Page 45 of Closer Than You Think
Coated in her orgasm, I pull out, flipping her onto her stomach, and shove a saliva-drenched finger into her tightass. I've always wanted to do this to her and now, with her trust already shattered and her emotions raw, it seems like the perfect time.
“I'm going to fuck you here, too,” I growl in her ear, gripping her hips hard, lining up my cock, and slamming myself deep inside her untouched hole. Hallie cries out in a mixture of shock and pleasure.
“Oh God, Silas,” she pants, arching her back against me.
I slam into her even harder, taking her like I've always wanted to. This is what she needs, what she really needs. Someone to take control. Someone to make her forget the world outside these four walls.
“You love this, don’t you? The pleasure and the pain. Am I the first to fuck your ass, angel?”
“Yes. Yes!”
As I slam into her tight hole, I revel in her screams. I grip her hips, holding her in place as I pound into her relentlessly. Her body constricts around me, her unique heat and tightness sending bolts of pleasure through my own. The heady combination of her submission and the knowledge that I'm the first to take her this way intoxicates me.
“You're mine,” I growl in her ear, my voice rough with lust and possession. “You've always been mine, and you'll always be mine.”
“Yes . . . ” Hallie moans, her voice a delicious mixture of agony and ecstasy. “Yours, Silas. I'm yours.”
Her admission sets me off, and I explode deep inside her, groaning her name as a primal growl.
Twenty
Silas
Ileave Hallie in my bed after covering her face in kisses and promising to never lie to her again. I know it’ll take time before she forgives me, but she didn’t fight me again when I told her I loved her. So I consider it a win.
“Back to work,” I command, returning to the heart of the operation. The click of keyboards fills the space again, each keystroke a step closer to unraveling The Syndicate's grip on our lives.
A hush falls over the room as screens flicker to life, casting a sterile glow over faces set in concentration. My team's eyes dart across digital maps, complex diagrams, and lists of names that could be the key to unlocking The Syndicate's hold on Teddy's past.
“Look for patterns, any common ground,” I instruct, my gaze locked onto the web of connections sprawling before us. The hum of computers blends with the muted sounds of concentration. A tap here, a click there—it's the quiet symphony of analysis.
“Si, check this out.” Jet's voice cuts through the silence, a thread of excitement laced within. I move to his station, muscles tensing, preparing for what he's about to reveal.
He points to a cluster of data points where Teddy’s world and The Syndicate’s operations intersect. It's a tangle of transactions, locations, and shadowy figures, but it's there—the beginnings of a map that might lead us through this labyrinth of crime. And they converge on St. Peter’s Catholic Church in downtown Alcott.
“The rosary. It has to be connected,” I say, as I explain the details from the mysterious package Hallie received.
If the church was in on this, or part of the Syndicate’s plan, then this goes deeper than we thought.
“Keep digging,” I say, my voice steady despite the storm brewing inside me. “Every name, every place—it could make all the difference.”
I can't shake the guilt gnawing at me, the weight of responsibility bearing down. I don’t necessarily regret killing Teddy. Killing is a part of who I am, more than almost anything else. But I regret hurting Hallie. I regret keeping such a dark secret from her.
I push the thoughts away, focusing instead on the myriad threads we need to untangle.
“We had no clue why anyone wanted Teddy dead. Hallie says he wasn’t involved in anything criminal. So where is the connection? Why did they want him dead?”
“I want to know why they bothered pretending to be someone else ordering the hit?” Cain questions. “I remember that call, I took it. They went out of their way to make it seem like just another drug job.”
“They don’t do anything without a reason,” Alan says.
“Si, look at this.” Blake's voice slices through the tension, a knife-point of focus. I move to his station, my gaze falling on the monitor where numbers and names bleed into one another.
“Scroll back,” I command, my voice low but sharp.
He complies, and there it is—a transaction, hidden beneath layers of digital obfuscation, but clear as day to eyes trained to see through deception. Money, a substantial amount, transferred from an account flagged by our intel as Syndicate-controlled. The recipient? A shell company, but the trail doesn't end there. It points to Teddy.
“God damn it,” I mutter, my throat tight with a cocktail of emotions too potent to swallow. “He brought this to her doorstep after all.”
