?
Now her path had dissolved beneath her feet — or rather, it was burned away in a fire fed by greasy human fat and vengeance.
At some point her retching stopped, but her tears didn’t. Huge, wrenching sobs shook her shoulders. She didn’t even know what exactly she was crying for. Certainly it wasn’t guilt over Antonin’s death. But she couldn’t seem to stop, no matter how hard she tried.
Her mind was fractured. She couldn’t settle on one thought long enough to find a center point, a shelter to take refuge in, so her thoughts became a whirlwind of broken glass, cutting, cutting, cutting?—
Silas was speaking to her, her voice strained enough to sound truly desperate. She didn’t hear the words, but she tried to focus on the sound of his voice as he peeled her away from the toilet and hauled her against his chest.
Still, she cried. If anything, she cried harder as she recalled her suspicions that he’d told Antonin about her connection to Max. She so badly wanted to trust him. He’d come to her rescue. Hadn’t he?
But nothing was certain anymore, and it terrified her to think that now he was her only real friend in the world.
If he betrayed her, she’d have no one.
That thought only made her sobs worse. She pressed on it like a bruise, exploring the pain it caused because at least it was straightforward, understandable. She didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want to believe he’d betrayed her. She cared about him,neededhim. Gods help her, but she thought she might shatter if he left her now.
A string of hissed curses broke through her downward spiral, but it was suddenly finding herself under the frigid spray of the shower that shocked her into stillness.
Petra opened her stinging eyes to find herself staring at an old but well-polished showerhead. After the initial shock of cold, the water that rained from it began to warm, soaking her nightgown until it clung to her like a second skin.
Silas was behind her in the tub, his legs framing her sides and his arms coiled around her middle, pinning her wrists to her front. His cheek pressed against hers. She could just feel the shape of one horn against the side of her head as he curved his bigger body over hers.
“You’re okay,” he crooned, voice breaking. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
The way he said it, she really wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself.
For several minutes, she watched the water rain down from the spigot, her mind blissfully empty. Her shaking gradually subsided. Silas rocked her gently back and forth, murmuring nonsense in her ear, as she went limp and numb in his arms.
The warmth of the water, the sound of his voice, the pressure of his arms around her — all of it brought her back to herself in inches.
Safe,the sad little thing in her whimpered.I’m safe here.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Clarity settledover her as she counted the water droplets beading in her eyelashes. Would a man who’d betrayed her come to her rescue? Maybe. But a man who betrayed her wouldn’t care if she went into shock. A man who didn’t care wouldn’t hold her hair as she vomited wine and glazed carrots and bile. A man who didn’t care wouldn’t climb into a shower with her and rock her until her tears dried.
Whatever else Silas was, for some reason, in some way, hecared.
Even if that care was paper-thin and conditional, something ravenous in her lunged for it.
Her voice was as raw as her throat when she asked, “Did you tell Vanderpoel that Max was my uncle?”
Silas didn’t waste time sputtering, being offended, or asking her why she suspected him. His answer came immediately, plainly. “No, baby.”
Petra’s neck lost its ability to hold her head up. Silas shifted, adjusting them so she could rest her head on the meat of his shoulder. “I didn’t think so,” she whispered.
Apparently sensing that she was no longer about to shatter into a million pieces, Silas’s arms loosened enough for him tostroke her sides, her stomach, her upper thighs — anywhere he could reach, really.
“It’s okay if you did,” he rasped.
“You’re not mad?”
He snorted. “Baby, if youdidn’tsuspect me, you’d be stupid. And you’re not stupid.”
