Page 19 of Ugly Truths
Something inside me fractures. The pain wraps around my ribs, seizes my organs, and squeezes so tight I swear they’ll spill out of my pores. Still, I refuse to look away from him.
“Did you find what was on the servers?” My voice cracks on the last word.
Silas’s frustration flares like a match struck too close. “I know everything on those servers. What I’m still trying to figure out is whatyouwere looking for.”
If it’s possible for the vice already squeezing the life out of me to tighten, it does.
That can’t be true.
“You’ve seen what your father is burying?”
His face darkens, a shadow falling over his features. “I’m about to run this company, Elena. I know everything.”
My vision blurs as the words slam into me, but they don’t make sense.
They can’t.
The Silas I knew would never be capable of standing by and letting it happen. He was fighting for his employees. For his sister. Hell, for a woman he barely knew because she was in trouble. He cared about people.
But maybe I never knew the real Silas.
Maybe the person in front of me, coiled with hatred and something darker, is who he always was, but I just never experienced it. Maybe I misread him all along, and I risked my life just to give another terrible man the chance to bury his sins.
Even as my thoughts spiral, my mouth betrays me. “I don’t believe you.” I think it’s more for myself than for him.
White-hot pressure flares in my neck as Silas grabs me, cutting off my air. Pain radiates down into my chest. I instinctively yank against the restraints to grab his wrist, only for the coarse rope to dig deeper into my skin, slicing into flesh already rubbed raw. The chair jerks and creaks.
“Don’t you dare speak like you know me.”
My lungs burn as black blotches bloom at the edges of my vision. Pressure builds behind my eyes.
“I do know you, Silas,” I rasp, even though I’m not sure that’s true anymore.
His armor cracks, and the agony crawls its way to the surface, carving itself on every feature. And for a second, I see him—my Silas. He’s right there, just within reach.
The fingers around my throat loosen just enough to make the dark edges of my vision sharpen once again. “I thought I knewyou,” he breathes out like he’s trying to exhale the pain before it consumes him. “Why did you do this?”
Fresh tears slide down my cheeks and onto his hand. The warmth of them seeps into the creases of his skin. I feel it. So does he.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I whimper.
“You did,” he hisses. “Me. You could have chosenme.”
The venom of his words wraps around me like a noose. It tightens with every second, pulling me deeper into the infinite depths of his hatred.
This is what happens with everything I touch.
My voice wobbles through quiet sobs. “I wanted to. So badly.”
He hesitates. Like there’s something lingering on the tip of his tongue, right before icing over.
“Bullshit.”
The assertion severs any traces of doubt I thought I might have just seen, but I can't let it go. Even if it changes nothing. Especially if it changes nothing. I barely recognize the man standingin front of me, but the one I knew deserves to hear the truth, regardless of whether he wants to or not.
My throat bobs against his palm as I swallow, the edges of his face watery from unshed tears. “I gain nothing by lying to you,” I whisper.
His jaw tightens. In that silence, I feel the inevitability of the end drawing closer and it clicks into place. It’s etched into every hard line of his face, the sharp set of his mouth, the cold finality in his dark brown eyes. This has consumed him, and there’s no space left in him for doubt.
