Page 88 of Inside the Wicked

I want to rip Jacob Forthson’s head from his fucking neck. He sold my little bird. He sold Allie, and if I find out I’m wrongand Jacob’s had her all this time, I’ll struggle to choose where to begin with his suffering.

Silas hums, pulling out a cigarette as he fixes his thoughtful gaze on the ceiling. He offers one to me. “If you’re not going to accept a drink to take your visibly sharp edge off, this might help,” he says.

I glance at Ana. because if she’s even remotely put off by it, I won’t smoke in her presence. She smiles, and it’s all I need to dull my edges really, but this conversation with Silas is far from over. Ana leans over, accepting the cigarette. She puts it between her lips to light it with a Zippo, then she takes it out, reaching out for my mouth with it between her two fingers.

I want to bend her over the pool table to our right so badly with how she’s seducing me with those hazel eyes.

“I’m not a stranger to team sports,” Silas says casually. “This feels like an invitation.”

It might be how Ana leans in, brushing her chest to mine, or how her hand has inched so high on my thigh that stretching her fingers would brush my cock. She shifts away with a devious, coy smile. But my eyes turn firm no matter who the fuck he is. Ana is mine. Only mine.

Before we came, she assured me that despite what Alistair wanted to do—to sell her as a fucking bride—Silas was never interested in her. His sights were fixed on Kenna from the moment he saw her.

I take a deep drag of the cigarette.

Ana says, “If we can set Forthson on Lanshall believing he’ll have your alliance at the end of it, we’ll get to watch them tear each other apart.”

“I’m not convinced Forthson will accept that role so easily. But we can try this your way first, princess.”

Ana’s face firms, and I turn defensive for her without knowing why.

“Why did you let me leave your club that night?” she asks. It’s in her slight tone of hurtthat I realize she feels betrayed. Though she expected it and knew how Silas could be, she made the mistake of believing he could come to be considered afriend.

“Everyone has to make sacrifices,” Silas says. He looks at her with what I think is the best of an apology she’ll never see. “Had I let you in, I never would have let you leave, because Lanshall was coming for you anyway. He sent you here that final night in an attempt to get you to sway me one last time before he planned to take you away to punish Kaiser for somethinghefailed to do.”

I’m slammed by a brick with that insight. It was my fault. The isolation. The assault. Every trauma and torment Ana has been though was because of me, and I had the fucking audacity to think I could chain her to a life of this.

Ana tries to grab my arm as I stand, stubbing out the cigarette and pacing away.

Silas goes on. “Had I kept you in this club, even under the impression I was claiming you like he wanted, there was talk of Kaiser’s death, that no punishment without you would work, and after three months they weren’t any closer to getting him to do what they wanted. You had his location, and I managed to intercept that. I figured if I got Kaiser out, Lanshall isn’t a brash idiot – he’d lose everything in killing the president’s daughter one way or another, so you were safe.”

“Safe,” I huff resentfully. The word is a fucking mockery.

Ana was safe in her life before me. Perhaps Gregory Forbes would have been found out another way, and she would have lived an ordinary and carefree life.

“We should go,” Ana says.

“Meet with Forthson and report back to me,” Silas says. “This is all a ticking grenade we’re passing around now, and I won’t be the last man holding it.”

No, he won’t be. I will. Even if I have to be the one to carry it right to the end and go down in the explosion. If it gets rid of Alistair, I’ll do it.

CHAPTER 33

Anastasia

Rhett is speeding. Usually I wouldn’t care, but all I can think about is how he can’t be seen, and if the police pull us over ... I’m flashed back to memories of how cold and uncaring the officers were when telling me about Rhett’s accident. His death.

“Slow down,” I say.

He doesn’t listen, and then I realize we’re not going the right way to the warehouse apartment.

“Where are we going?”

This could take us to the Den, until ...

He passes the intersection to head that way too, and I only know one dreaded location this way.

“Rhett, stop.”

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