“Would he?” Aria asks. “The man who can’t give you what you want but is so obsessed with you. The man who’s been living with this knowledge while you plan to open DNA results healready knows won’t include him while you’ve been blissfully assuming all three men are in the running.”
Pain lances through my chest. If this is true, if Silas has been carrying this alone, if he’s been loving Noah and Liam knowing he can’t claim them biologically...
“That’s why I thought he could come back to me,” Aria says quietly. “Because without biological children tying him to you, without that bond, maybe he’d remember what we had. Something real. Maybe he’d see that I’m the one who accepted him as he is. Broken and incapable of love.”
“He’s not incapable of love, you idiot,” I snap, fury cutting through the shock. “He’s loved those boys from the moment he met them. He’s loved me since we were kids. Biology doesn’t define family. Choice does. And Silas choseus.”
“Because you gave him no choice!” Aria’s voice rises. “You came back, you seduced him again, you made him fall back into old patterns. But without you, he’d see clearly. He’d come back to me.”
“He wouldn’t,” I say with absolute certainty, even through my own pain. “Even if you killed me right now, even if I disappeared completely, Silas wouldn’t choose you. Because you fundamentally misunderstand who he is.”
“I know exactly who he is!”
“No.” I shake my head. “You know what he’s been through. You know the violence, the damage, the walls he’s built. But you don’t actually know him. Because if you did, you’d understand that Silas Vale loves with everything he is. It’s not that he can’t love. It’s that when he loves, it consumes him completely. So he’s carefully who he chooses to let in. And he chose to love me. Hechose to love Noah and Liam. Those aren’t old patterns. That’s who he actually is when he stops running from it.”
“You think you’re so special,” Aria hisses. “You think you deserve them. Deserve everything.”
“I don’t think I deserve anything,” I say honestly. “But I know I love them. All three of them. And they love me. And you can be as bitter as you want about it, but using me as some twisted revenge fantasy won’t change the fact that Silas doesn’t want you.”
“We’ll see about that when they find you dead.”
“You won’t kill me,” I say, reading her. “You need me alive for leverage. Because deep down you know that even if I’m gone, Silas won’t come running back. He’ll just hate you for taking me away. And that’s worse than him choosing me, isn’t it? The thought that he might hate you?”
Aria’s face goes white, then red. Her hand moves fast, cracking across my face. The slap echoes in the room, my head snapping to the side, pain blooming across my cheek.
I work my jaw, taste copper, and then I laugh. Actually laugh, the sound rough and probably slightly unhinged.
“Did I hit a nerve?” I ask, turning back to look at her with a grin that I know makes me look slightly feral. “Because that’s what this whole thing is about, isn’t it? You can’t stand that he chose me. That even when he was with you, even during those four years, he was thinking about me. You were a rebound, Aria. A long term rebound.”
The words are cruel but they land like I meant them to. Aria’s expression crumbles.
“At least I had him,” she says, her voice shaking. “What did you have? A kinky gangbang with your brother’s best friends and then you just ran and hid for six years like he meant nothing.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel about him or Jace or Cal. I left, but they weren’t nothing. They weren’t ever nothing and bearing their children was what I was tasked with. Protecting our family even if none of them would ever know, but that’s what I did. I was protecting our children from people like you,” I correct. “Six years of building a life where they could be safe. Six years of being their mother. And you know what? I’d do it again. Because that’s what love actually is, Aria. It’s not possession or control or desperate attempts to make someone choose you. It’s sacrifice. It’s protection. It’s putting someone else first.”
“Don’t lecture me about love,” Aria spits.
“Why not?” I ask. “You clearly need the lesson. You think loving Silas means keeping him, controlling him, making sure no one else can have him. But that’s not love. That’s obsession. And Silas knows the difference.”
Before Aria can respond, the door opens.
Ryan Matthews walks in, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Ladies,” he says pleasantly. “Having a productive chat?”
“Ryan.” I keep my voice neutral, trying to assess where he fits in all this. Is he Aria’s partner or her puppet? “Nice to see you’re involved in kidnapping now. Really expanding your skill set.”
“I prefer to think of it as strategic asset acquisition,” he says, pulling up another chair. “And you’re quite the asset, Parker.Three men would do anything for you. Charles would burn the organization down to get you back. You’re valuable leverage.”
“Is that what Aria told you?” I ask. “That I’m leverage? Or did she mention she’s mostly doing this because she’s jealous that Silas chose me over her?”
Ryan’s smile falters slightly. He glances at Aria.
“Oh, he doesn’t know,” I realize. “Ryan, buddy, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the woman you’re clearly in cooperation with has been pining over Silas Vale for years. This whole operation? It’s not about power or the organization. It’s about her trying to get back the man who dumped her when I came home.”
“That’s not true,” Aria says quickly.
“Isn’t it?” I look at Ryan. “Tell me something, Ryan. When did you and Aria become partners? Was it at Ohio State, before my father forced her to marry him? Or after, when you came back and she needed someone to help her plot revenge against the organization that dismissed her?”
