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Staring at my oldest friend.

My brother.

In an outright challenge, he lifted his chin, bloodied hands clenching and unclenching into fists. “Are you going to deny it?”

“Silas,” Brinley pleaded again.

Though I spoke before she could get anything else out. “I gave you an oath to protect Elena with everything that I have. With all that I am.”

Silas scoffed, and I pressed on, words grinding out into the dust that saturated the air. “I took that oath meaning it. Trying to deny what I felt. Trying to deny what she felt. But I think you already knew. I think you already knew I was going to fail.”

Disbelief curdled his expression, and I kept talking. Needing to get this out, no matter where it led.

“You entrusted her well-being to me because you knew the lengths I would go for her. You knew I was the only person here who would do abso-fucking-lutely anything to keep her safe. You chose me because you know I fucking love her.”

I slammed my fist against my chest.

“I’ve loved her for years. And if this is about the club? About the oath that I took? To protect her and not to touch her? Fine. Put a bullet in the back of my skull. Deem me a traitor and bury me in the woods with the rest of the deviants.”

I inhaled a staggered breath, at war with the thousand different emotions that pummeled from all sides.

My respect and loyalty to him slammed against my pure, complete devotion to Elena.

“I came crawling back to LA when I was eighteen. Desperate for your forgiveness. Willing to do absolutely anything to win your trust. Because you all were my family. My whole pathetic life, through the neglect of my mother, you were my family.”

Silas jerked his head to the side like he couldn’t tolerate what I was saying.

Still, I pressed on. “All of you were my home, and every oath I’ve ever made, every act was to prove it. But I refuse your judgement over loving your sister because loving her is the most important thing I’ve ever done. That is the oath I was meant to take.”

I swallowed over the barbs in my throat. “I was meant to love her the same way as you were meant to love Brinley. She’s my heart. My life. And yeah, you’re my family. My brother. But I’m going to live this life for her, not for you. You don’t get to dictate who either of us love.”

Turmoil churned through his expression. His mouth twisting with the remnants of rage and the gauntlet that I had thrown.

Brinley stared at me. Approval in her eyes as she looped an arm around Silas’s waist. Whatever words she was uttering remained hidden in his cut.

“You lied,” he spat. Spikes of indignation speared into his flesh.

“That I am guilty of.”

My phone rang from my pocket, and I twitched, wanting to reach for it. Sure it was Elena checking in. Worried about how things were going to go down.

Unfortunately, we still didn’t know.

A second later, my phone buzzed with a text.

So did Brody, Phoenix, and Silas’s at the same time.

Phoenix dug his out, his attention still darting between me and Silas and his phone, prepared to dive back in if one of us were to go back for the other.

Only his expression went grim when he read the text. “Regan can’t find Elena.”

It was instant.

The way dread sank like a stone to the pit of my stomach.

I didn’t even hesitate.

I ran.