Page 1 of Scars of Silk

One

Dan

There’s this thing that happens. It’s a moment. Just one single moment that defines everything. Past, present, and future.

Now my dad, he didn’t hold shit for that. He’d say something like, “Dan, it’s yours, my son. Everything you want is yours. Go get it.”

I don’t know what he would say to me now.

I’m in that moment, right fucking now. I’m in that moment. Everything is stretching before me and behind me, defining everything. And who am I in that moment? I’m a fucking arsehole that’s who.

A red mist blurs my vision. My pulse is a freight train doomed to pitch off a cliff.

Because of her.

Because everything is her. Everything.

I heave and clutch at my chest. Bitter memories swirl themselves with the words I’ve just said. A secret I promised never to share and never to tell. A secret I’ve kept for her. I just threw it in her face,

Her.

Faith Hitchin. My best friend.

My best friend who’s about to marry someone else; going to have their baby.

Dad would have something to say about it. It’s a real bitch he’s dead and won’t ever get to tell me what he thinks.

“Hey?” I don’t even know I’m alone. My eyes are open but all I see is red, anger, and a destruction that’s almost impossible to contain. “Dan, right?” The voice speaks more. Why are they talking? Can‘t they tell I’m about to implode like a bloody nuclear bomb? My fists curl ready to punch the first thing I see.

Somehow I wake myself up and shake the angry mist from my vision. With the cooling of my blood, I take stock of where I am—on the wide stone steps of the impressive Georgian town house my best friend now calls home. The girl from the back streets of Brighton now lives like the queen.

I think I just broke her front door as I slammed out of it. Turning, I glance back at the black painted wood with its shiny brass knocker. Damn, it’s still in one piece. I’d feel so much better if I’d broken at least a small part of that house. Maybe Elijah—His Lordship—could send me a bill. Maybe I wouldn‘t pay it and I’d tell him to go fuck himself in hell instead.

“Hey, you okay there? You look pale.”

I lower my gaze to where a petite woman is staring up at me. “Do I know you?” My question comes out as a grunt which I don’t think anyone would blame me for. I’m in the middle of a life-defining moment here; the last thing I need is a witness to the event.

I just slammed the door on my past and I don’t think that door will ever open again.

In my veins my blood races as hot as lava. My fists grow tighter and I’m ready to throw a punch. It’s pulsing out of me. Just hit something, just hit something. It will make everything better.

“I’m Sienna? A friend of Elijah?”

The petite woman brushes at a dark fringe—she clearly hasn’t got the memo that Elijah 'I’m such a fucking arsehole Fairclough' isn’t a name I want to hear.

“Bully for you, love. Do you need to join a support group to get over it?”

She stares at me through dark lashes. “Not that I know of. Do you?”

“Nah, I’m all right.” I go to walk down the steps. My time at the Faith Hitchin rehabilitation centre is over and too fucking right. I’m not going to hang around to watch her grow fat with that bastard's child. I never wanted to come up here, anyway. But she did that whole doe-eyed, 'please let me help you' thing.

That’s the thing with Faith. She tries to help, not knowing how much she’s hurting me with her actions.

I mean, three months ago she was on my doorstep crying and devastated because he’d broken her heart… and now what? Now they are reproducing and overpopulating the world.

A little jangle in my memory bank makes me look closer at the brunette. She’s pretty, if you like your chicks waif-like and small enough to blow over in a gust of wind. But that’s not what has me staring like a stalker on parole. Sienna…? Isn’t that the name of the woman Elijah broke Faith’s heart for? Before she forgave him and allowed him to impregnate her with his demon sperm?

Doesn’t this all sound like one of those awful daytime dramas Dad watched when he was ill.