Chapter 16
"Silas!" Harper cried, rushing toward him.
He caught her, crushing her against his chest, dropping the rifle to wrap both arms around her. He buried his face in her neck, breathing heavily. "You're safe. Thank God, you're safe."
"You came back early," Harper gasped, tears of sheer relief streaming down her face.
"It was a trap," Silas growled, pulling back to look at her, his eyes blazing with fury. "Volkov wasn't at the warehouse. He sent a decoy to draw me out so he could hit the cabin. When Vance realized the guards here weren't answering their radios, we turned around. Volkov’s convoy is dead on the highway. We intercepted them."
Silas turned his attention to the man bleeding on the floor. His expression turned into a mask of pure, lethal ice. He walked slowly toward Marcus.
"Bane, out," Silas commanded softly.
The hound immediately released Marcus’s ruined arm and trotted over to Harper’s side, sitting heavily against her leg.
Marcus scrambled backward through the wreckage of the coffee table, clutching his bleeding arm, his eyes wide with stark terror. "Wait! Wait! Volkov made me do it! He said he would kill me if I didn't help him!"
Silas didn't say a word. He reached down, grabbed Marcus by the collar of his jacket, and hauled him to his feet with terrifying ease. He dragged the screaming man out onto the porch, throwing him down into the muddy gravel of the driveway.
Vance and heavily armed syndicate soldiers surrounded the clearing, their weapons trained on the miserable figure in the mud.
"You broke into my home," Silas said, his voice echoing coldly in the wet forest air. "You pointed a weapon at the woman I love. And you betrayed the syndicate that paid you."
"Please," Marcus begged, sobbing openly, looking at Harper standing in the doorway. "Harper, tell him! Tell him to let me go! I won't ever come back, I swear to God!"
Harper looked at the man who had beaten her, manipulated her, and tried to sell her to the Russian mob. She felt nothing. No fear, no pity. Just a profound, hollow emptiness where his power over her used to be.
"You always were a coward, Marcus," Harper said clearly, her voice carrying over the rushing river. She turned her back on him and walked back inside the cabin.
Silas drew his customized pistol. The suppressor made a heavy, dull sound. Two shots.
The silence returned to the redwoods, absolute and permanent.
May you like
Silas walked back inside, holstering his weapon. He looked at Harper, his chest heaving, waiting for her to pull away in horror at the monster she had just witnessed.
Instead, Harper walked up to him, took his bloody, bruised face in her hands, and kissed him.
