Silas (Dirty Aces MC #4) - Lane Hart Page 0,46
kitchen floor on my knees, unable to move or breathe. Even though I knew he couldn’t stay here with me forever, I thought he would at least consider trying to make our relationship work long-distance before he left.
Of all the times men have used me and hurt me, even landing me in prison, none of them ever hurt me this badly.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Silas
* * *
“Hey, man. Thank you so much,” Nash says as he comes up to me at the pool hall and wraps me in a suffocating hug as soon as I walk through the door. “I owe you. I owe you so damned much for saving my life.”
“I didn’t save your life,” I mutter as I push him off of me.
“Sure you did,” Nash replies, looking like a giddy schoolboy. “You got rid of the witness, and the DA dropped the case. I’m a free man.”
“Yeah, I heard. That’s great.”
“Oh no,” Nash mutters, his face falling. “What the hell did you do, Silas? I thought Malcolm said you didn’t hurt her!”
“I didn’t!” I exclaim.
“So then, she’s still alive?”
“Yes, she’s still alive!” I shout at him. “I don’t go around killing women for shits and giggles!”
“Jeez, calm down. I know you don’t kill women,” Nash says. “But I just thought something could’ve happened if she wasn’t…cooperating.”
“She cooperated. Now she lives in a different city with a different name. Happy?”
“Yes, very,” he replies. “That’s why I was thanking you.”
“So, did, ah, Malcolm tell you anything else about her?” I ask.
“No. Why? What else is there to tell?” Nash questions me, his brow creased in thought.
“Nothing. There’s nothing else to tell.”
“Okay. Good. Guess we should head to the chapel for the meeting.”
“Right,” I agree, following behind him to retake my seat at the Dirty Aces table for the first time in over six weeks. We’re the first two in the room, and the silence gives me too much time to think about Cora. It feels like all I’ve done since I walked out of that house is think about her – wondering how she reacted to my note. Was she hurt or pissed? Probably both. Is everything still on schedule for her grand opening Saturday?
It sucked to leave, and I meant every word I said in the note I left. But this is what’s best. I would rather she remember me as the good guy who broke her heart than the asshole who nearly killed her. Sooner or later, she would’ve learned the truth and hated me when she found out I was the man who pointed the gun at her. I’m the reason she had nightmares and felt insignificant. I wish I could’ve stayed on the island, but I knew from the first time I fucked her that I would have to leave her. It just took me longer than I thought to be dragged away by Malcolm.
Now, I’m back in Carolina Beach, so close and yet so far away from Cora. I know I can never make amends for what I did to her. Buying her the house and restaurant doesn’t feel like enough, but what else can I do from here?
An idea comes to me as I sit and wait in the silent chapel. It’s stupid, but it’s the best I’ve got, needing to occupy my free time with some damn thing. So, before anyone else joins us, I ask Nash, “Think your girl could do me a favor?”
“Anything. Name it,” he says.
“Could she track down some people?”
“Sure. What are their names?” Nash asks.
Wincing, I say, “That’s the thing. I don’t know. It’ll probably take some digging in old police records.”
“How about I ask Lucy to come over after the meeting and bring her laptop? If anyone can track down nameless people, it’s her.”
“Okay. Yeah, let’s do that. Thanks.”
It won’t be much, and Cora will probably never even find out, but at least it’ll give me the chance to do something for her.
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Malcolm says when he strolls into the chapel with a smirk. “Good to see you both back at the table at the same time. Been too long.”
“Yeah, it has,” Nash agrees.
“What’s been going on? Anything I need to know about?” It’s the question I should’ve asked as soon as I saw Malcolm the other day, but I was more worried about myself and Cora than the MC.
“Same old, same old,” our president responds. “Fiasco dropped a frozen turkey into the deep fryer out back and set the entire deck