Silas was protecting his treasure, and if he didn’t love watching me kill so much, I suspected he’d attempt to lock me in his apartment and swallow the key.
“No, I guess I can’t.” She glanced at him. “His arms will be okay. He should have that same cream in his bathroom at home but if he doesn’t, call me. I’ll make sure you get it.”
“It’s in the cabinet.” Silas set the plates down, his hands flexing against their edges. “I don’t like it, though. It smells funny.”
“Too bad, Kitten. Scratch yourself like that again, and I’ll bathe you in it.”
His nose rumpled, and he huffed as he climbed into my lap. “That’s disgusting, Daddy, and it’s not that big of a deal. They barely hurt anymore.”
“You have a decade of built up scar tissue, bud.” Thea pushed off the edge of the counter, wrapping her fingers around the handle of the pot. She spoke as she dished our lunch. “Every time you open up those wounds, you are more vulnerable to infection. I don’t imagine Elijah would be thrilled with you then.”
Silas craned his neck, staring up at me with big eyes. “You’d be mad at me?”
“Yes.” I grabbed his jaw. “Your pain is my pain, Silas. Your skin is my skin.Do nothurt my baby. Not anymore.”
He nodded, pulling his lips into his mouth.
Fingers wrapped around his hips, I lifted him, coaxing him to place one leg on either side of mine. He straddled my thighs, reclining back against my chest. One hand perched on my knee, he squeezed as if he were afraid I’d disappear.
Thea set a bowl of pasta in front of him and climbed on the stool beside us, shoulders shaking with silent laughter as she took in our position. “How is Elijah going to eat like that?”
“I’ll eat when he’s finished.”
I couldn’t see his face, but I knew Silas was grinning. “My Daddy is very chivalrous, Thea. He let me watch him kill Hugh, and he’s going to let me watch him kill the ghost.”
Thea picked up her fork, tapping it once against her bowl. “Ghost is the one who wants Ben dead?”
“Yep.” Silas said, an edge of irritation in his voice. “I spent six hours combing through the processor’s data. Either he didn’t use a public site to make the initial threat, or he’s smarter than I thought he was.”
I gave him a squeeze. “You’ll find him, Kitten.”
“Of course I will.” The pressure on my knee increased. “But if I don’t find him soon, Mr. Thomas will call and yell at me. I hate it when he does that.”
The fuck?
I ran my hand through his hair, anchoring all my senses to different facets of his body. His smell, and the way he tasted when I ran my tongue along the shell of his ear, was the only goddamn thing keeping me in this stool.
“Daddy.” Silas squirmed on my lap, his voice a whisper. “You’re making my cock hard.”
“The next time somebody yells at you, I want to know.”
“He only does it when a mission is time-sensitive.” He played with his fork. “Like the time his husband went missing. I think he was afraid.”
“That’s not an excuse to be an asshole to my brother.” Thea stabbed at her food. “What a fucker.”
Silas laughed around a bite of pasta.
My eyebrow lifted. Thea was sawing at her noodles with the edge of her fork. The look on her face was bred of anger, and it made me think she was imagining hacking off Ben’s limbs one by one.Interesting.“Are you not afraid of him?”
“She should be.” Silas said, and he was right.
Thea must’ve read the questions that spread across my features because she set down her fork and said, “my best friend from high school is married to Ryan Rossi.”
Holy shit.
“He’s a mafia legacy. His father is—”
“I know. Trust me, Elijah, I know more than any civilian should but after the incident that almost killed their daughter, his wife confided in me. She made Ryan promise not to hurt me, and I’ve been loosely in the know ever since.”