Page 192 of Silver Elite

“I’ve been thinking about something all day,” he says, setting the bottle on my desk. “Since the wellness checks.”

The next thing I know, he’s pulling off his white T-shirt. He tosses it on the small armchair where I like to curl up and read at night.

“Is there a reason you need to tell me your thoughts while shirtless?”

He grins, that dimple digging a deep hole in his cheek. He’s so sexy when he smiles. It makes him look so much younger. His usual expression—mocking and apathetic—lends him an air of maturity, but then he smiles at me, and I remember that he’s twenty-two.

“Give me your hand,” he says.

I play along and place my hand in his. It looks tiny in his palm, with his long fingers stroking my shorter ones. He presses my palm over his right pec and moves it back and forth.

“Am I supposed to be feeling anything?”

“Two years ago, there was a scar there. The size of a bottle cap.” He snickers. “Looked like I had two nipples.”

I can’t help but smile. “You asked Ellis to make it go away?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you get the scar?”

“My brother shot me with an arrow.”

My jaw drops. “What? Which brother?”

“Which one do you think?”

“You’re right, stupid question. Obviously it was Roe. How did it happen?”

“Hunting trip a couple of years ago. I was twenty, he was sixteen. The General wanted us to have some brother bonding time. I guess Roe complained that I never spent time with him. So we went into the woods with a couple of crossbows, split up to track a deer, and what do you know? Oops. He mistook me for a white coyote. Accidentally shot my ass.”

“Accidentally.”

“So he claims. With Roe, it could really go either way. I don’t think he hates me enough to kill me, but…”

“He’s jealous of you.”

“Always has been. My father…He worships my mother in a way that he never, ever did with Roe’s. He took care of her when she got pregnant, but he never gave a shit. There’s only one woman Merrick Redden will ever love. And that’s Vinessa.”

It’s the first time I’ve heard Cross say his mother’s name.

“That’s such a pretty name.” I hesitate. “How come she doesn’t go out in public?”

“He doesn’t like to expose her to that. He never did with us, either.”

I nod. The General always delivers his broadcasts alone. I don’t think I’ve even seen photos of him with his family at celebrations. I saw Vinessa Redden standing with him on the balcony of the Capitol once for Liberty Day fireworks, but other than that, the General keeps his family out of sight.

“He doesn’t take chances. He’s scared of assassination attempts. But I digress.”

“Right. Your psycho brother shot you in the woods.”

Cross snickers. “He did. And I always had this scar as a reminder I couldn’t entirely trust my brother. Either one of them.”

“Travis shot you somewhere else?”

He smiles faintly. “Something like that. Anyway, after the scar was gone and I wasn’t seeing it in the mirror every morning, I forgot about it.”

“The fact that he shot another recruit in cold blood wasn’t a good enough reminder?”

---