Chapter Nine - Silas
878 Words
Twenty years.
Twenty damn years, and still couldn't look at that pendant without seeing fire.
The clubhouse had gone quiet after everyone realized the last page of Thomas's
letter was missing. The brothers had scattered across the property, checking locks
and security cameras again, searching for a ghost they didn't even know the name
of.
I sat alone in my office.
The three remaining pages laid open across the old oak desk.
Rain tapped against the window beside me.
My hands shook as I reached for the first page.
Not because I was sick.
Because I knew exactly what should have been on the fourth.
The truth.
The whole truth.
And now it was gone.
I closed my eyes.
I could still hear Charlotte yelling at me all those years ago.
"If anything happens to me, you make sure she knows I never left her by choice."
I had promised.
God help me, I had promised.
Then I had broken every oath I ever made.
A soft knock came from the office door.
"Come in."
The door opened slowly, and Jaxon stepped inside. He looked tired. Older somehow.
I used to think becoming vice president would harden him.
Instead, it had made him carry everyone else's burdens.
He closed the door behind him.
"You should be resting."
I laughed quietly.
"I don't think I've earned much rest."
He looked at the letter on the desk.
"Did you know the last page was gone before tonight?"
"No."
"You sure?"
I looked up at my son.
The suspicion in his eyes wasn't aimed at Eve anymore.
It was aimed at me.
"I've lied to you about a lot of things," I admitted. "But not that."
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
"Then somebody got to it before she arrived."
I nodded.
"Looks that way."
"And they knew exactly what they were looking for."
Neither of us said the next part out loud.
They had known Eve was coming.
Jaxon picked up the first page and read the opening lines.
Silas, if this letter reaches you, then I'm already gone.
He swallowed.
"Thomas wrote this?"
"Yes."
"I don't understand." He looked back at me. "Who the hell was he?"
The memory came back so clearly it almost hurt.
A younger man.
Grease on his hands.
A laugh that carried across the old garage before this clubhouse was even built.
A brother.
Not by blood.
By choice.
"He saved my life once," I said.
Jax frowned.
"You never told me that."
"I never told anybody."
Thomas Cross had never worn an Iron Crown patch.
He didn't believe in clubs.
He believed in people.
That was his weakness.
And in the end...
It was mine too.
Jax looked towards the door to make sure we were alone.
"When you saw Eve outside..." he said quietly. "You called her Charlotte's girl."
I looked down at the letter.
"Yes."
"So Charlotte was her mother."
"Yes."
"And you knew she was alive."
The words hung between us.
I nodded once.
"I knew."
Jax took a step back like I'd hit him.
"You let that girl grow up without her family."
I closed my eyes.
"You think I don't know that?"
"You could've told her."
"I couldn't."
"Why?"
I looked at my son.
Because there are some truths a man carries until they bury him.
Because I had watched good people die trying to protect one little girl.
Because the enemy had been closer than any of us realized.
Because I never knew who I could trust.
Especially after that night.
The office door opened before I could answer.
Cal walked in and immediately shut it behind him.
His face was grim.
"What is it?" I asked.
He glanced at Jax before speaking.
"We found something."
My stomach tightened.
"What?"
"The security footage from the back service road."
Jax straightened.
"You found the traitor?"
Cal hesitated.
"No."
He reached into his pocket and placed a folded photograph on the desk.
I picked it up.
The picture was grainy, taken from one of the old cameras near the service gate. A
black SUV sat just outside the fence line.
Standing beside it was a man in a dark coat.
His face was turned just enough for me to see it.
The breath left my lungs.
"No..." I whispered.
Jax looked over my shoulder.
"You know him?"
I couldn't answer.
Because I did know him.
I knew that face.
I'd watched him swear loyalty to Iron Crown more than twenty years ago.
I'd stood beside him at weddings.
Buried friends with him.
Trusted him with my family.
The photograph slipped from my fingers and landed on the desk.
Cal's voice was barely audible.
"Silas..."
I looked at him.
The words nearly broke me.
"He's supposed to be dead."
The office fell silent.
Then, from somewhere downstairs, I heard Eve laugh softly at something Dani had
said.
A simple, ordinary sound.
For one brief second, she sounded like the little girl Charlotte had begged me to
protect.
I stared at the photograph again.
If the man outside our gates was really who I thought he was...
Then the dead hadn't stayed buried.
And the war we'd spent twenty years trying to avoid had finally come home.
- Writer
