Page 27 of Man of Lies (Vendetta Kings #2)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

MASON

The leather cushions were still warm from Silas’s leftover body heat, but it was cooling fast. I had no idea how long he and Dominic had been outside, but it was long enough for me to feel the absence even in my sleep.

I sat on his discarded blanket, elbows on my knees, and silently watched the door. I wasn’t a lip reader, but I’d picked up enough over the years to know when words mattered. This wasn’t a casual conversation; their mouths moved too quickly, and their body language was strained. Silas’s brow was furrowed, his jaw locked, and Dominic wore the same expression he’d worn when we were kids, back when he took the fall for me when I’d hotwired a motorcycle. The look of a man ready to do what was necessary.

I could only catch snippets of their exchange—words like risk and girls —but there was no mistaking the shift in Silas’s posture when Dominic leaned close. A sign that the conversation was turning deadly. And me? I was sitting here with my thumb up my ass, a silent observer, while two of the most important people in my life played a dangerous game right in front of me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know Silas was hiding things; I wasn’t that na?ve. But it had never felt important enough to dig up, not when we were playing at keeping it casual. I'd told myself I didn’t need to know everything, and if it was essential, he’d be the one to fill me in. But he’d tried, hadn’t he? No more than a few hours ago, when we were making love. I hadn’t wanted to hear it. Instead, I’d chosen to ignore the pieces of his life that wouldn’t fit into the tidy box I had in my head. But now, when my head was filled with the idea of building something real and permanent between us, I realized how short-sighted I’d been. Sitting here, watching him through the glass, he felt like a stranger…and I felt like a fool.

Just a few hours earlier, we’d been as close as two people could be, but when Silas stepped back inside, he watched me warily, like he wasn’t sure how to bridge the space between us.

“You’re awake,” he said stiffly.

I twitched one eyebrow. “Too soon, it seems.”

His eyes flicked to the bedroom door where Dominic had just disappeared, then back to me, and I could see him doing the calculations in real time about how to stall this conversation. Somewhere along the way, the man who’d always been so mysterious to me had become a tune I could hum by heart.

Before we could say much more, Dominic reappeared, looking like he’d just stepped out of some high-end catalog: tailored suit, blood-red tie, and the familiar bulge of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket. Dressed to kill—maybe literally.

“Where’s the fire, Dom?” I asked, keeping it light.

He barely spared us a glance, his eyes cutting past us as he headed for the door. “Wait here,” he said, putting enough growl into it to make it clear he wasn’t asking. “The doc’s coming in a few hours to re-check your boy’s stitches. Keep him from pushing too hard. I don’t need him bleeding out all over my place.”

And just like that, he was gone.

I shifted my gaze back to Silas. He stood there, vulnerable and barefoot, naked except for a pair of Dominic’s boxers, and still, every inch of him radiated strength and control. The kind of build that made me itch to put my hands all over him even now: muscle, power, and raw magnetism. His hair was a tangled mess, wild and hanging down his back, and the scruff on his jaw only added to that damn sexiness.

The ache in my jeans was involuntary. Looking at him like this, I should’ve been used to it by now. But it still felt like getting hit with a truck.

But when his eyes met mine, something in me recoiled. Those laughing, devil-may-care eyes were guarded and distant, and for the first time, I barely recognized the man I’d fallen for. No matter how much I wanted to close the gap between us, facing him now felt like staring at a stranger.

I loved my brother, but I had no illusions about who he was or the violence he was capable of committing if crossed. The lawyer in me didn’t want or need every detail of his life, just the facts I could defend in court when it mattered. Those were the boundaries I’d set, compartmentalizing the murky, dangerous depths of my brother’s world.

But I couldn’t compartmentalize Silas—I’d tried. He smashed through every line I’d drawn.

I pulled in a long, slow breath to steel myself, ignoring the panic trying to squirm through my careful mask. “Tell me you’re not responsible for the girls who’ve been going missing.”

Silas’s expression hardened, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he moved toward the kitchen, one hand subconsciously hovering at his side to cradle the pain he refused to show. His slow, cautious movements betrayed how much it was still hurting him. The doctor had called it a graze, but the rivet in his side was deep, and he’d lost so much blood before we got it stopped. He looked like a man worn thin and operating on fumes. I hated it.

He reached for the bottle of whiskey Dominic had left behind, and I didn’t need to watch for long to know what he was doing. He was going to numb the pain, and I wasn’t about to let him do it alone. I followed him into the kitchen and grabbed the tumbler before it touched his lips.

“You don’t have enough blood left to be mixing it with booze,” I said darkly, dumping the glass and filling it with water from the tap. “But if you’re determined to do it, take this first.”

I grabbed a bottle of Tylenol from the cabinet over the sink, shook out a few, and thrust them at him.

Silas swallowed the pills, throat working as he drained the glass and set it down with a snap. “I have nothing to do with hurting those girls,” he said in a voice like gravel. He hesitated, then added reluctantly, “But I didn’t stop it either. Not soon enough.”

I hadn’t felt like this since I was a kid, standing on the curb in front of the fire station with Ben, holding a trash bag full of my life while my whole world slipped through my fingers. My back molars crunched as I ground my teeth, but I smoothed the wrinkles out of my expression. I’d never been the type to let my emotions run the show, and I wasn’t about to do it now, not when I had questions that needed answering.

“Explain,” I snapped.

Silas took a deep breath, opened his mouth—and stopped. His gaze dropped to his hands, flat on the counter, fingers splayed wide. It was as if he was gathering strength to say something I didn’t want to hear.

I looked down at his hands and mapped the thick and well-defined veins and the web of thin white scars across his knuckles. I knew those hands: the calluses on his palms, the rough scrape over my skin, the soft prickle of the hair running up his forearms. But I had no idea what they’d been through. What they’d built. What they’d destroyed.

When he finally lifted his eyes, they were glassy with regret. “It’s not McKenna.”

My brows drew tight. “What?”

“My name,” he said hoarsely. “It isn’t McKenna. It’s Donnelly.”

It felt like he’d just upended a box of puzzle pieces before me, stirred them around for good measure, and then asked me to describe what I was looking at. No matter what contortions I put my brain through to make the pieces fit, they refused to make sense.

It’s Donnelly .

I stared at him, fighting the impulse to shake my head, as if that would make it clearer. It didn’t. It made it worse.

“What the hell does that mean?” The words came out sharp and angry, but even I could hear the tremble behind them.

Silas’s breath hitched, but his gaze didn’t falter. We were so close, but he didn’t reach for me, and I was thankful. I couldn’t have handled that right now.

“I’m still the man you know,” he said slowly, like he was working it out in his head. Like he’d never considered it before. “I really did grow up in Boston. Big family. I’m still the asshole who can’t be bothered to call home for Christmas. I’m allergic to kiwi. I love bikes and old rock—and you. I’m desperately fucking in love with you." He paused, swallowing thickly, and his gaze bored into me. “But I’ve been lying to you. I’m not some ex-con looking for a fresh start. I’m a federal agent.”

The room didn’t just shift—it felt like it collapsed, forcing the air out of my lungs. For a long moment, all I could do was stare. He was still Silas. My Silas. The man I knew, the man I couldn’t stop wanting, the man who untangled the mess inside my head. But it suddenly felt like I’d only ever seen him through a funhouse mirror. The man was the same, but the reflection he cast was so distorted, I couldn’t be sure what was real.

I should have felt relieved. He’d never spent time in jail, never made the kind of mistakes that would haunt him for the rest of his life. The solid core of goodness I’d sensed in him was true and intact. But the truth was…I felt betrayed.

It was harder than it should have been to look at him and not see a man who’d been deceiving me for months. I’d let myself trust him, let him all the way in, when I should’ve known better.

I’d always prided myself on my intellect and ability to discern the truth, peel back the layers, and see what people were hiding. I’d been so sure I could see through the layers of bullshit Silas had wrapped around himself. But he’d played me. Every flirtatious tease and taunt was designed to manipulate me into thinking he was just a guy with a rough past, a little too much charm, and a wild streak. And I’d swallowed it: hook, line, and sinker.

God, I’d made it so easy for him. So fucking easy to let those sweet lies slip under my guard.

He’d done it without even trying.

I swallowed hard, forcing the most critical question past the catch in my throat, but it came out ice cold. “Are you here to investigate my brothers, Silas?”

He shook his head, but something in his eyes didn’t sit right with me. “No. I’m here to investigate interstate trafficking.”

It sounded rehearsed—and I snapped.

I was the calm twin. The orator. The one who didn’t need to resort to violence. But for the first time in my life, I reacted body first, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him back against the fridge so hard the metal thudded against the wall. My breath was coming in short bursts, like I’d just run ten laps around the estate, but his own breath rushed out in a pained groan.

“Cut the shit,” I snapped furiously. “You and I both know Dom’s neck-deep in the drug trade. If you’re looking at trafficking, he’s the center of it.”

His face went pale, color draining as he stifled a gasp. But his eyes never left mine. The fight was still there, even if he was caught off guard by the move. I could feel it in the thrum of his pulse under my grip.

“He was a possible target at first,” Silas acknowledged reluctantly. “Made it all the more important to keep you coming back to me at the start?—”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

“—but my focus shifted to the human side of things pretty quick,” he continued, cutting me a warning glance so I wouldn’t interrupt. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Mason. Your brother is mixed up in some bad shit, and it’ll snap back on him sooner or later. He thinks being the lesser of two evils makes it okay. But he’s still hurting people. Ruining lives. He needs to be stopped.”

“Not by you,” I spat between clenched teeth.

Silas didn’t fight me. His hands came up to loosely wrap around my wrists, but he didn’t try to force me to let go.

“No,” he agreed softly. “Not by me. Not once I realized what it would do to you.”

His breath had steadied, but mine remained shallow. Anger still crackled in my veins. My hands were trembling when I released him and stepped back, and I forced a slow, steadying breath through my nose to regain control.

“So, what happens now?” I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Silas didn’t move. He stood motionless, back to the fridge, tracking my movements like I was an unpredictable animal. “My cover’s been blown,” he said curtly. “It’s the only explanation for whoever tried to take us out last night. I’ve made enough connections to tighten the net on a dozen low-tier grunts, but the mastermind will be in the wind if we don’t move fast. He’ll try liquidating the girls and anyone who can flip on him for a lighter sentence. Your brother’s the only one in a position to stop it.”

“You’re just letting him walk on the drugs, then?” I asked incredulously.

Silas didn’t flinch, but the lines of his face tightened. “I’m making sure we get the girls out before they disappear. I’ve seen those girls. Runaways who would hang out at my bar until one by one they stopped showing up. Just like that girl in Eden’s foster program—Ivy, right? They’re my focus. Nothing else matters.”

“What is Dominic going to do?” I demanded.

“I don’t know.” His eyes turned hard. “I don’t want to know—and you don’t either.”

“You’ve got no fucking clue what I want to know!” I exploded. “I want to know exactly what mess I’m going to be stuck cleaning up when this is all over! Don’t make it worse by lying to me, Silas.”

The faintest flicker of something—regret, maybe—passed through his eyes. “You already know, Mason. We both know what your brother is capable of.”

I shook my head, but there was no denying the truth. Dominic wasn’t built like the rest of us. He didn’t feel like the rest of us, and he didn’t care about playing by anyone else’s rules. He made choices every day that would keep me up at night. But even as ruthless as he was, there was one line I was sure he’d never crossed. Murder. He’d never killed anyone, and I sure as hell didn’t want him to start now. Not when we had so much to lose, and men like Sheriff Vanderhoff were looking for any excuse to destroy what we had left of the Beaufort name.

We were a family built on broken pieces, but we always found a way to hold it together, and we’d never committed a sin so bad we couldn’t confess it to Gideon.

I wasn’t about to let Dominic take it that far.

“Mason—” Silas started, but I didn’t let him finish.

I took a breath and returned to the living area, scooping my wallet and bike key off the end table, but I hadn’t even gotten halfway across the room when I felt Silas moving behind me. Before I knew it, he had me by the bicep and spun me around to face him.

“Let it go, Mason,” he warned, deadly serious. “This isn’t a game.”

I looked down at his fingers biting into my arm, then slowly met his eyes. The words that came out of my mouth were weapons, and I used them that way. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Silas Donnelly . You don’t have the right.”

He flinched, but I wasn’t done. “No interference…remember? You made the rules.”

His grip loosened, but his gaze didn’t falter. “I’m not stopping you, Mason. But we need to talk about this. You can’t just?—”

“I need to clear my head,” I cut him off, not wanting to get into it. I turned back toward the door, hand on the handle. “You, on the other hand, need to sit down before you pass out. Wait for the doc.”

He didn’t move immediately, and for a split second, I thought he might push further. I almost wanted him to—if only so I could finally see the man behind all this calm bullshit. But Silas stayed still, watching me with that same unblinking intensity, his jaw tight.

“Fine,” he bit out with frustrated calm. “But don’t think this is over. We’re going to talk about this—whether you’re ready or not.”

I didn’t respond, just viciously punched the elevator button and waited for the doors to slide open.

“I’ll be back,” I muttered over my shoulder, flat and dismissive. “Don’t wait up.”

I didn’t look back.

In the end, this wasn’t about him and me. It was about keeping Dominic from crossing a line he couldn’t return from. We were family. I’d always be the one who would be there when he needed pulling back.