Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“Why don’t men ever just listen to women?”
“That boy up there is no man. And I told your dad I’d keep an eye on you. I’m not going to have you murdered out there on the street.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Murdered? Here? We’re the only two houses on the cul-de-sac.”
“Humor me, okay?”
“Phee.” Ethan’s voice comes from upstairs. She looks up at him. “Sorry.”
“You’d better be.” She then turns to me and shakes her head. “Fine. Take me home.”
I nod, gesture to the front door where she puts on her coat, and I walk her to her house in silence. Once there, she slips her key into the lock and opens the front door. She switches on the light and turns to me, and I see the Ophelia I know. The sweet, quiet girl.
“He’s a jerk. You can do better, O.”
“I can take care of myself, Silas.”
“Can you? What if I hadn’t come and he hadn’t stopped?”
A blush creeps into her cheeks. “He would have stopped.”
“If he hadn’t? You don’t know men.”
“I thought you said he was a boy,” she says more quietly, and I get the feeling she is more shaken up than she wants to admit or she wants me to see.
“Okay. You want me to stay?”
She smiles. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
I nod, turn to go.
“Silas?”
I look back at her. She’s biting her lip. “You’re not going to tell my dad, are you?”
“I should.”
“Please don’t. I’ll be more careful.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“All right. Get inside and lock the door.”
“You get home and lock the door,” she teases. A moment passes, her smile vanishes. “Why do you stay?”
“What?”
“You and your mom. Why do you stay? I see how they are to you, both of you.”
I find myself studying her. It’s the quiet ones who see everything, isn’t it? It’s what Mom always says. Ophelia is smart enough to know I’m Sly Fox’s bastard son.
“It’s complicated, sweetheart,” I say.
A blush creeps into her cheeks. I think it’s my use of the word sweetheart. I smile.
“Hey, one more thing,” I say, and she raises her eyebrows. “You’re pretty with your glasses. You don’t have to change who you are for idiots like Ethan Fox. They’re usually not worth it.” Her mouth stretches into a wide smile, brighter than I’ve ever seen, but at the same time, her eyes grow misty. “Goodnight, Ophelia.”
“Goodnight, Silas.”
8
SILAS
Past
Consequences
I’m reclining in a pool chair drinking a beer when the Foxes return from their wining and dining night out with Mr. Hart and whoever’s money they’re trying to get. Mom’s asleep. I didn’t tell her what happened tonight, what I did to Ethan. I lost my cool with the kid, although he’s not a fucking kid. Eighteen is legally an adult, to use his logic.
But I’m still three years older and a hell of a lot bigger.
There will be consequences.
I hear the sliding glass door open and finish the last of my beer before standing to face Sly Fox.
Mira and Ethan wait in the doorway, Mira with her arm around her boy, her eyes shiny with what might be tears if she were human. Ethan is just wearing his usual I’m an asshole smirk.
“Mind telling me what the fuck you think you’re doing raising a hand to my boy in my own house?”
“I’m your boy too, remember?”
He stalks toward me, but I hold my ground. “Don’t fucking start with your goddamned smart mouth, Silas.”
I’m not scared of Sullivan Fox. Even as a kid, even as I took my punishments, I hated him more than feared him. Now, I can take him, I have no doubt. I’m bigger than him, stronger than him and younger than him.
But he has an unfair advantage. It’s not just me who will pay if I screw up. It’s Mom. And we both know it.
“Did he mention how exactly I found him with sixteen-year-old Ophelia?”
He has the decency to glance disapprovingly back at Ethan, but that’s about as far as decency goes. “She’s sixteen. Legal age of consent.”
“Like father, like son?”
“You watch yourself, you little bastard. You walk around here like you’re above it all. Like you belong here. Let me tell you something, boy, there is only one reason you’re here, and that’s because your mother is a blackmailer and an extor—”
“Say what you will about me, but you do not get to talk about my mother, you piece of shit!”
Sly Fox is calm as can be. I’m the opposite.
He grins. He likes that he got a rise out of me. “You know what? I have defended you time and time again when the rest of my family have told me I’ve been too lenient with you. That I need to remind you of your place. I stuck up for you and for your mother when I should have put you both on the street years ago.”
I snort. I can’t help it.