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Because he attacked. Nonstop swings and blows that I didn’t try to deflect.
I welcomed his contempt.
“You fucking bastard, sick motherfucker. You’ve been messing with my sister? Deny it. Fucking deny it.”
He didn’t give me time to. He just kept throwing punch after ruthless punch.
Not that I would because there was no denying Elena.
She was carved into my stone. A seed that had bloomed in my spirit.
Harsh rasps jutted out of him as a barrage of fists battered my face.
Disgust and scorn and grief.
I let him pound it out on me.
A commotion erupted around us, and Pyke, Brody, and Phoenix rushed into the fray.
“What the fuck, man?” Brody shouted, moving behind Silas and fighting to pull him off.
Rabid, Silas broke free, jerking his arms out of Brody’s hold and coming at me full force.
A shove to the chest that knocked me to the ground.
A shove I allowed him because I’d come here to take what I had earned.
“Have you been fucking her, huh? Go ahead. Deny it, motherfucker. Let me hear it through your goddamned, lying teeth.”
Phoenix and Brody grabbed both his arms, and Silas kicked and thrashed as they hauled him back.
He roared as he battled to get back to me.
“Are you kidding me, Silas?” Brody shouted as he fought to keep Silas contained. “This is about Elena? She is a grown-ass adult, and like it isn’t plain as day that they’re together.”
That only seemed to piss Silas off more. His arms flailed and jerked against Brody and Phoenix’s grips.
An engine screamed as it tore up the dirt lane from deeper on the property, and in my periphery, a black SUV skidded to a stop. A cloud of dust billowed around it as Brinley threw open the door and jumped out.
“Silas! Stop! Stop it right now!” Her voice was shrill and panicked. Frantic, she ran up, the only thing that broke into the hazy discord of his rage.
He blinked, slowing, though he wrangled his arms free of Phoenix and Brody’s grip. “Let me go.”
A snarl curled across his face as he swiped away some of my blood that had splattered onto his cheek. His voice cracked with a disjointed laugh.
“Imagine me accidentally knocking over the trash bin in the bathroom in my bedroom. Seeing a positive pregnancy test and thinking my wife is going to give me the news that we’re gonna have a baby.”
“Silas, please…” Brinley begged, “listen to me. Let’s not do this in front of everyone.”
She attempted to get in Silas’s line of sight. To calm him. But there was no calming a man who’d been set on fire.
Pain twisted across his brow. “I think I’m going to sneak up behind her and pick her up off her feet and swing her around so we can celebrate. And instead, she goes pale when she sees what I’m holding. Won’t tell me what’s happening, but that the test isn’t hers. I was so dazed for a second. Confused. But it doesn’t take a whole lot for a man to come up with the sum, does it?”
Fuck.
This was not part of the plan. I wanted Elena to be able to tell him. On her terms. This wasn’t for the rest of the club to know.
An earthquake rocked through me, and I slowly climbed to my feet, wiping the blood and sweat and dirt from my jaw with the sleeve of my shirt.
