Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
My stomach clenched and something just as deep inside me began to ache.
In question, I cut my eye toward Silas.
God, I wished there was a way I could see inside him the way he seemed to be able to see inside of me.
Without separating from Kai an inch, Silas still managed to glance at me from the corner of his eye.
In that brief, fleeting moment, I swore he was flayed open wide.
Love. Pain. Hate. Determination.
A maelstrom that raged inside him.
Immune to the intensity, Kai wiggled his way free, his grin so big it took up the entirety of his precious face. “Kai eat?”
“Yeah, buddy, I bet Meems is whipping up something delicious downstairs,” Silas told him.
“My Meems?” He patted his chest again, though he seemed to be asking Silas for confirmation.
“That’s right, your Meems, too.”
“My Siwas?” Insecurity filled that question, and I felt myself breaking apart a little as I watched the interaction.
As I watched Silas tremble with undeniable grief.
He took Kai’s little hand and spread it over his chest so Kai could feel the beat of his heart. “Your Silas. Always, Kai. Always.”
Kai nodded, back to grinning as he scrambled off Silas’s lap and turned onto his belly so he could slide off the end of the bed, shouting, “I get Wena,” as he raced through the door.
He left a swath of emotion in his wake.
Anguish.
Love.
Despair.
Affliction.
Silas sat far enough forward that I was basically looking at his back, but I could still feel every single one of those things writhe in his being.
“I thought he was your son,” I finally whispered into the stagnant silence.
His head barely shook. “No. He’s our baby brother.”
My throat closed off, and my chest felt like it might cave. It was a horribly dangerous reaction to have to him.
Because I didn’t just want his touch to give me some imprudent pleasure that I was pretty sure would only cause another scar.
No.
I wanted to climb to my knees so I could wrap myself around him and soothe his pain.
I wondered if I would ever learn my lesson.
But reservations meant little when someone was bleeding this way.
“And…you’re raising him?” My voice barely broke the disordered hush.
A heaving sigh worked out of him, and he roughed a hand down his face. “I didn’t know he existed until two months ago.”
Surprise shot from my nose, but I didn’t have time to respond before Silas continued.
“Had hoped my father was dead. Turned out he was just destroying the innocent again.”
“Silas.” His name was a crushed breath, and I reached for him, my hand fluttering out between us in uncertainty.
Silas pressed on. “I got a call from one of my friends in the middle of the night. Cash,” he said by way of explanation. “He told me he’d gotten a report about a little boy in the emergency room with my same last name. Blood type was a match. He figured he needed to give me a call to make sure we weren’t somehow related.”
A boatload of questions arose from that statement alone. I wasn’t fool enough to assume this Cash guy was a first responder or medical professional. And I seriously doubted Silas had cop friends unless they were of the dirty kind.
There was something there, hidden in the confession, something I was sure was an intrinsic, concealed part of him. One that was likely another blight.
But those things seemed to matter none in the moment. When I could feel the fractures segmenting Silas in two.
Like he didn’t know if he wanted to weep or rave.
His head dropped lower between his shoulders, and regret gushed from him like a ruptured well. “Kid clearly neglected and abused.”
Weeping sounded really good right about then. A clog of it balled at the base of my throat.
That time, I did reach for him, my fingertips tracing over the sharp edges of the creatures warring on his back.
Silas shivered, his spine curving as he wrapped both arms around the back of his neck.
“I should have ended that bastard years ago when I had the chance. When he stamped out every beautiful thing I’d ever known in my life. Nothing but a pathetic alcoholic who doesn’t deserve to breathe.”
He croaked over every syllable.
“Silas…”
He gave a harsh shake of his head. “And after all of that, there’s no question I should have ended him the night I went to save Kai from his grips, but I didn’t, thinking I’d lose the last shred of humanity that I possessed. And now that fucker and junkie bitch think they’re actually going to get him back.”
I gasped when Silas suddenly whirled, and in a blurry instant, he was on his feet and standing at the end of the bed.
Wearing only his underwear. Chest bare. Scars littered his body, and the morbid, grotesque faces on his throat wound down with the rest of the ink that covered the entirety of his chest and abdomen.