Chapter 25

"We don't haveto do this," I said for what had to be the thousandth time. I'd already slowed the boat until we were sitting in the gently bobbing water several hundred yards from a very well-maintained dock and several different kinds of boats, all expensive-looking and well cared for.

It had been a couple of weeks since Silver and I had made love for the first time and since then, he'd been struggling to eat, sleep, or do anything besides sit on the lounger and stare out at the water. Even Sadie hadn't been able to break him out of his funk.

Four days had passed before I'd been able to coax Silver into telling me what the was matter. I'd thought maybe I'd done something while making love to him that first time that had brought back some unpleasant memories, but he'd been the one to initiate our next sexual encounter that night and we'd made love multiple times since then.

He'd finally admitted that more and more images that had nothing to do with his captivity had been randomly appearing in his mind, most of them while he was trying to fall asleep after we made love. It had been painful to listen to him tell me about each image, which I'd come to understand weren't random images but real-life memories.

Silver had finally begun to remember things from before he'd been sold to Ivan and even before his life on the streets of a German city with a couple claiming to be his parents.

I'd seen the chink in his armor long before he had. Whatever peace he'd found in the last few weeks had also fractured whatever it was that had kept those memories locked away in his brain for so long.

When I'd suggested we search the internet for any children who'd been declared missing or abducted not only in the US but overseas, Silver had reluctantly agreed. However, when I'd started my search, Silver had mentally checked out and had chosen to spend his time reading one of my ship-building books or throwing a ball for Sadie so she could jump into the water and retrieve it.

It had been impossibly easy to find out who Silver really was. The unique color of his eyes and a small birthmark on his ankle had confirmed it. When I'd told Silver that I'd found his real family, he'd simply said I was his real family. I'd understood his fear, but I'd also known he was at a crossroads that would define an important part of his future.

I'd finally gotten him to agree to check out the place since it had been less than thirty miles away from our current location, and less than a hundred miles from my own house. Unlike my house, though, the property was located in a small but exclusive town that boasted not only huge houses but acres and acres of land and extensive water frontage along Chesapeake Bay. Silver had been disinterested at best and while I'd steered the boat south, he'd barely looked at the land to our starboard side. He also hadn't wanted to know anything about the people who'd brought him into the world.

Despite my words about not needing to, I really did want Silver to do this. I knew it would bring back painful emotions that he'd had to lock away for so long now that he wouldn't have any clue how to deal with them. Things had changed, though. He wasn't alone anymore. He had the right to see where he'd done cartwheels and to meet the people who'd been sitting around a big table having a raucous meal.

At the same time, a part of me wanted to keep Silver all to myself. I wanted to protect him from the pain that awaited him. I selfishly wanted him to choose to stay with me over the prospect of him deciding to stay with his family. Based on where his family lived and the obvious financial luxury they were privy to, I still wanted Silver to pick me and my slow but steady cabin cruiser and my tiny little red house that was threatening to fall down with the next stiff wind.

It had to be his choice, though. Even if I couldn't compete, it had to be his choice… one I had no right to influence him to make one way or the other. I had no idea what kind of people awaited him on the other side of the dense line of trees, but if they weren't deserving of Silver or tried to condemn him for something that hadn't been his fault, we'd be out of there as fast as my boat could take us.

"I know," was all Silver said as he finally studied the same thing I was looking at. He didn't seem interested in the luxury boats or the endless sand that stretched out in each direction from the beginning of the dock. He was only focused on the trees. "I don't remember this," he muttered.

"It's been a long time?—"

"If I do this, can we go home?" he asked. "You won't… you won't leave me here?" His voice cracked for the first time.

I was stunned by the question. I gently grabbed his arms and forced him to face me. I used one hand to tilt his chin up so his eyes were in line with mine. "Is that why you think I did this?" I asked hoarsely. "Sweetheart, there's such a big fucking hole in my heart right now because I'm afraid after meeting them, seeing everything that lies behind those trees… I can't lose you, Silver, but I can't keep you for the wrong reasons. Nothing, nothing, would keep me from you if that was what you wanted."

Silver put his arms around me and pressed his head to my chest. I covered the back of his head with one hand and kept the other wrapped around his waist. I kissed the top of his head but didn't say anything else.

"Dalton, what if they… what if they…" he whispered. Thankfully, the waves slapping against the hull were light and there were no other boats around to cover his voice.

"What if they what, baby?" I asked.

It took him a long time to answer. I could feel him shaking against me. Sadie was pressed up against his leg and nuzzling whatever part of him she could reach.

"What if they don't want me?" Silver said in a hushed voice. "What if they find out what Ivan…"

When Silver didn't continue, I pressed another kiss to his head and said, "I don't think that will happen, my love, but if it does, we're back on this boat and heading home, do you understand me? I want you. Forever. I'm not letting you go unless you let me go first."

Silver immediately began shaking his head against my chest.

"Don't spend the rest of your life believing what happened to you was your fault. That you did something wrong or that you somehow deserved it. You were a kid lost in?—"

"A broken world," Silver finished for me.

"We have a family," I continued. "It's not just you, me, and Sadie, either. It's Jace and Caleb and Willa and Ronan and all those men and women who were there for us when we needed them, whether we wanted them to be or not. It doesn't matter if they're thousands of miles away or right next door. They will always be there for us just like we'll be there for them."

Silver pulled in a deep breath and nodded. "Okay," he said simply.

"Do you want to take us in?" I asked as I released him enough to jerk my head toward the steering wheel. "I'll drop the buoys."

During our trip exploring the bay, we'd had to stop a couple times for supplies and gas, so Silver had learned how to dock a boat and like everything else, he was already a pro at it. Within minutes, we were pulling into one of the vacant slips and tying off the boat. The moment we disembarked, Silver wrapped his fingers around mine. Sadie was at his side, her body bumping his every time his left leg took a step forward. Under normal circumstances, I would have told the dog to stay on the boat since I didn't know what we were walking into. It was the same with the gun I had stashed at my back, but my first priority was Silver's safety, both emotional and physical.

At the end of the dock was a well-traveled path that we followed until the trees began to dissipate. Silver came to a jarring halt when he saw the massive house sitting a couple hundred yards away. I hadn't given him any details about the house, even though I'd looked it up on the internet on a real estate site. As far as I'd been able to tell, the house had never been sold since it had been built in the early nineteen hundreds. It had, however, undergone a massive remodel, but only to restore it to its glory days as the years had taken their toll on it.

But what I was seeing wasn't the same thing Silver was. I could tell by the way he was breathing. Lush green grass surrounded the house. From our position we were looking at the back of the house. There was a huge pool surrounded by a safety fence. Next to it was a playground. Not a super fancy one, though. Just a collection of toys, slides, a sandbox, and things for kids to climb or weave their way through. To the right of the house was a large barn that matched the color scheme of the main house. Several horses, along with an array of farm animals, lazed about in well-maintained pastures. On the other side of the sprawling farmhouse was a tennis court and several outbuildings.

"The swings," Silver whispered.

I looked at the swings which were currently empty but swaying just a tiny bit in the breeze. "Do you remember those?" I asked carefully. Silver looked like he was on the verge of bolting. From the way his fingernails were digging into my skin, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had whipped around and gone running back down the path to the boat.

Before Silver could answer, which I wasn't sure he would have, several dogs came running at us out of nowhere. Sadie stepped in front of Silver and let out a soft growl. There had to be at least five dogs that surrounded us, but they were all wagging their tails and yapping happily. I didn't think Silver even noticed them because his eyes were fixated on something I somehow had managed to miss completely.

Next to the pool but outside the safety fence was a huge wooden picnic table that had to seat at least twenty people. Or more, based on the quick count I managed to do as all the people occupying the benches at the table had swung their heads in our direction when the dogs had started barking. An old-fashioned checkered tablecloth covered the massive table and there were an array of bowls and platters all along the middle of it. The people now staring at us were a mix of old, young, and in between.

Fuck, I hadn't been expecting something like this. I'd thought we'd ultimately run into one or two people and slowly ease our way into explaining who we were. Several of the younger men at the table stood. Their buzz cuts and wariness were painfully familiar to me.

Military men.

At least six of them.

"Shit," I said softly, but Silver didn't seem to hear me. He was staring at the people surrounding the picnic table. I couldn't tell if he recognized them or anything about the scene. If it had just been the two of us, I would have thought him to be in one of his trancelike stares, but the way he was gripping my hand told me otherwise.

For the first time since I'd located the house on the internet, I began to have doubts about whether I'd done the right thing.

"Can I help you?"

The female voice had me jerking to the right and automatically reaching for my gun. The girl was watching us from atop a black horse. She was wearing a hard hat and what I assumed was the type of clothing horseback riders wore. Her soft smile had me dropping my hand from the butt of my gun and carefully pulling my shirt back over it.

"Um, yeah," I began but then snapped my mouth shut because I realized I had no idea what to say next. Excuse me, do you recognize this person next to me because I think he used to live here but was kidnapped when he was a kid and held prisoner by a pedophile who tortured and abused him for years.

Silver was at my back, probably deliberately hiding from the girl, though based on her size and build, I doubted she was a girl but rather a young woman. She smiled brightly as she took her hard hat off. A wave of golden-brown hair tumbled down her back.

Familiargolden-brown hair.

"I'm Agnes. I know, right?" she said as she got off the horse. "Agnes? Who names their kid that? I guess it was an old family name—some Greek great-great-grandmother or something on my mom's side. Can you imagine the teasing I would have gotten in school as I got older? Thankfully, my brother couldn't pronounce Agnes when he was little, so he was the one who came up with?—"

"Aggie—" Silver whispered from behind me. He'd spoken softly but the expression on the woman's face changed. She seemed surprised and confused.

"Yeah… how did you know that?" Wariness had her stepping backward. "Do we know each other—" she began to ask as she moved closer to the horse's head. She was trying to get a better look at Silver.

The second her own clear, silvery eyes met their mirror image, she gasped and shook her head. "No," she whispered in disbelief. "Andrew?"

I briefly closed my eyes as the reality of what I'd done washed over me. I hadn't even realized that there'd been a tiny part of me that hadn't wanted to be right about all of this. I'd wanted Silver to see the house, tell me he didn't recognize it, then we'd hurry back to my boat and that was it.

Silver flinched and grabbed my hand with his second one so that mine was completely enfolded by his. I turned away from the woman and reached for Silver's cheek. He was shaking violently.

"I want to go now," he blurted. "I want to go now." He kept repeating the phrase over and over as his breathing ticked up. The words only stopped when he began to gasp for air.

"Sweetheart, I need you to focus on me now. Just me. My voice, my touch, my eyes. Nothing else exists but us," I said. Thankfully, the dogs that had still been sniffing at us and Sadie had backed off, whether on their own or by command, I didn't know or care. The woman remained silent as I focused on Silver. His hands had come up to grab a hold of my wrists.

"I want you to think about the other day when we were walking along the beach. We were throwing sticks for Sadie and watching her chase them into the water. There was no one around but you and me." My heart was racing but I managed to keep the fear out of my voice.

"Do you remember?" I asked.

Silver nodded frantically.

"Okay, think about the steps we took. They were really slow, right? Can you look down and see our feet sinking into the wet sand? Every time they get sucked into the sand, I want you to breathe out."

He shook his head.

"Just try for me. Breathe out when they get sucked in and breathe in when we manage to pull them out." As Silver tried desperately to follow my instructions, I began saying the words "in" and "out." At first, I matched the pace of his breathing, which meant I was repeating the words with next to no break in between. Once I started slowing the words, increment by increment, I was relieved to see that Silver was trying to follow along. It could have been minutes or hours until he was panting heavily but no longer struggling for air. At some point, he'd ended up in my arms. His head was facing away from the house. He was no longer asking to leave, but he wasn't exactly asking to stay, either.

The woman, for her part, had called the dogs away so that they were all lying down several feet away. When Silver dropped one hand to reach for Sadie's head, she was right there to lick his fingers and press her head against his hand and her body along his legs.

I kept my focus on Silver but there was no missing the two men who'd appeared at the woman's side. They were among the several who'd been at the picnic table. Thankfully, they remained quiet and kept their distance just like the woman, Aggie, did.

"Can you get him some water?" I asked no one in particular. One of the men hesitated and then he was trotting up to the house. The other man looked stiff and stood between us and Aggie, so I couldn't tell if she'd told him who Silver was or not. I did know he was related to the young man in my arms because he too had the same unique eye color.

"Nick, can you take Brutus to the barn?" Aggie asked, keeping her voice low.

"Aggie," the man, Nick, responded uncertainly as he looked me over.

I didn't blame him for seeing me as a potential threat, but when Aggie added, "Please," Nick took the reins from her and led the horse toward the barn.

I doubted he'd figured out who Silver was based on his concern for Aggie instead of any kind of focus on Silver. Moments later, the other man who seemed to be closer to Aggie's age returned with the bottle of water. He handed it to Aggie instead of me or Silver. I was grateful for that because I knew Silver was at his limit, and a strange man getting close to him would have sent him into full-on panic mode again.

I took the bottle from Aggie and sent her a grateful smile. She whispered something to the other man that I couldn't hear, but based on his expression and the way he kept looking between her and Silver, it was easy to guess that she'd told him who Silver was. She shook her head when he went to open his mouth to say something. Aggie once again leaned in to whisper something and then the man nodded and let out a soft whistle that had the dogs jumping up.

Silver jumped at the whistle too, but he kept his face buried in my chest. The young man practically sprinted to the house, the dogs on his heels. I could see that several of the picnic goers were already walking toward us, but the man intercepted each one. Some of them shook their heads and I heard a few cry out in disbelief, but whatever the man said next had them hurrying into the house. Only one man remained. An older one with dark hair. I figured he was in his early fifties. Thankfully, he didn't approach us. It wasn't until a woman came out of the house carrying a tray of what looked like a pitcher of lemonade and several glasses that things changed.

She'd been looking over her shoulder at the house, probably wondering why everyone had rushed inside, so she didn't notice us or the one remaining man standing outside until she nearly reached him. It was at that point that the man gently took hold of each one of her arms and said something to her. The tray slipped from her hands, shattering into pieces on the concrete at her feet. I could hear her nearly shouting and jerking our head in our direction as the man continued to speak to her. The second he stopped talking, she was trying to pull free of him. I faintly heard her call Silver's real name and then the man was crushing her to his chest, holding her similarly to how I was holding Silver. Her whole body seemed to crumple like an imploding building, but the man was able to catch her before she landed in the glass at her feet.

Aggie was watching the scene too and when she turned her attention back to us, she was wiping at the tears that had pooled in her eyes.

"Um," she began awkwardly. Her eyes met mine like she wanted me to tell her what to say next. There wasn't anything I could say that would improve the situation. "Um, I'm sorry I didn't catch either of your names," she said, emphasizing the word either. I could have kissed her for not calling Silver by his given name again.

"I'm Dalton," I began. "And this is Silver," I added when Silver didn't even look up.

"Well, it's nice to meet you both. Do you guys like water?" she asked nervously. "Not the bottled kind, I mean. But obviously you might like that kind too."

She fell silent. She began wringing her hands just like Silver did when he got nervous or overwhelmed. I gave her an encouraging smile. "Anyway, there's this really pretty pond through the trees here. It's quiet and there are lots of koi fish in it. I like to sit there when I need some me time," Aggie continued.

"That sounds really good," I responded.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" Aggie asked. "Even though the fish are supposed to feed themselves on the plants and stuff, I kind of spoil them and feed them treats every day."

"Is that okay with you, sweetheart?" I asked softly as I ran a finger over the sensitive spot behind Silver's ear.

It was a painfully long time before he nodded against my chest. I wanted to dance with joy at the small victory.

I had a feeling they were the only kinds of victories I'd see for the foreseeable future and even then might not happen often.

God, I really hoped I was wrong.