Page 31 of Man of Lies (Vendetta Kings #2)

Chapter Thirty-One

MASON

Sweat rolled down my spine as I leaned over the Ducati’s frame, both arms buried elbow-deep in its guts. The cracked fairing was propped against the wall, and one mirror was tucked in a box of salvageable parts. Half the tail section was missing.

Gideon said it looked like something that lost a fight with God. I didn’t disagree.

We weren’t talking much. The heat had sucked away any energy we had to speak. It clung to the oaks and the bones of the old barn behind Eden, which we used as a makeshift shop. The cicadas kept up enough conversation for both of us.

Gideon worked the way he prayed: methodical and silent. I wasn’t praying. I was just trying to keep my hands busy long enough not to think about how hollow the days had felt since the hospital. Since I walked out of that room and didn’t look back.

Since Silas.

The world I’d built over a lifetime—controlled and squared off at the corners—should’ve snapped back into place by now. I’d thrown myself into work the way I always did, buried myself in boxes of old judicial case records for Colton, hoping the structure would hold. But it didn’t. Not really. Everything I touched felt thinner somehow.

The meaning was gone…or maybe it had never been there to begin with, and Silas was the one who’d helped me realize it.

Every morning on the way in, I couldn’t resist driving past the Dead End. I could’ve taken a different route, but I didn’t. It had been closed since Silas flew out. The windows were dark and boarded, and it already looked like the kind of place teenagers would dare each other to break into on a Friday night.

Like the man who’d once lit it up with nothing but a crooked smile and a cigarette had never existed.

He hadn’t called or texted, but I didn’t blame him. The Bureau was probably raking him over the coals…if he was still with them at all. Besides, what was left to say? We’d gutted ourselves in that hospital room…and still, it hadn’t been enough.

Still, that damned aching lump in my throat showed up every time I thought about it. I’d swallowed it so many times it felt like habit now. And still, it didn’t stop hurting.

I was starting to worry that it never would.

Gideon finally broke the silence with a grunt and the metallic click of a socket wrench. “You know,” he said, bracing the fairing stay with one hand as he tightened the bolts, “this would go a hell of a lot faster if you let a specialist handle it.”

He didn’t look much like a priest today. Grease streaked the front of his faded T-shirt, sweat darkened the collar, and his jeans were torn at the knee. His forearms gleamed under the low-hanging barn light—sinewy and slick, working steadily with the grit and grace of someone who knew how to rebuild things that didn’t want to be fixed.

He wasn’t wearing his watch. I’d noticed straightway, but then again, I wasn’t wearing mine either. Not for work like this.

I kept wiping chain grit off the swingarm with an oil-dark rag, each pass rougher than necessary. When I didn’t reply quick enough, he kicked at my ankle with the toe of his boot.

“Yeah, well.” I kicked him back, exhaling hard through my nose. “She’s my baby. I wrecked her…so I should be the one to fix her. At least as much as I can.”

He hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat but didn’t push.

Gideon leaned back on his heels and wiped the sweat from his brow with the inside of his forearm. “You can’t always force a fix, Mase. Sometimes, you just need to let go and leave it in someone else’s hands.”

“Like who?” I asked sarcastically. “God?”

“For starters,” he said, biting back a smile.

I dropped the rag into the pan beside the tire and glared at him. “Is that what you’re doing with Dominic?”

Gideon didn’t even flinch, but he slowly picked up a socket and tightened the bolt he’d torqued once.

“That’s different,” he said simply.

That was it. No lecture. No pushback. Just silence—and the steady rhythm of his hands staying busy while I sat there and felt like a goddamn asshole.

A few minutes passed. Sweat rolled down the back of my neck. The cicadas droned. A screen door slammed somewhere up at the house, and a dog started barking. When did we get a dog? I’d been so wrapped up in my heartache that I hadn’t even noticed.

“Letting go isn’t in my nature,” I grumbled. I bent things until they fit, and I found a way to shoulder it if something broke. Even when it wasn’t mine to carry.

The rag slipped out of my hand, landing on the dusty concrete floor, and instead of picking it up, I just stared at it, lost in thought. In misery. Eventually, I realized I hadn’t moved in several minutes. It felt like I might’ve stayed that way forever, if not for the phone buzzing in my pocket.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and pulled it out, smearing the case with grease from the edge of my thumb. Light refracted off the screen through the slats of the barn roof, and I squinted down at it to make out the name.

That’s when I stopped breathing.

I didn’t even have the chance to say hello.

“That silence,” Silas murmured in that whiskey-soaked voice I knew so well. “That’s how I know it’s you, counselor.”

That voice. That damn voice. Still rough and rich as sin, steeped in that slow, teasing drawl that had my whole body flushing hot all at once. I shuddered. My nervous system recognized him before my mind had even caught up.

“You always breathe like you’re bracing for impact,” he mused. “Makes me wonder what you think I’m about to do to you.”

My throat worked around his name, but I couldn’t speak. He was already in my blood again, just from the sound of him.

“You gonna say something, or you need another minute to get your heart rate under control?” he teased, soft and deadly smooth.

I licked my dry lips and finally managed to find a response. “Silas.”

“Mm.” He gave a satisfied rumble that had always made me feel like prey. “Yeah, I missed that.”

“Where… you’re back?” I tried to keep the question clinical, but it came out thin and off-balance. No matter how tight I locked it down, I couldn’t disguise my hurt.

“For now,” he said. “But I might stick around…if I find something worth staying for.”

I rubbed a knuckle over the ache in my chest, but it didn’t ease up. It was just a wound I’d learned to work around by this point. Still tender when touched.

Gideon was sitting back on his heels, watching me with concern. I couldn’t stand the worried look in his eyes, so I turned my back to him and focused on the phone in my hand.

“You didn’t call,” I said, quieter this time, before I could second-guess myself. “You didn’t text.”

“I know,” he said, and that single admission landed harder than most people’s apologies. “I figured if I reached out too soon, I’d only drag you through more pain. You don’t deserve that. You deserve a man who knows exactly who he is and what he’s got to offer.”

He paused. I could hear the quaking breath he took, shoring up his courage to say the next part.

“I didn’t know if I had anything left in me that wasn’t a lie.”

I kneaded the back of my neck, digging my fingers into the knotted muscle to keep from crawling out of my skin. “And now?”

“I didn’t call to explain,” he said, voice dipping lower, into that dangerous register that always felt like it was meant for just me. “I want you to meet me.”

My grip tightened around the phone. “Where?”

“Take a drive,” he murmured. “I’ll text the address. North side of the parish, past the rail yard. You’ll know when you see it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he said, and I could hear the shape of his smile, the kind that made promises without ever saying a word. “It’s a chance...for both of us. Don’t keep me waiting, counselor.”

Then he hung up.

I stared down at the dark screen, already missing the sound of his voice. The address came through a moment later. No message. Just a dropped pin. Very precisely, with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, I slipped the phone back into my pocket.

When I turned back to Gideon, filled with trepidation and fear, he was already watching me. His smile was gentle, equal parts priest and big brother, and just enough to give me courage.

“I’ve got it here,” he said, picking up the rag I’d dropped. “Go.”

I tripped in my rush out of the barn, heart hammering. My jeans were stained with grease, and my damp shirt clung uncomfortably to my sweaty skin. I should’ve taken some time to change and wash up, or at least made some attempt to look like a man with control over his own damn life, but I couldn’t waste the time.

Not when he was waiting for me.

The sun was sinking low when I hit the road, bleeding orange and gold across the windshield and softening the world's edges. I followed the pin north, past the big houses with white columns and wraparound porches, past hayfields and feed stores, and past trailer parks with rusted swing sets and cars up on blocks. The further I drove, the more the world unraveled—manicured fences giving way to leaning mailboxes and roads that buckled at the shoulder—and eventually, to nothing at all. Kudzu crept up fence posts, reclaiming them for the wilderness, and the trees got taller, older, as the bayou took over.

I rolled the windows down just enough to let the humid air crawl in, thick with the green scent of standing water.

The GPS cut out a mile back, but I’d memorized the location by heart, so I pushed on. Asphalt gave way to gravel, churning up the underside of the Porsche, and then to packed earth, damp with bayou mist. Cypress trees rose like giants on either side, their roots half-drowned in black water. Moss trailed like silk from their branches.

Just as I began to wonder if I’d overshot the pin, I saw it. A cabin—small, clean-lined, and glowing with warmth against the encroaching dusk. It sat tucked at the end of a crooked driveway, cradled by an overgrowth of trees. Wooden steps led up to a wraparound porch strung with soft yellow lights. A stone path branched off the side of the house, leading the way to a solid-looking dock.

I killed the engine and sat there for a long moment, hands still on the wheel, staring through the windshield like the place might vanish if I blinked too hard.

This was the place he’d told me about the day of our road trip, the only home he’d ever described with peace and reverence. The dock, the trees, the hush of water lapping at the shore...it was all exactly as he’d described it. Not the exact place, of course…but it was the same in spirit.

I climbed out of the Porsche slowly. Gravel shifted under my boots as I crossed the driveway, but when I reached the steps, my palm hovered over the railing. I closed my eyes, grounding myself, breathing in the smell of sun-warmed wood and listening to the creak of the porch settling in the breeze.

For one split second, I thought about turning back. Not because I didn’t want this, but because I did. Too much.

I was fucking terrified.

But that had never stopped me, so I gripped the railing and forced myself to climb the stairs.

No answer on the first knock, and then again on the second. No footsteps inside. No voice. Absolute silence, suspended, like the world was holding its breath with me. Somewhere in the trees, a heron called low and mournful.

And then?—

The soft crunch of gravel behind me.

I spun around.

Silas stood at the edge of the porch steps, hands tucked in his jeans pockets. His shirt clung to his broad chest, damp where the bayou mist had kissed it. The ends of his sleeves were rolled, and the wind off the dock tugged at his hair, curling it slightly at the edges.

He looked like both a sin and a sacrament.

“Door’s open,” he said in a low voice. “But I figured you’d come find me first.”

I stared at him silently, too overwhelmed to speak. The man who made his living with words, struck dumb by the sight of the one man who made me whole. All I could say was…

“Silas.”

“Hey, counselor,” he murmured, eyes smiling. “Miss me?”

My fists clenched at my sides. I stared at him, heart rattling in my ribs, but I felt frozen. I’d imagined this moment more times than I could count. Sometimes it ended in anger. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes I couldn’t even picture him showing up at all.

But never—not once—had I imagined what it would feel like to see him standing here. Looking at me like that. Like I was his . Like all he was waiting for was me to realize it.

My throat burned. I tried to breathe, but it just stuttered out of me in a half-sob that sounded like it belonged to someone else.

That’s when I broke.

It wasn’t graceful or planned or dignified. It was a need so powerful that it broke through all the careful boundaries I'd sealed around myself. In one blind leap, I threw myself off the porch and collided with his chest.

He caught me in his arms like he’d known it was coming.

From the very first, he could always read me like a book.

His grip was firm and sure, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other fisting in my shirt like he needed the contact just as much as me. My arms were around his shoulders, brutally hard, and I pressed my face to the curve of his neck to breathe him in, warm and solid and home.

The scent of him… God, it was enough to break me.

“Goddamn you,” I said hoarsely, digging my fingers into the meat of his shoulders. “You took your time.”

His laughter was a low, rumbling sound against my chest. “It’s not easy, shutting down an old life and creating a new one from scratch. There were leases to break and clearances to surrender.” His voice was soft and deep in my ear. “I had to pack up the apartment and clean out a locker full of half-finished reports. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork.”

His breath was warm against my throat, and I felt more than heard the exhaustion tucked into those words. It hadn’t been easy for him. Of course, it hadn’t. A man like Silas didn’t just leave something he’d dedicated his life to. He had to peel himself out of it one scar at a time.

“Turned in my badge,” he added after a beat. “Walked out with a handshake.”

I pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes and get a read on his expression. There was something new in his eyes. Not regret. Just a sense of wistfulness and…freedom. Hard-won and still raw around the edges.

“I didn’t know where I was going at first,” he said, brushing a thumb along my jaw like he couldn’t quite believe I was real. “Just knew where I needed to end up.”

My breath caught, and I swallowed around the outpouring of questions that wanted to spill from my throat.

“So, I found this place,” he said, nodding toward the cabin behind us. “Paid six months up front. Gator’s crew never talked, and the ones who knew anything worthwhile either disappeared or don’t want the smoke. The feds are chasing bigger targets now. As far as Devil’s Garden’s concerned…Silas McKenna’s just an ex-con with a talent for slinging whiskey and bad jokes.”

I blinked at him. “Seriously? You’re just gonna go back to being a bartender?”

His mouth quirked. “Someone’s gotta do it. A place like this needs someone behind the bar who isn’t afraid to take keys from drunks or play therapist when the regulars start crying into their beer.”

“You were the worst therapist I've ever met,” I muttered.

He grinned. “Yeah, well. You kept coming back.”

My jaw flexed, but I couldn’t stop the pull at the corner of my mouth. He wasn’t wrong.

Silas pulled back, putting some space between our bodies, but he didn’t let go. His hands stroked up and down my bare arms, like he couldn’t stop touching me.

“It’s honest work,” he said with a shrug. “I like the hours and the noise. I like that nobody asks too many questions so long as the pour’s good and the lights stay on.”

He stepped in closer, his forehead brushing mine.

“And if I get to end my nights with you again…” he murmured, “then I’d call that the best damn promotion of my life.”

I was barely hanging on, and those words— end my nights with you —nearly shattered what was left of my control. They weren’t slick or teasing, or intended to manipulate me into a certain reaction. They were simple, steady, and true, just like the man who spoke them.

My grip eased in his shirt, but I only pulled away enough to rest my forehead against his chest. “Three weeks,” I croaked, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know if you were gone for good.”

Silas’s hands tightened on my arms. His breath hitched, and that calm composure finally cracked, just enough to let me see inside.

“I didn’t know if you’d still want me,” he admitted gruffly. His voice was filled with brambles, the way a man sounds when he’s baring his soul and not sure if he’ll be punished for it. “Not after so many lies.”

“You could’ve called.”

“I wanted to call,” he insisted, eyes locked on mine. Steady as a heartbeat. “Every goddamn day. Just to hear your voice. But I kept thinking…maybe I was just a break in the storm for you. A place to run when life got loud. I’ve built a dozen lives based on lies, but I’ve never tried to build something real. What if—what if it’s not enough?”

The vulnerability in his question pierced my heart. Silas had always been smooth and confident in a way that made my heart stutter. I loved his smirk and swagger, the teasing laughter in his eyes, and how he made me feel like the center of his private universe.

But this quieter part of him tugged at me, too. It made me want to gather him in my arms and protect him the way I knew he’d always protect me.

He might’ve lied about his name and past but never in the ways that mattered. Not once. He never lied in the way he looked at me. Never pulled punches when I needed truth. Never made me feel like I had to be anything more—or less—than exactly who I was.

Even when everything else had been smoke and mirrors, the way he saw me had always been real.

And that was what I’d fallen for.

“You were never just a break in the storm,” I said fiercely. “You were the only place I could breathe.”

He blinked, and I saw the fear behind his eyes, the part of him that still didn’t believe in being chosen for who he was.

I reached up and curled my fingers around his neck, drawing him in just enough to keep him from looking away.

“I don’t care how many lives you lived before this,” I whispered. “This one? The one with me? It’s real, and I’ll choose it—I’ll choose you —every damn time.”

His breath caught, and he stared at me in wonder, like maybe some part of him still thought he didn’t get to keep this.

So I repeated it for both of us.

“Every time, Silas.”

His eyes shuttered momentarily, just long enough for me to see what it cost him to let the walls down. But when he opened them again, that deep, dark gaze locked onto me like he was memorizing the moment and storing it somewhere sacred.

Neither of us spoke. We didn’t have to.

He breathed slowly, and some long-held tension bled out of his shoulders. Then he reached for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine with a careful reverence that undid me more than anything else. He looked toward the cabin, then back at me.

“Come inside?” he asked quietly. No command, no taunt. Just hope.

I nodded once, already moving. We crossed the porch together, hands still joined, the old boards creaking beneath our steps.

Inside, the cabin smelled of cedar and strong coffee. Silas had already started to shape the space with his hands, his habits, and his particular kind of order. It was modest but solid, the kind of place that held heat in the winter and cooled slowly in the summer. It looked like him. Felt like him, too: sharp edges worn down by use, quiet strength tucked into every corner.

But it was the details that caught me. Two mugs were turned upside down, waiting beside a coffee pot. A spare set of hooks by the door, and an open coat closet, only partly claimed. It felt like someone had taken the first steps to build a life here, but left room for someone else to step into it.

“You settling in?” I asked weakly.

“Trying,” he said, then tilted his head curiously and added, “There’s space here if you want it, blue eyes.”

My throat felt scratchy, but not in the miserable way it had for weeks. Not that sharp, splintering ache I’d gotten used to carrying around like a second heart. This was something else. Softer. I knew if I let them out, the tears would be relief, like a first breath after coming up for air.

I looked down at our hands. His thumb brushed over my knuckles, sure and steady, like he wasn’t sure he could stop—and didn’t want to.

“You sure?” I asked, finally meeting his eyes. “I don’t know what comes next. You and Dom might’ve shut down part of the problem, but Dom is still neck-deep in trouble, and so is Ben.”

Vanderhoff was still out there, circling my family, waiting for an opportunity to destroy us. The watch sat locked in my desk drawer, and I had no plan for how to tackle it.

But for once, the lack of a plan didn’t shake me.

Because when I lifted my eyes to his, Silas was already watching me. Calm. Unshakable. Mine.

“I’ve got your back,” he said simply. “No matter what comes our way.”

I believed him.

How he looked at me reminded me of the first moment we met. He could always read what I thought and felt at a glance. In his unerring way, he read my heart and gave me what I needed most. No strings and no expectations. Just offering it up like it was the easiest thing in the world to love me that well.

Slowly, almost reverently, he removed my glasses and hooked the earpiece on the collar of his shirt. Then he cupped my face in his weathered hands. His thumbs traced my jaw line, calluses scraping against stubble, and his quiet tenderness sent ripples of desire through my body.

His lips brushed mine with infinite care, soft and gentle, asking before taking. Like we had all the time in the world, and still, he wasn’t about to waste a second of it. This was about more than passion. It was about love. With each sip of my lips, he was showing me how much I mattered.

I sank into it without thinking, my fingers curling in the front of his shirt, and let out the breath I’d been holding for three weeks straight.

He kissed me again, harder this time, angling my jaw just enough to deepen the kiss. I let him take it further, tasting me like he’d missed this—missed me —with every mile that had separated us. And I gave it all back to him, thrusting my tongue between his lips just to hear him moan.

By the third kiss, we were both breathing heavily. His strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me flush against him. I slid my hands under his shirt, feeling the warm, solid muscle of his back. He smiled against my lips, that crooked, cocky grin that never failed to make my knees weak.

“Careful, counselor,” he murmured, voice rough with heat and laughter. “You keep kissing me like that, and we won’t even make it to the bed.”

“We’ve got time,” I breathed against his mouth.

We had a lifetime.