Page 123 of Forged in the Fire
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.”
“MySiwas?” 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 getWena,” 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.
