Page 272 of Forged in the Fire
He paused, attention darting to the wall as he gathered himself, swiping his tongue over his dried lips, before his focus returned.
“You probably won’t see me for the rest of the day. We need to prep and prepare before we roll out. I’ll have seven Crows here standing guard, plus a bunch of prospects.”
He winced with the last. I could tell he hated it. Hated that he had to leave us, and he kept brushing his fingers through my curls like in doing it, he might be able to leave a piece of himself here.
I hated it, too, but I wasn’t so selfish that I’d beg him to stay even though I kind of felt like getting onto my knees. Maybe find some handcuffs so I could shackle him to my wrist.
“We’ll be fine and waiting for you when you return.”
His nod was jerky, and he took my hand and pressed a bunch of kisses to the knuckles. “I love you, Brinley. You are my redemption that I never saw coming.”
His eyes flicked all over my face, his hands so tender as they kept weaving through the ringlets of my hair. “I swear I will spend my life cherishing you. Adoring you. Protecting you and uplifting you. Both feeding your desires and satisfying them.”
Intensity blazed from him. “I have every intention of putting a property patch on you the second I get back, but what that really means is that I’m yours. Always and fucking forever.”
My chest expanded. This love thrashing and pressing within its confines. “I think I’m going to like being your old lady.”
I attempted to say it light, but it was lumpy and unpolished.
Silas’s grin was soft. “Yeah, baby, I’m going to make sure you do.”
I showered and dressed with shaky hands. Wandered downstairs, held Kai and peppered a million kisses over his face.
Uncertain looks were shared with Meems and Elena. Both of them were so much more somber in their morning greetings than normal.
There was no missing the dread and worry that filled each second that passed.
Or maybe we were just feeding it into each other. The way it’d amped and increased in me the second Silas had grabbed his cut from the back of the bedroom sofa and strode out the door.
On a mission I didn’t completely understand but supported one hundred percent.
Elena had thought it was strange that I was going into the office, but the truth was, there was no chance I could sit idle in that house for the entire day and night and not completely go out of my mind.
Wondering.
Worrying.
Waiting.
Wanting to know all the answers to the questions swirling in a vortex in my brain.
But I had to trust that Silas would give me all of that once everything was said and done.
Trust that it was better that I remained in the dark until it was over.
So I headed to the shop office, opened the laptop, and set to work.
Trying to organize this aspect of Silas’s life while a charged yet bated chaos took to the property. The air thick and heavy as motorcycles came and went.
I focused the best that I could on the receivables that had come in. Depositing checks on the app, marking the accounts as paid, sending out reminder invoices to the few that still hadn’t been received.
Anxiety burned through every beat. My skin prickling and my heart pounding.
I tried to focus, but my attention kept snagging on the row of icons at the bottom of the laptop where every few minutes a little folder symbol would pop up before it would recede.
It was clearly a shared folder.
I didn’t know what it was, but every time that icon shot into my vision, it felt like a coming implosion.
