“There was a woman at the restaurant tonight, and she recognized me. Her husband knows Konstantin well. It’s only a matter of time before she tells Konstantin she saw me, if she hasn’t already. And he’ll come for me.”
I sit back and exhale roughly. It is terrifying letting go of the story I’ve locked inside me for six years. But there is also a sweet relief in freeing it.
“I’ve never told anyone any of this,” I say softly.
Not even Nessa.
Not even when I heard my father had died, or when my sister got married to one of my husband’s cousins two years ago, though I knew she’d always had a crush on him, even back then. I didn’t get to be there, so I rented a room across the street from the venue in hopes of catching a glimpse of her.
I didn’t.
I had to read about it online like everyone else; we have been emotionally lost to each other for a long time.
“What is your real name? The name Konstantin will call you?” Silas asks.
“Antonia DiLantis.”
Silas seems to recognize my surname, which doesn’t surprise me. My father was known from east to west, and in every underbelly in between. He wasn’t a big player. But he was known.
“What did your father think happened to you?” he asks.
“I’m a missing person. But I think my father believed Viktor killed me. I think it’s what everyone believed. Or what Konstantin made them believe.”
“So after you killed your husband, you walked into the night and disappeared?”
“By way of the morgue where I worked. It’s not hard to fake your death when you work with the dead.”
Silas thinks. “Will Konstantin believe this woman?”
“Even if he doesn’t fully believe her, it’s a lead he will follow.”
For six years I thought I was safe. Laid low and kept my head down.
And it only took one chance encounter in a fancy restaurant to unravel six years of hiding my identity.
“Fuck…” I whisper as fear surges through me and brings tears to my eyes.
Silas sets his glass down and reaches for me, and his touch is so gentle it makes my chest ache. Silently, he pulls me into his arms, and in the safety of them, I break apart.
I press my face into his chest, and for the first time in a long time, I let my emotions pour out of me.
He doesn’t tell me it’s going to be okay. He just holds me and lets me fall apart in his arms, exposing a part of me that even I wasn’t aware was still there. Vulnerability.
38
LEONORE
His heart beats steady against my cheek, his arms strong and safe around me. I don’t know how long we stay there for. Long enough for the trembling in my limbs to ease and my racing pulse to even out.
When I finally pull back to look up at him, his eyes burn with something dark.
Fury.
I know Silas is a capable man, but I don’t understand why he would go out on a limb for someone like me. Although the past few months we’ve slowly drawn together, as much as I’ve fought it—why would he go so far for me? I’m not his family. Or his crew. Why stick his neck out this far for me?
“You should run from this,” I whisper.
“I don’t run from anything.” His voice is deep and hard. I know this. I just watched as he took on the Nero crew without a second thought. But that was personal to him.
