Chapter 23

"Okay,Jace, keep me posted and let me know if you guys need anything."

As soon as I hung up the phone, Silver asked, "Are they all right? Is it Caleb or Willa? Or one of Ronan's men? Or his fam?—"

I gently placed my hand over Silver's mouth because with each question he was getting himself more and more worked up.

"Let's sit," I said as I led Silver to the lounger on my boat. Sadie was already licking Silver's fingers.

"Caleb was attacked a couple of days ago," I began. "But he's okay now," I quickly added. "It was someone from his past, but the man is dead now and Caleb is safe. He's with Jace and Willa and they're all okay."

Silver sighed in relief and gave in to Sadie's attempts to get his attention. "Thank God," he whispered.

In the weeks since Jace had left, Silver had grown fond of him, not only for what Jace had done for me after he'd found me passed out on the floor with a terrified Silver hovering over me, but because Jace answered a lot of questions for him when I wasn't able to. He hadn't really gotten to know Caleb at all, but it didn't matter. He'd met Caleb the day Silver had given Willa over to her uncle and his lover. Silver had instantly known that despite his young age, Caleb was exactly what Jace and Willa needed.

"There's something else," Silver observed.

I would never tire of how in tune Silver and I had become with one another.

"A few days after Caleb was attacked, his best friend, Aleks, was abducted. They haven't found him yet, but Ronan's team is searching for him. They know who has him but not where they are yet."

"Someone he knows? In a bad way?" Silver asked with concern.

"Yes and no," I hedged. I made sure his eyes were on me before I added, "Aleks was in a similar situation as you, Silver. He was abducted as a child and sold multiple times."

Silver's already pale skin went ashen. We hadn't talked about his captivity since I'd been released from the hospital. I'd tried to broach the topic a few times, but I'd seen Silver mentally shutting down even as he'd said he was "fine" and changed the subject. So I hadn't pushed him to deal with the emotions he'd managed to lock away somewhere in his mind.

It was like there were two Silvers. Past and present. The few times I met Past Silver was when we were making love. Though we hadn't had full-on sex, which I had no problem with, Past Silver had shown up whenever I'd inadvertently done something that made him remember Ivan. We always talked through it and then Present Silver returned. I knew he'd have to deal with the trauma someday, but it was like my sobriety. He could only do it when he was ready.

"Aleks's brother, Dante, had been searching on his own for Aleks for years. He eventually joined Ronan's team so that he'd have more resources to help him find Aleks. Dante and his boyfriend, Magnus, found Aleks in Chicago, but the attempt to rescue him went wrong. All three of them would have been killed if not for a man who stepped in and saved them. He'd been working for the guy who was holding Aleks captive but for whatever reason, he killed his own boss to save Aleks, Dante, and Magnus. That man, the one who saved them, is the one who took Aleks."

"How do they know?" Silver asked.

"Because the man let Aleks call his brother to let him know he was safe. No one knows why, but Aleks chose to stay with the man rather than return home to his brother."

Silver fell silent for a long time. I ran my hand along his back a few times because I knew Past Silver was fighting to be heard.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Silver asked quietly. He stood up and went to stand at the railing on the port side of the boat. I'd found a quiet cove for us to set anchor in for a few days. It was close enough to land that Sadie could easily jump over the side of the boat and paddle to shore so she could take care of nature's business. I'd fashioned a platform at the back of the boat near the engine for her to use to get back on the boat.

It had only been a few days since Ronan's men had stopped shadowing us. After weeks of no kind of threat and a thorough search of the entire twenty-five acres of my land for any sign that someone had been watching us, we'd all come to the agreement that the attempted break-in and the car that had seemed to be following us had just been coincidences. Ronan's men had been reassigned and Silver and I had taken advantage of our newfound privacy and spent the past couple of days exploring the bay on my boat.

"They'll let us know, but Ronan's got resources all over the world. If anyone can find Aleks, it's his team."

I watched as Silver stared at the small island adjacent to our port side, though calling it an island was a stretch. It wasn't more than a few trees and a large clump of dirt. There was nothing about it that was particularly interesting to see.

Of course, Silver wasn't really looking at it either. Even if I couldn't see his face, seeing the way he fingered the locket around his neck was proof that Past Silver had taken hold of his mind. It was why I'd been reluctant to tell Silver the truth about my phone call with Jace, but I wasn't going to lie to him either. I'd been lying pretty much my whole life. From the moment I'd walked into that empty house when I was fifteen, everything had been a lie.

I went to stand next to Silver. I bent slightly so I could rest my arms on the railing. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

Silver simply shook his head.

We both fell silent for a long time. I was still struggling every day with the need for alcohol, but admittedly, being out on the water and having Silver with me had made it easier to deal with those moments when the cravings were at their worst. It was something I'd have to face every day of my life. Yes, it would get better over time, but I'd heard enough stories from people at AA who'd been sober for twenty years or more and then suddenly had a relapse that had seemingly come out of nowhere.

"I never told you what I did after that couple left me behind when I was fifteen, did I?" I asked.

The question had Silver looking at me. I loved him more in that moment than I even thought possible. Despite being lost in his own head as he dealt with his demons, he was still always aware of me and instantly focused on me when something was bothering me. It was something I desperately wanted to give back to him.

"No," he said.

"I stayed in the house for as long as I could. Even after the power and water were turned off. I told myself it was because I wanted to stay focused on my plan."

"To graduate high school and join the army so you could eventually go to college," Silver supplied.

I nodded. "Truth is, I was hoping they'd come back. The husband and wife," I admitted. "I kept going to school every day. It was the kind of school where food was free at lunchtime. Each student's family would prepay for the year for their kid to be able to eat whatever the cafeteria was serving. It was usually the only meal I had. I kept mowing people's lawns or doing odd jobs around the neighborhood just like I had been, and I used that money to buy food for the weekends. I'd shower in the gym locker room before or after school. None of it lasted long, though. About two months after the people left, someone came to the house to get it ready to be sold. They kicked me out, not realizing I'd lived there at one point. I don't know if they called family services or not—that's the department that runs the foster program. If they did, no one ever came to the school to see if I was still attending classes, so I took advantage of that and slept in the school's basement in this small room that was full of old athletic supplies. But when the school year ended, I didn't know what to do. I started breaking into houses that I knew were empty in the neighborhoods around my school. I'd move on as soon as someone came to sell or rent the place out."

I paused for a moment as the past washed over me. "I was so fucking scared, Silver," I whispered. "I'd spent so many years trying to be invisible or well-behaved or whatever I needed to be so that maybe I'd get a real family someday or maybe I'd find my own. When it didn't happen, I convinced myself I didn't care… that it didn't matter. That I liked being on my own. That being handed from family to family didn't matter."

Silver's fingers curled over mine, but he didn't say anything. Sadie was pressed up against my leg, but she too was quiet. I let out a soft little laugh at the irony of it all. Despite fucking so many things up, I'd still somehow managed to find my family.

"Anyway, it got so bad that summer that I went back to the house I'd lived in. There were new people living in it. A mom and dad and three kids. I went to the door and pretended I had a delivery for the people who'd once lived in the house. They gave me the address of the husband and wife who'd left me. Seems the new family had been given the address so they could forward any mail that the post office mistakenly delivered to them."

I knew Silver probably didn't understand most of what I was talking about, but he squeezed my hand tighter. I ended up pulling his hand up to my mouth and skimming my lips over his knuckles. I kept his hand pressed against my chest. "Turned out the husband and wife hadn't gone far. They had only moved a few miles away. One night, things were particularly bad. I'd been sleeping on park benches at that point because the school had been locked down for the summer and I hadn't been able to find any other houses to live in. So anyway, this one night I was sleeping on the bench in this old sleeping bag I'd found in the trash when these two guys showed up and woke me. One was only a little taller than me, but the other was huge. They sat on each side of me and when I tried to get up to leave, they wouldn't let me. They started trying to touch me through the sleeping bag and talked back and forth about the things they wanted to do to me. I kept trying to leave; I even told them my parents were waiting for me nearby, but they knew I was full of shit. The bigger guy held me down while the other one took out a knife and cut away the sleeping bag. I tried to scream but the big guy held his hand over my mouth. I could barely breathe, I couldn't move. I was crying and shaking my head, begging them not to do what they were planning."

"Did they?" Silver asked, clearly shaken.

"No," I quickly responded. "I got lucky. The guys got spooked by a group of college kids that had gone to the park to drink and hang out. I took off out of there so fast, I left everything I owned behind. I was terrified that the guys would find me again, so I didn't stop running. Not until I got to the door of the new house the husband and wife had moved into. I banged on the door, not caring that it was the middle of the night. I just… I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't be alone anymore. I couldn't pretend that everything was okay and that I knew what I was doing. The husband answered the door, but the wife was standing behind him. I begged them to let me come live with them again. I was sobbing and trying to tell them about the men, but I was shaking so hard that I'm not even sure they understood what I was saying. It wouldn't have mattered, though. The husband told me to leave, or he'd call the cops. He said I'd been a mistake. That they hadn't wanted me back then and they didn't want me now. Then he slammed the door in my face. I was a mistake," I murmured.

"Dalton…" Silver said softly, clearly hurting for me.

"I stopped trying after that. I stopped dreaming that I'd ever be important to someone, anyone. I gave up on trying to figure out what it was about me that was so… damaged, so broken that no one ever stayed."

I sighed as Silver wrapped his arms around me. I did the same to him and just held on for the longest time. "I'm not telling you all this because I want you to feel sorry for me or tell me none of it was my fault. You've already told me that."

Silver started to pull away as he said, "No, I haven't?—"

"You have, sweetheart," I responded as I urged him back into my embrace. "Every time you touch me, every time you look at me, every time you do nothing more than say my name… it's proof that it wasn't me. It was never my fault that my real parents wanted nothing to do with me or that all the families that came after didn't want me. I wasn't a ‘mistake.' I was just a kid who got lost in a broken system. As I grew up, I had plenty of opportunities to accept that fact, but my mind kept telling me that there was just something about me that was unlovable. That no one would ever really want me… not forever, anyway. When I got hurt, I used that as an excuse to hide from the world. Because as bad as the physical pain was, the damage inside was a thousand times worse. Those wounds didn't start to heal until I met this beautiful, kind, intelligent, sweet, caring, unbelievably strong young man who'd survived the unimaginable. Someone who never gave up. Someone who let himself trust again."

"Dalton—" Silver began even as he remained snuggled up against me.

"I'm not asking you to lance your wounds here and now, Silver. You'll do that when you're ready and not a second earlier. And if you let me, I'll be here to help heal those wounds until they're scarred over. Still there but hurting a little less as time goes on."

Silver was quiet for so long that I nearly released him so he could escape me if that was what he wanted. But his arms tightened around me. "I just want to forget, Dalton. I want to be able to pick the spot where my life really began and that's it. The rest won't even be a bad dream because it never happened."

"I know, sweetheart," I responded. "I wish I could take this from you. I wish both our lives began when I drove past you in the pouring rain."

It was a long time before Silver loosened his hold on me and stood. He stepped back so I could do the same but only so he could lean into my side. He continued to finger the locket. "I need to tell you something, Dalton. I don't think it really means anything, but it seemed to matter to Ivan so maybe it was something. I don't know."

"Okay," I said. I led Silver to our lounger. We sat facing each other, each straddling it.

"When Ivan started getting more confused and forgetting things, he got paranoid. I told you that part, right?"

"Yes."

"What I didn't tell you was that he made me memorize these numbers for him. I guess it was really just one long number. I'm not sure. It never made sense to me. I had a good memory, so it wasn't that hard even though there were hundreds of individual numbers that made up the big one. I had to repeat them back to Ivan every day, sometimes more than once. I just thought it was some kind of memory exercise he was using to help him remember, but he kept saying over and over how no one could know about the numbers, especially not his brother, Dmitri. They hadn't been in touch for any of the time that I lived with Ivan, so it didn't make sense, but I didn't question him. I memorized the number and whenever he told me to write it down, I would, and he'd just stare at it for the longest time before burning the piece of paper in the fireplace. Honestly, by the end I think I could have written any string of numbers down and he wouldn't have known if they were right or wrong." Silver shook his head. "Like I said, it's probably nothing, but I guess I got a little paranoid about it too."

"Do you still remember the numbers?" I asked. I had no clue if any of it made sense or not, but the soldier in me knew not to make assumptions about anything. I couldn't help but remember the car that I'd been sure had been following us when I'd been driving Silver to the bus station in Baltimore along with the attempted break-in that occurred soon after that.

Silver nodded. "Do you have a piece of paper?"