Page 31 of Inside the Wicked

“I knew your brother,” I say.

“I have two.”

“Your half-brother.”

From Silas’s dark shift as he straightens from the rail, I can tell he knows about Matthew.

“Well then, I think we’d best have a seat for this.”

I take my martini slowly this time as I’ve stepped onto a minefield with my exposure, and I can’t be certain what will end the risky game I’m playing. If I lose Silas, it’s all over.

“You’d better not be fooling me, Anastasia. I will warn you, I don’t react kindly to lies or betrayal, no matter how pretty they are.”

“I knew him as Matthew Forbes,” I say.

Silas finishes his cigarette, and it’s the first I’ve seen him light another straight away. “That son of a bitch.” I’ve noticed he runs a hand through his hair when he’s mildly or very stressed. The chain-smoking suggests the latter.

“Did you know him?”

Silas looks at me as if it’s a joke, but when he sees I’m serious, he huffs out a laugh with the shake of his head.

“I don’t know what he told you under his new name, but he’s Matt Balenheizer. He lived with us part-time, spending the rest with his mother. He’s only a year older than me. You could say we were close.”

So Silas is thirty years old. I’m eager to dive deeper into the trove of the infamous Silas Balenheizer as it begins to crack open.

“He said his father tried to kill him,” I say.

“You keep talking of him in the past-tense.”

“He’s dead.”

Silas isn’t surprised, but he’s curious. “When?”

“Just last winter, he ... he tried to buy me. He’d previously held my friend in captivity for five years, and I never knew. All because she looked likeme.” I swallow over the marble of guilt that forms in my throat.

Silas leans forward, his expression turning frightening and serious.

I go on. “I watched him die. Jacob orchestrated the sale of me and knew he would never be able to pay what he owed. He shot him in the head. Then he planted the idea of an alliance in my mind if I wanted to take down Alistair Lanshall.”

It spills out of me before I can stop it. I don’t know why. It’s reckless, but Silas has this bewitchment about him that pulls it from me before I know what I’ve done. My pulse is racing. He could take all of this to Alistair tonight, or perhaps he knows exactly what he’s doing and is waiting to gather all his evidence before he feeds me to the hounds.

Fuck. What have I done?

“I should go,” I say.

I find it easy to keep my cards to my chest and be patient, smart, with Alistair and Jacob. But with Silas, I’ve exposed too much too fast. Opened a door of vulnerability for him to exploit.

“Don’t leave,” Silas says as I stand. It’s the softest tone I’ve heard from him. He pushes up from the sofa, coming closer. “Trust is a series of coin flips. Let me show you my side of this one.”

CHAPTER 12

Anastasia

I’m rolling a dart between my fingers next to Silas as he takes his turn. My aim with a gun is getting better, but I have little coordination with this game. To Silas, however, it’s clearly a pastime. I’m glad for the movement though, rather than just sitting and observing the crowd of Lumina Lounge. It helps me process what we speak of.

“So Matthew was taken away by his mother when he was ten, not cast out,” I repeat.

“Perhaps his mother lied to him about the why. You’ll have to decide what you believe. My truth is just that. Damien hasn’t earned his name on hollow gossip. He only has one rule: no harming women or children. He’s a very powerful man. Matt’s mother was obsessed with my dad even when she found out he had a mistress. Out of respect for her, he kept the marriage and provided for them in another home, but he moved my mother into his own house to have me, then eventually my two brothers, a year apart. When I was nine, Damien finally divorced Matt’s mother to marry mine. Matt’s mother turned crazy, obsessive, and for my mother’s safety he cut all ties, but for our sake, as we’d grown to know Matt as a brother, he requested joint custody. She told him no, she’d met someone else, and hefigured it wasn’t worth the battle. We later learned she’d met thissomeone elseyears ago; they already had a son together.”

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