Page 293 of Forged in the Fire
He knew that Silas was coming here.
And it didn’t matter what those documents said, I knew Silas would never betray me.
I was the one who’d betrayed him.
Pain sheared through me, and torment dragged me in every direction.
“Run!” Dereck suddenly shouted.
The last thing I wanted to do was leave him behind, but I knew it was the only thing I could do.
I had to somehow get to Silas. Warn him.Save him.
And I knew he was the only one who could save my brother.
Only the second I turned, five men appeared like vapor from the mist.
Surrounding me.
I attempted to dart to the left, but one was behind me in a flash. I screamed as I was shoved to the ground.
My hands bound behind my back as my soul was sundered.
A cry ripped out of me, his name on my tongue as my face was pressed into the dirt. “Silas.”
Silas. Silas. Silas. I’m so horribly sorry.
SIXTY-ONE
SILAS
“She wasn’t supposed to fuckin’see it.” Phoenix’s jaw clenched and ticked through the hostility that suffocated the office.
“But she fucking did, didn’t she? And now she’s—” My teeth snapped shut, not able to say it. Terror fisting my spirit, not sure where she was.
If she was in danger.
All while my head spun with what Phoenix had revealed. The hate I’d held for a man for years multiplying exponentially. Knowing that she was the one broken on that floor.
Fuck.
I couldn’t even process that she was the one who’d changed everything.
Set my life on a different trajectory.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that she kept doing it. That somehow, she’d end up here and become mine.
The moment in time inscribed in me as deep as the ink on my flesh. As deep as the wounds on my heart.
And she was the only one who could heal them.
“She thinks I ordered it. Thinks I betrayed her the way you betrayed me.” My words were shredded.
Accusations and pleas.
Phoenix’s tatted throat bobbed. “Would never knowingly hurt you. I was trying to protect you and this entire club. I kept thinking that she was familiar, and after you claimed her last night, I realized where I knew her from. I hacked into some old police records in San Jose. Found her picture and verified it was her. I thought…”
He scrubbed a tattooed hand over his mouth. “I thought there was no chance it was random. One way or another, Dereck has to be up to something. I had to stop him.”
