Ryan Rossi was a legend—his father even more so.
I hadn’t meant either of them, and I suspected I never would. Ben rarely spoke about his best friend, and the whispers surrounding their friendship were merely rumors. The only verifiable truth was this: Benjamin Thomas should’ve never been a mob boss. Ryan handed his legacy to Ben and just… disappeared.
The departure of Ryan Rossi granted Ben the opportunity to do whatever the fuck he wanted…and he did.Benjamin Thomas didn’t have any family, so he recruited his own men—taking them apart bit by bit and reconstructing them into weapons that would detonate with the single snap of his fingers.
We weren’t bred by blood, but by loyalty, and that made us all the more dangerous.
“I reached out to Ryan when I noticed things about Silas.” Thea wrapped her finger around a loose string at the edge of her scrub top. “When Silas was in sixth grade, a kid in his class fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm.”
“Freddy.” Silas whispered, his fork frozen mid-bite as if he were remembering.
“He had an open fracture, meaning his bone broke through the skin. It fascinated Silas, of course. He asked if he could touch it.” Thea blew out a breath, and our eyes met. “I got a call from the school a couple of hours later. Silas wasslamminghis own arm in a locker, trying to make his bone break the same way Freddy’s did.”
“I just wanted to see, Daddy.” Silas peered over his shoulder. “I… wanted to see if I could pull my bone from my skin and keep it. That would be cool, wouldn’t it?”
The hairs across my body rose one by one.Christ.I shut my eyes, counting backward from ten while I carefully considered my reply. I didn’t want him to think I was mad at him, but fucking hell, I wasthisclose to sewing his skin to mine so I could monitor his every goddamn move.
“That would certainly be interesting, Kitten, but you understand why you can’t do that, yes?”
“Yes, Daddy. Thea explained it.”
I pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, tightening my arm around his waist.
“I started home-schooling that same week.” Thea’s lips tugged upward into a fond smile. “I loved spending time with him, but the more afternoons we spent together, the more I realized he was different. Silas asked to go to prison for his thirteenth birthday because he wanted to witness an execution. He complained the entire way home that it wasn't entertaining enough.”
“You’re way better at killing, Daddy,” he said, andfuck, I smiled.
“When I noticed Silas had an affinity for computers, Ryan put me in touch with Ben. I handed my baby brother to the mob because it was the only place I thought he could be himself.”
Thea was clever. More so, she wasright. Her care and boldness were likely the only reasons Silas turned out the way he did, and though I wasn’t a fan of the way she consistently questioned my devotion, I was grateful for what she’d done, regardless.
ChapterEleven
Silas
His pulse swayedagainst the pads of my thumbs, each beat heavier and more pronounced than the last. The skin around his throat tightened with each breath he took, and I struggled not to dig my nails into the skin covering his pulse point, claiming each and every one of those breaths asmine.
I was careful as I hoisted one leg over his sleeping body and made a home for myself against the sharp angles of his hips. My toes curled in tandem with my chest tightening, and I wondered if I’d always feel a little dizzy when I looked at him.
I’d spent thousands of hours mapping each line, each divot, and each vein that danced along his skin. I’d memorized the arch of his lips and traced the juncture of his neck. I knew Daddy’s face better than I knew my own, and though I’d spent years watching him, it wasn’t long enough.
There were spots I missed—subtle curves and faded wounds the cameras could never distinguish. Embedded into his skin, disguised by the thin hair of his left eyebrow, was a barely there scar no longer than my fingernail. The ends of my hair swept across his cheekbones when I bent over him and traced that scar with the tip of my tongue. My fingers crawled up his throat and anchored themselves to the scruff lining his jaw. The texture was rough, and it reminded me of Marv and the way his spikes felt when I wanted to bleed.
I’d rather bleed on Daddy.
My forearms started to itch, but I didn’t dare move my fingers. Trapped beneath three layers of gauze and too much tape, were the scars I’d clawed open last night. They were mostly done bleeding by the time we got home from Thea’s but Daddy made me wear the bandages, anyway. I hated them, but I knew I’d get in trouble for trying to take them off.
Do not hurt my baby.
Daddy’s words were as much a plea as they were an order. I wouldn’t disobey him—not again.
My arms were just a casualty to all the stress I felt watching him look through that folder. Anxiety buried me in bricks built of silence, and each second that passed where he said nothing, I fell deeper and deeper. I don’t remember tearing at my skin, but I do remember the way my bones felt beneath it, crumbling under the weight of the unknown.
I remember the way my heart hid—concealing itself behind my crippled lungs, struggling to beat properly while it waited like the rest of me did.
Thea was wrong.
Daddy didn’t break my heart muscles—he protected them.