He growls, shaking his head, steering with his knee for a moment while scrubbing a hand down his face.
“So yeah, I was feeling like maybe I’d gotten into bed with the devil, and was starting to wonder how I could get out. How I could get Sax and I both out. Sax was still on the strike force—he was a top lieutenant for one of the bosses. The same guy we’re paying a visit to, as a matter of fact. I was his right-hand man, and Sax was his left-hand man.”
He drops into silence, and I wait through it, knowing he’ll continue when he’s ready.
He does, after a few moments.
“Sue wasn’t stupid. She knew damn well from the start that the info on the Cabal I was giving her was false, and she knew the intel I was providing on the Marcciones was bait. She knew I was assigned to her, and we both knew sooner rather than later, the order would come down and I’d be told to execute her. But she didn’t dare fail, either. She had a ton riding on that assignment—it was make or break for her career, and she came from nothing, so failure wasn’t an option.”
He glances at me, and it seems to me that he’s considering what to tell me.
“It turned into a…thing. I’m not really sure exactly how or when, but the assignment of getting close to her…backfired. I started to actually like her as a woman and respect her even though she was a cop. She shared intel she’d gathered on the Cabal, and it was clear the shit I’d seen was just the tip of the iceberg. The more time we spent together, the more we talked, the more I started to realize that what I was involved with…it was making me sick to my stomach. Fuck, sick to my very soul. The intel she had on them, the shit they were doing here in the U.S. as well as abroad…it was revolting. And I was part of it.” He sighs, a long gusting breath. “So what changed? She changed me, I guess. Opened my eyes to what I was dealing with.”
“What happened?”
“Shit went sideways. Someone in the Marccione organization somehow got wind of my…attachment…to Sue and that I was feeding her intel that was getting their shipments raided. So they sent a kill squad to tidy things up. It got messy, fast. Sue got hurt. I shot my way out, got word to Sax, and took off. I got Sue to a hospital. I was badly injured, shot in several places, bleeding out…” He glances at me, wincing, “and I was withdrawing from coke, to boot.”
My heart aches for him. “My god, Silas. How did you survive?”
“Inez found me. How, I have no fucking idea. She has her ways—the Boss has his ways, more to the point. Mystery to me. I’d stolen a car and was trying to just put as many miles between me and them as I could, but I passed out. Crashed into a barn on the side of a two-lane highway in the middle of upstate New York. Came to in the back of a van with Inez patching me up. Once I was back conscious and recuperating, she explained the deal: come to work for her employer, and they’d make sure my enemies never found me. The catch? I had to take a vow to never kill a human being ever again, for any reason, and I’d have to get branded to seal the deal. Plus, I could never leave the compound, except under express permission, which would rarely be granted. The trip to Boston for my parents’ funeral which led me to you was the first time I’ve left club grounds since that day.”
His tone shifts as he quotes what sounds like the vow he took: “‘Once you’re in, there’s no going back; never take a life; loyalty to the brotherhood above all.’”
He shows me the tattooed-over brand on the inside of his arm, the stylized broken arrow. “The Arrows are my brothers. The club is my home. And that vow is all that stands between me being who I was and who I am.”
I squeeze his hand. “Not true. What stands between who you were and who you are is the fact that you made a choice. You took a stand for what’s right, Silas. You got out. You chose something different. You became someone else. The vow and that tattoo are just symbols of that choice.” I lean across the console and cup his face, resting my forehead on his cheekbone. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Silas.”
He stares at me for as long as is safe before returning his attention to the road. “Why do you believe in me, Naomi? You don’t know the things I’ve done.”
“Because I see the choices you’re making now. You’re facing the past. You’re protecting me. You’re gentle with me. You’re sweet and kind. I look at you, Silas, and I see a good man. You just have to see that in yourself.”
He rubs a hand over his mouth. “I’m trying, baby. But it’s not easy. All I see is the killer. The coke addict. The guy who took advantage of easy women.”
“Did you ever force yourself on them?” I ask, sick to my stomach at the thought of what his answer could be.
“No. But they didn’t have a choice. Their job was to be there for us to use. So whether they were actually willing or not was irrelevant, and the fact that they mostly pretended to want it also seems irrelevant. So the fact that I didn’t actually physically rape them…I guess I don’t feel like it’s any real absolution. I was still part of the problem.”
“I’m the farthest thing from an expert in any of this, Silas, obviously, but from where I’m sitting, I think you have to forgive yourself. No one can erase the past. You can’t change the sins you’ve committed any more than you can change the pain that’s been inflicted on you. All you can do is focus on the next choice you have to make and try to make the best one you can.
“How’d you get to be so wise, Naomi?” He asks.
I shrug. “When you’re locked in your room at night, there’s not much to do but think, if you can’t sleep. And when I was in lockup, there was absolutelynothingto do but think.”
“Lockup?” He asks, his voice dangerously cold.
“Oh. Um, yeah.” I duck my head, the anger in his voice hitting a nerve, pulling out the instincts drilled into me.
“Explain.”
“Silas, could you…” I swallow hard, focusing on his face, reminding myself that he’s not them, that I’m free. “Don’t be angry. Please. Angry voices directed at me…it’s a trigger.”
He lets out a breath. “Sorry—I’m sorry. I wasn’t angry at you, I just—"
“I know,” I reassure him. “I know. Just the sound, even if you’re not angryatme—I feel it. And it just…” I shrug, trail off, unable to put it into words.
“I get it. It won’t happen again, I promise.” He squeezes my hand, and his voice is gentle and kind once more. “What’s lockup, Naomi?”
“If I really messed up or disrespected my father or Jerry, first I’d be beaten to within an inch of my life, and then they’d throw me into lockup, which is a prison cell built into a hillside. Solitary confinement. No food, only water, no light, no blankets or heat. I spent a week in there, once, over the summer. They’d give me water twice a day so I wouldn’t die, but…I almost did.”
