Page 4 of The Villains We Make

I will kill him. I will kill Ethan Fox for what he did to her. I will kill Sullivan Fox. Hell, maybe Mira too. Maybe I should set their house on fire, like I am sure they did to hers. I am sure it was them. Who else would it be? Who would have cause?

But I’m back again to the same question. What would they have to gain? Nothing. Fox doesn’t take risks, and a fire is too risky. My having been at the house was a lucky break for him, but he wouldn’t have known my intention. He couldn’t have known about the box Horatio had hidden beneath the floorboards of his study.

A soft knock on the door has me clearing my throat. I turn to watch Lourdes walk inside.

She smiles and nods in greeting. Lourdes is Father Emiliano’s sister. My mother knew them both for years, and I’d gotten to know them when I brought her up here at the end when she could no longer drive herself.

When I was little, we’d come together to hear Mass at the chapel, but that stopped by the time I was fourteen. By then, I’d lost any belief I’d had in any higher being with any sort of plan for the human race. No god could exist, or, if he did, he certainly wasn’t worth my time because he’d very clearly forgotten us. As soon as I was old enough to stay home alone, I refused to accompany her. I know it broke her heart to know I did not believe in her god, but I couldn’t.

In the end, though, in those last weeks when she could no longer drive herself, or even walk on her own without help, I moved us into the Boston brownstone and brought her up to that freezing chapel every fucking Sunday. It was a comfort to her, and I sat beside her, she and I and Lourdes the only three in the pews as Father Emiliano said Mass.

All those times, as I held my mother’s frail, bird-like body close to mine, I’d cursed the very god she prayed to. She who was eternally grateful in the face of every shitty thing he sent her way, because fuck him. Fuck him for what he did to her. For forgetting her.

“Have you been here all day, Silas?” Lourdes asks in an accent so familiar, so similar to my mother’s, that it makes something ache inside me. I miss my mom. I miss her so much.

But I can’t think about that now. Ophelia needs me.

I nod. Nowhere to go, really, not with the snow. Not with the arrest warrant hanging over my head. It’s not just a charge of arson against me now. There’s also that car wreck I caused. The one where witnesses watched me ram my SUV into Ethan Fox’s limo, where they recorded me pulling Ethan out of the wreckage and beating him before I kidnapped—yes, fucking kidnapped—Ophelia.

“I’m fine.” I gesture to Ophelia as Lourdes lifts her wrist and checks her pulse. “How long until she wakes up?”

“She will wake up when she’s ready.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“You have to trust, Silas.”

“Trust what? God?”

She smiles at me kindly as I snort. “If not God, then trust the miracle of the human body. She has a good, strong pulse, but you said yourself she has had a shock.”

“Several.” I look at Ophelia, shoving my hands back into my pockets.

“I made dinner. Come and eat.”

I shake my head. “I want to be here when she opens her eyes.”

She nods. She’s a kind woman my mom’s age. “I’ll bring some to you then.” With that, she leaves, and I take a seat on the chair by the bed. A phone rings, and it takes me a minute to realize it’s mine. Nigella had sent a new one up with Hamish. I couldn’t use the old one since the authorities could track me by it.

I stand up to answer, walking away from the bed in case Ophelia can hear me. “Nigella, you have news?”

“How is she?” Nigella asks.

“Still asleep.”

A beat passes. “Well, I do have some news. Good, actually. Chandler has been released from the hospital. He’ll be fine.”

I grunt. I couldn’t give a fuck about Chandler or Ethan’s well-being, but I realize Nigella as my attorney is happy there won’t be a murder charge added to the ever-growing list of shit they can put me behind bars with.

“I also know Gordon Carlisle-Bent flew into town. Sullivan Fox picked him up, along with his medical team, a few hours ago.”

“Shit.”

“He didn’t go to the hospital to see his son though, which is odd, don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily, not if he disowned him.”

“I don’t know. It’s still strange to me.”