“Yes, I can.” He holds both of my hands in one of his, and his other curls at my nape, cupping with gentle strength; it should terrify me, that touch, that gesture. It doesn’t, somehow. “I won’t let it happen.”
“Silas,” I protest.
He speaks over me. “I don’t mean no one will ever hurt your feelings or piss you off, or that you won’t ever fall and break your ass, or bump your head. I mean no one will ever abuse you again. You’ve been a victim of abuse your whole life, from what you’ve told me. Well, babe, not any fucking more. You’re with me, now. Fuckin’no oneis ever gonna hurt you again, Naomi. Not fuckin’ anyone.”
“Okay,” I whisper, shaken to my core. “I believe you.”
“Good,” he murmurs.
I lick my lips, summoning courage. “Silas…may I ask you a question?”
“Course,” he grunts.
“What did you mean?” I swallow hard, licking my lips again, seeking the courage to question him—to ask a question, when doing so has always, historically, resulted in a beating. “You said…you said you would kill them both, vow be damned.”
He turns away from me. Scrubs his hand through his hair. Sighs, a short sharp exhalation. “I’m not a good man, Naomi. I’m dangerous. I’m violent—violence is all I’ve ever known. I grew up not entirely unlike you, in some ways. My father was viciously abusive. Mostly to our mom, but if we drew his attention or got in the way, he’d kick the absolute hell out of us. I’m talking broken bones, and not just ribs.”
My heart squeezes. “I’m so sorry, Silas.”
He turns back to me. Offers me a small smile. “If anyone can get it, you can, I guess, huh?” A roll of his shoulders. “My brother Saxon and I ran away. Ended up working for an organized crime syndicate out of Boston. Big-time stuff. From violence to violence, right? Only at that point it was me doing the hurting.”
“Who did you hurt?” I ask.
“No one innocent. Not that it matters. People who owed money. Snitches. Anyone who was a threat to the organization.” He pauses, and his gaze is distant, seeing not me or now, but the past. “I was way too damn good at it. Eventually, I got promoted to a position where I wasn’t hurting people, not with violence. I was selling…goods and services, you could say. And I was even better at that. But it’s a violent world, and no one is exempt from danger.”
I listen, rapt. I get the sense this is something he doesn’t talk about frequently, and I feel honored that he is trusting me with it.
“It’s a long, shitty story, how I got from there to here, and I don’t really wanna get into it all now. Not that I don’t trust you with it, I just…”
“You don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to, Silas. I was only curious as to what kind of a vow you took. It’s none of my business.”
“Cliff notes version is that Sax and I got into trouble with the organization. Bad shit happened, and we had to escape. Get away from the bosses and the enforcers. Which, I don’t know how much you know about that shit, but it ain’t easy. They’ve got fingers in a lot of pies, and eyes everywhere.” He pauses, thinking about what to say. “My current boss is a weird, enigmatic sort of guy. I’ve never actually met him… He’s got a shitload of money and a weird sense of philanthropy. He owns the club I work in—but it’s not just a nightclub. I live there. The guys I work with all live there, too. And those guys aren’t just my coworkers, they’re…brothers. I mean, I’ve got two biological brothers, and they both live and work there, too. But the other guys, we’re as close as brothers.”
“My father’s men say similar things about the others in their squads.”
“It goes deeper than being squad mates. All the other guys, they’re like me. They’ve been through trauma. Like, the worst kinds of hell. We all should be dead. People want us dead. We’re all violent. We’re all killers. As a condition of our employment and residence at the club, we all took a vow that we’d put the brotherhood above all else, and that we would never take another human life again.”
He regards me for a moment, and then unbuttons his shirt. Peels it off. Displays the inside of his right bicep. Inscribed on the flesh and muscle is a tattoo—a stylized arrow, like a cave painting of an arrow in thick dark black ink; the arrow is broken in half at the center line, each half angled down and away from the other.
I reach out, my hand acting without a direct command from my consciousness—I touch the tattoo. It’s not just ink on skin—it’s abrand. Raised flesh, seared and healed, and then tattooed over.
“It symbolizes my vow—my allegiance to the brotherhood, and my vow to never kill anyone again.”
“Oh,” I breathe. “Did it hurt a lot?”
He laughs. “I mean, yeah. It hurt like a bitch. But compared to other shit I’ve been through, it wasn’t too bad. I chose it, and it has meaning, you know? Getting your ribs smashed in because you got a B in AP Calculus? Not as meaningful. Just shitty.”
I blink at him. Frown. “But Silas…why would you break that vow? Certainly not on my account.”
He sighs, frustrated. “I was pissed. I don’t think I actually would break it. I want to. There’s not much I want more right now than to hunt down your father and that so-called husband of yours and kill them slowly and painfully, with my bare goddamn hands.” He’s snarling by the end of the speech, eyes sparking with fury. “I was reacting to seeing…” He gestures at me. “All that shit. The bruises. The fucking scars from beingwhippedlike a motherfucking animal.”
“I don’t think there are many who would treat even an animal the way my father treated me.” My voice is barely above a whisper. It feels daring to speak such a sentiment out loud.
He’s in front of me, mere inches away. His green eyes blaze with an inferno of emotions, searching me. Fixing on the bruises around my eyes. Tracing the contours of my face. The fury morphs into something else, something I can’t fathom, can’t register, can’t identify.
Something soft.
Personal.
