“I’m glad you didn’t go to Italy,” I say. There’s no way Silas was letting me go to Italy, especially with the freaking mafia in the background, idle threat or not, and I’m far too needy to be without Julius for that long.
“You are?”
“Aside from the obvious—us apart—the threats wouldn’t have ended there. He would have manipulated you into more.”
He nods. “That’s what Silas said. You’re more like him than people give you credit for.”
I’m about to live up to that. “You are coming with me.”
* * *
Silas
Oliver storms into the kitchen, dragging Julius, his Randall rage at the helm, doing a fair impression of me. “Sit there,” he says to Julius who obeys, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
I’m behind the marble island having just poured myself pineapple juice—one of the few juices I can still drink. I watch fascinated even though I know I’m about to get a verbal lashing.
“I found out, Silas, about Lorenzo. You two dealt with it yourselves and hid it from me,” he accuses, like maybe that alone will inspire guilt.
It doesn’t. I’ll never feel sorry for what I do to protect him. I raise a sharp brow. “And?”
“Figures. You’re not even going to deny it.”
“What would be the point?” I sip my juice. The sweetness hits my tongue directly opposing his sour mood.
That throws him, though I don’t know why it should. It’s textbook me when it concerns him. He has to think for a few heartbeats. I can see the moment it comes to him. I know he’s been reading the book. By now he should have a deeper understanding of just how far I’ll go for him.
There isn’t a known boundary I won’t cross.
“It would be an equal waste of time to attempt to get you to feel sorry for it. That’s fine. I even understand that you’re incapable and don’t fault you for it.”
“Good, so are we done here?”
“No. We’re not even close to done. I need to be able to trust him,” he says, thrusting an angry finger at Julius. “When you get him to hide things from me that directly concern us, he’s left with little choice but to do it, and then I can’t trust him. Do you want that?”
Well, fuck. That’s a checkmate I did not expect. Apparently, he’s full of them. I huff a little petulantly. “No.”
“Mmhmm. You didn’t think of that. Trust isn’t on your radar, but it’s on mine, which is what you wanted. If you want it to continue to be, stop it. I know I can’t make you, so I won’t bother to try, but maybe you’ll at least analyze the logic in what I’m saying and respect it even if you don’t like it.”
I nod, not making any promises further than agreeing toconsiderwhat he’s saying.
“And you,” he says, turning on Julius. “If I’m your so-called priority, grow some bigger balls and stand up to him. I get it. I get it more than I have words to tell you when it comes to the things Silas says. I’m sure he convinced you it was the right way to protect me and maybe there’s some truth to that, but I don’t care. It’s not as important as my ability to trust you and based on what you said upstairs, I know you knew that. You did it anyway because you feared what Silas would do. I am not scared of Silas. I obey him out of respect and love even when I really fucking disagree with him. I have never done so out of fear. I need to trust that you won’t act out of fear either. You’ve betrayed me, Julius, and I’m fucking gutted.”
Julius crumbles. If Oliver weren’t so upset, I would be happy about seeing the beautiful dancer fall.
Oliver looks between us, neither of us willing to say a word.
“There you go, Silas. Julius has officially hurt me. The very thing you were trying to prevent, and it’s at least fifty percent your fault.”
He lets that sink in. Julius and I are shocked to silence.
“I’m leaving,” he says, holding a hand up to halt both of our motions to stand, which would have led to protesting his declaration. “I’m going to Simon and Shane’s. I will text both of you when I get there only because if I didn’t it would be out of spite, and I agree with Shane that it wouldn’t be right for me to do that. I might stay the night; I don’t know yet. If I do, I’ll let you both know. If not, I’ll be home by the house curfew. Neither of you will follow me there or call me or text me. I’m so angry at you both right now, I can’t even look at either of you.”
After that speech, he—what Darius calls—dancer storms off. The front door shuts hard. Not a slam, but hard enough it punctuates how pissed he is. I stare after him and it takes all my will not to chase him down and drag him back into the house.
This juice won’t be enough. I move to the bar cart. “He told us,” I say. “Would you like a drink?”
Julius runs fingers through his hair appropriately distraught by the love of his life reaming him out. “Yeah. Yeah, I need one. Grazie, Silas.”
