Page 249 of Forged in the Fire
“My life is by definition dangerous. What we do…”
Uncertainty swirled through her hypnotizing gaze. No question, her thoughts were back on the confession I’d made.
Not that she hadn’t had her suspicions. But there was no way she knew how grim it went.
I knew she wanted to ask exactly what I meant by that, so I brushed the back of my hand over her cheek and started to speak. “But this? It’s the most dangerous thing we’ve ever done. But it has to happen.”
Tears blurred. “I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you.”
“It won’t.” The oath was out before I could think better of it. I had no right to make it. Not when I knew some of us wouldn’t be coming home.
Brinley blinked, horror thinning her voice. “And Dereck?”
I hesitated, at war with the truth that this thing could still go south. “My intention is he’s getting out with us.”
Her eyes flicked all over my face, searching before she pushed me the way she always did. “And what is this, Silas? What is it you’re involved in? This doesn’t seem like some beef with another motorcycle club.”
I couldn’t give that to her.
Not yet.
Not until after all this went down and I met with the club. In Church, I’d tell them the line I’d crossed and let them know I didn’t intend on ever turning back.
They were going to have no say in that.
My devotion to Brinley.
But giving her the inside on what Crimson Crows really did?
We’d vote if Brinley could fully be let in, going through the same channels that the rest were approved.
So I gave her what I could.
The bare, blatant truth.
The crux. The beginning. The mission I’d set out on long ago before it landed me here.
“With the help of your brother, I’m finally going to get revenge for my mother’s death.”
FIFTY-TWO
SILAS
SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
“Where are you going?”
His grandmother’s voice echoing down the short hall stalled him in his tracks, and his hand trembled on the doorknob.
Dimness suffused the dense air, and he struggled to breathe through it.
“Out,” he grumbled.
“I see that filth you’re wearing.”
He’d pulled on his Iron Owls cut right before he’d been ready to slink out.
He wasn’t necessarily sneaking. But this was an unending fight with Meems that he wasn’t in the mood for.
