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“Thea,” Max says. He can’t really hug me back thanks to the cuffs keeping his arms stretched out. “Are you all right?”
I pull away from him and study his face. He’s got a cracked, bruised lip, but besides that, he seems okay. “It’s not me I’m worried about. How are you?”
Max tries to shrug, but he can’t, not really. “Been better,” he deadpans, and then he adds in a more serious, hushed voice, “I guess you were right about it being a bad idea to kidnap a mafia boss, huh?” Trying to make a joke at a time like this. God, I could strangle him.
Since he’s already told me I was right and he was wrong, all I can do is sigh.
He glances around me, probably at Silus, who stands back, watching us like the hawk he is, my ever-present guardian. “What’s that about? Did Silus…”
The last thing I’m going to tell Max is that Silus wants every part of me—and that he already made me get on my knees for him—so I say, “He’s keeping me in a room in his place. He says he’ll let me go if… if I’m good.”
“Thea, you don’t really believe that, do you? He’s a liar. He’s—”
I lower my voice to a whisper, “I don’t think he is, actually.” Max gives me a knowing look after that, causing me to snap, “What?” The longer that look lasts, the more pissed off I get at my dear brother.
Max’s eyes take in my clean hair before they drop to study my new blouse; basically everything on me points to the fact that he knows what’s going on between Silus and me. He’s not stupid. “I hope you’re not doing anything for me,” he finally says. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You… you should do whatever you can to get out of there—”
Behind me, I hear Silus chuckle, but I pointedly ignore him as I tell Max, “No, Max. I can’t. I have to stay for you. If I don’t… he might kill you, and I can’t let that happen.” Being my brother, I know he’s ready to argue with me, so I throw my arms around his neck and hug him as I whisper, “I got this. Trust me.”
Before Max can respond, I pull away from him and stand, turning toward Silus. I take a few steps toward the man before I stop and say, “You can’t keep him here.” I say it loud enough for both men in the large warehouse to hear me. My voice echoes in the space, bouncing off the walls before reverberating back to me.
Silus is amused. “And where should I keep him, then?”
“Let’s bring him with us—”
Barking out a laugh, he says, “No. Having you both captive in the same place? I don’t think so. I don’t trust you two not to scheme, much the way you did before you kidnapped me.” He sticks his hands in his pants’ pockets, cocking his head at me, as if he’s waiting for a rebuttal.
I don’t have a well-formulated one, though. All I can say is, again, “You can’t keep him here” and all I can do is point a finger back at my brother, who is still very much chained up, his arms pulled uncomfortably in both directions away from his body.
“Thea, I can do whatever I want.”
The breath that escapes me right then is erratic and hard, but I manage to gather myself as I move closer to Silus. Close enough that I have to bend my head back to gaze up at him and bat my eyelashes as I murmur, “Then don’t bring him with us, but put him somewhere else. Somewhere with a bed and a toilet. Somewhere he’s not chained to the ground like an animal. Please, Silus?” I make sure to lay the sugar on thick.
I’ve never used my feminine wiles before, never flirted with a man to get him to do what I want—and honestly, I don’t know if it’s working. Silus’s expression doesn’t change. Seconds tick by, but I don’t look away. Neither of us do. It’s like we’re both waging a war with only our eyes. May the best win.
“Uh,” Max’s voice rises behind me, “are you two having strokes over there? Hello?” Leave it to my brother to break up the seriousness of the moment with an ill-timed comment. He should’ve kept his mouth shut; I’m doing this for him.
To my surprise, however, Silus is the one who speaks first, and what he says he says to me, not Max, “Fine. I will have him moved, but I am not moving him for his comfort. I’m moving him for yours.”
I’m so surprised at what I’m hearing that all I can do is blink. I’m so speechless I can’t even thank him for agreeing to move Max out of this old, dank warehouse.
“Come,” Silus says. “I’ll need to make arrangements.” He goes to pick up the sack off the floor, but he doesn’t hand it to me so I can put it back on. If he’s moving Max, it doesn’t matter if I know where we are.
As Silus and I leave the warehouse, Max shouts, “Thank you! I think?”
I’m still speechless even as we get inside the car and drive away. I want to ask Silus if he knows where he’s going to move my brother, if I’ll be able to visit him once he’s there, but I shouldn’t push my luck. It’s a miracle he agreed to move Max as it is.
For my comfort.
As we drive away from the warehouse, I glance at Silus next to me and find he’s already staring at me, like I’m some puzzle he can’t quite put together yet, and it’s bugging the crap out of him. The analogy could go both ways, though; the same thing could be said of him to me.
There is no logical reason why he should’ve given in to me, why Silus should have bowed to my demands and agreed to move my brother. He’s the one in charge here, not me.
I don’t say a word during the drive back, mostly because I don’t know what to say, but also partly because I don’t want to say anything more in front of his driver. I guess I should thank him, but I don’t want to do it with any other people listening.
So I wait until we’re back in Silus’s condo, until he’s about to lock me in my room so he can make whatever calls he has to in order to get the ball rolling on moving Max. Once I cross the threshold of the room, I spin to face him before he can shut the door on me and say, “Silus, thank you for moving Max. I really do appreciate it. I… I know you don’t have to, but—”
“I know,” he whispers, and then, right when I think we’re sharing a moment, he shuts the door in my face and locks me in.
