The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)
The Oath We Give: Chapter 23

silas

There is nothing but silence in the dark of my home office, offering my mind a chance to settle. Smoke from my cigar swirls into the air, a bourbon in my hand as I lean back into my chair.

I peer at the gun resting on the wood in front of me, the black metal glistening in the moonlight streaming in from the window behind me.

An hour ago, that was what I used to kill someone.

I can still smell the gunpowder and blood singeing the air, hear the sound a bullet makes when it pierces through a skull and passes through brain matter.

The person that had been able to console a shattered Coraline days ago does not exist in this room. Not tonight.

My fingers tighten around my glass, lifting it to my lips for a long and slow pull of whiskey.

Charlie Monroe flunked out of tech school in the late nineties. He is—well, was—employed by a nearby computer repair store. With a wife and one son at home, Charlie was a naive victim of circumstance who was offered money in exchange for both his hacking and apparently vandalizing services.

I wonder if Stephen Sinclair warned him who he’d face when he got caught. The fate he would meet at the end of my gun if I found out he was the one that fucked with my friends. My wife.

He was brave, at first. They all are.

It’s why breaking them is so much fucking fun.

“Half a million for some lightweight computer work and destroying a chick’s apartment?” He chuckles, the smell of stale cigarettes on his breath. “That’s some fucking pussy.”

It took Rook less than twenty minutes to post this rat’s bail, just to shove him in the back of a car and drive him to the Peak, leaving him alone with just me.

I bet he thought he was lucky, only spending two days in jail just to get off scot-free.

The butt of my gun smacks across the side of his head with a thud. Blood pours from the wound almost immediately as he grunts, toppling onto his side, unable to clutch his throbbing head due to the ropes tethered behind his back.

“Half a million is all your life is worth,” I hum, looking down at him as he kneels on the wet ground. “How pathetic.”

There’s an untapped rage in me that I want to release on this idiot. Take my time before a bullet ends his life. Crush his skull with my bare hands or break his spine, but I want to save that.

I want to be patient and save all of my rage for the man that truly deserves it. When I finally got my hands on Stephen Sinclair, I would make him beg me to kill him, choking on his own blood. I’d make him beg me for the mercy of death.

He would regret every ounce of pain he inflicted on Coraline Whittaker.

My hands tighten on the gun in my hand, bitter rage tasting like pennies in my mouth thinking about what he put her through. What she lived through in that basement.

“Stephen has something special in store for you four. He’s getting that girl no matter how many people you kill to prevent it.” He smiles, showing off his yellowing grin.

“Charlie,” I say as I squat down in front of him. “This bullet is going into your skull tonight.”

“So get it over with, pussy.”

“If you want to take Stephen’s secrets to the grave, I won’t hold it against you.” My head tilts, watching his reaction. “But your family will. It’d be a shame if all that money you’re leaving behind for them just disappeared.”

“You can’t—”

I press the end of the gun to his forehead. “I will leave your son in the gutter of poverty. Every account you own will be sucked fucking dry, and all that will be left of you is your wife cursing your name while she rots on the streets.”

His eyes widen, Adam’s apple bobbing as he silently debates if I’m bluffing. As if I don’t already have everything I need to ruin him, and he doesn’t even need to be alive to see it.

“One button, Charlie. That’s all I’ve got to press.”

“All this for some bitch?” He scoffs, trying to wiggle from his restraints. “You’re fucking crazy.”

In the dark of the night, with only me and the man I’m about to kill, I grin, my teeth bared in a gnarled smile. I stand to my full height, shoving my combat-clad foot into his shoulder, forcing him to roll onto his back.

“Certifiable,” I tell him as I press my boot into his throat, applying pressure. “Say another word about my wife, and I’ll leave your guts on the doorstep of your house. You think your son will enjoy replaceing what’s left of his father?”

Everyone has a weak spot, a point where they break. You just have to know how to replace it.

“What do you want to know?”

He proved to be useless. Everything he told me I already knew and left me no closer to replaceing Stephen. Charlie was the hacker helping send the emails and had agreed to help vandalize Coraline’s apartment.

I hated that Stephen knew what he was doing. Purposefully leaving Charlie as bait, knowing we’d catch him. Knowing it would piss me the fuck off when I didn’t get anything from him.

All this night gave me was a fucking headache and blood on my white shirt.

Killing him didn’t relieve any anger or stress. It didn’t make me feel better. Not when I know the man responsible for hurting Coraline is still out there breathing, playing chess with me.

If anything, it only made things worse.

I’m overflowing with unshed rage that has nowhere to go. I can’t be the patient, kind man I’d been to Coraline the day her apartment was broken into.

Not with all the noise consuming me. All the guilt chewing me up from the inside. There’s no one to blame for this except me. Coraline is reliving the worst experience of her life because I’d convinced her that marrying me was the right move. Alistair is deteriorating slowly with the weight of being in this town and having his parents breathing down his neck.

All of this to say, if I hadn’t let Rosemary Donahue walk home alone from the library after that fight, none of us would even be in this position to begin with.

My selfishness has caused that argument. My selfishness has put all of these people I care about in the path of a narcissistic piece of shit who won’t stop until he’s no longer breathing.

I’ve given us no choice.

It’s kill him or let him keep killing us.

More blood on my hands, regardless of who does the killing.

I flick my eyes toward my office door, listening to it creak open. Dark hair spills over Coraline’s shoulder as she peeks her head through the crack in the door.

I’d made the guys stay here today while the movers got Lilac and Coraline’s stuff inside and had asked the girls to come by to help Coraline unpack her things.

It’d been the perfect distraction, keeping everyone busy so she wouldn’t notice my absence, wouldn’t question my behavior, and by the time she woke up in the morning, all would be back to our version of normal.

At least, that had been the plan.

She slips her bare feet inside, pressing her back against the door, making it click closed. I chase the lines of her exposed legs, miles of smooth, tan skin begging for fingers to touch them.

My cock twitches behind my jeans. I’m hanging by a thread tonight, and her being in here, dressing in a slouchy T-shirt and skimpy-ass shorts, isn’t helping.

It’s only making my blood burn hotter. Tempting me to do something she’ll regret in the daylight hours.

“These are my paintings,” Coraline speaks into the silence. I follow her gaze around my office, her artwork I’d purchased at the gala hung along the slate-gray walls.

All twelve of them.

“Rich asshole who paid double.” I tilt my glass in mock cheers. “Nice to meet you.”

Even in the shadows of this room, I can see her cheeks turn red, nerves eating her up as she rocks back and forth on her heels.

“Why’d you buy all of them? For Light?”

“They felt too private to be in any house besides mine. It was like they already belonged to me.”

Our eyes catch, locking together. The air between us thickens with electricity. She’s quiet for a moment, studying my face like she’s trying to gather the courage to say something.

“Where have you been?”

I arch an eyebrow. “Playing the nagging wife already?”

“Is it true?” she demands, not a hint of question in her tone.

My fingers tighten on the glass in my hand as I lean back in my chair, peering at her over my desk. She’s smart keeping her distance, bracing herself against the door so she can flee at any moment.

The longer she stands there, the less resistance I have against the idea of seeing just how pretty that witchy mouth of hers is stretched and swollen around my dick. I want to use her tight fucking body as an outlet for this rage. Fuck all the guilt away.

“Be more specific, Coraline. You want to know something, be a big girl and ask me.”

Her eyes slit just as she lifts her chin, glaring at me before crossing her arms in front of her chest, like that will somehow protect her from me.

“Did you kill the man who helped destroy my apartment tonight?”

The sound of his windpipe cracking beneath my boot echoes in my ears.

I nod, lifting the glass rim to my lips and taking a sip of my drink before tossing the bullet that pierced Charlie Monroe right between his eyes onto my desk.

“Souvenir,” I say above the rattling of metal against wood, watching the silver bullet roll across the desk before coming to a stop.

That made more noise than his body did when it fell from the Peak, crashing into the raging sea and rocks below.

Her eyes widen with shock, like she’s surprised by what I did.

“Oh my God.”

I feign confusion, furrowing my brows together. “Did you forget who you married, Hex? Did you forget what I am, or did you ignore all the rumors and hope I was different?”

I’d said it once before that people constantly battle two versions of themselves.

The person that wants to exist when no one is watching cares for Coraline. Wants to show her how to help herself heal. Wants to be the shoulder she falls on. That person can give her peace.

The individual I give the world? Doesn’t care about how she feels right now. I’m a ruthless man who won’t hesitate to send another person screaming into hell if they threaten those close to me. I’ve seen too much corruption and lost too many people to give a shit about how damned my soul is. This person will only bring her war.

“God fucking dammit, Silas,” she hisses, running frustrated hands through her hair. “Why? Why couldn’t you have just left it fucking alone?”

I lean forward in the chair, sitting my glass on the desk, eyes darkening as my jaw goes taut.

“Watch your fucking mouth, Coraline,” I warn, a threat at the back of my throat. “What little patience I have left is running thin. Don’t argue with me tonight.”

She moves through the dark with her fists balled at her sides. A tiny, little ball of anger. I enjoy watching her try to intimidate me. Her palms slam on the desk across from me, waves of hair falling in front of her shoulders, those two white streaks catching the moonlight.

“It’s not your job to protect me. I asked you to look out for Lilac. That was our agreement.” She shoves her pointer finger into the wood. “I didn’t agree to you playing into the asshole alpha stereotype.”

“How about you do us both a favor, Coraline.” I grind my molars. “Get the fuck out.”

She jerks like I smacked her. It dawns on me this is the first time I’ve spoken to her like this. The first time I’ve needed to.

I’m not doing it to be mean. I’m doing it because if she doesn’t leave, what I make her do next will send her to bed sated and have her waking up with a stomach full of regret.

I don’t want her to hate herself for letting herself have me, even if it’s just one night.

Her pink tongue darts across her bottom lip, head tilting as she plays a game she’s gonna lose. “And if I don’t? What are you going to do, Hawthorne?”

A smirk unfolds on my lips, my tongue rolling across my front teeth.

“I’ll fuck you until you break.” My voice is husky from lust. “I don’t have the patience to be nice to your body. I will fuck my pent-up aggression into your tight cunt until it leaks down your thighs. So, get the fuck out, or slide your ass on my desk and spread your legs.”

She’s stubborn, has to learn lessons the hard way instead of listening, and I’m far too gone in my head to give a single fuck about how she feels in the morning anymore.

Not when all I’m focused on is bending her ass over this desk and screwing her through my floor.

Coraline is entirely too transparent; I can see her debating the options. She wants to stay, wants to give herself to me, but she’s afraid. So afraid that I expect her to walk out.

Leave me to fuck my fist until I spill with her cursed name on my lips.

But instead, she stands and begins to circle the edge of my desk. Her loose T-shirt slips down her shoulder, allowing the moonlight to reveal a white scar that goes across her collarbone.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Coraline slides between me and the desk, the smell of lavender on her wet hair, and lifts her ass onto the top, legs dangling just in front of my knees.

“I still owe you one more favor,” she says softly. “This makes us even.”

I smirk, running a hand across my jaw. I’ve never been the kind of man who needs repayment, but if that’s the excuse she wants to give me so I can touch her, fine.

“Take off your shorts,” I order, voice gruff in the back of my throat, hoarse from the lust trapped back there.

She does as I ask without complaint. As much as she wants to deny her attraction, she wants to be a good girl for me more. Slowly sliding her sleep shorts down her long legs, taking her time, she teases me with every inch of lost fabric. My teeth sink into my bottom lip, and I spread my thighs a little wider, falling back into my chair. My fingers undo the button of my jeans, unzipping them as I tilt my head, zeroing in on the black silk panties trimmed with lace that hide barely anything from my hungry eyes.

“Panties too.”

Her chest heaves, a shaky breath rattling past her lips as she nervously follows my instructions. Shame and desire harden her nipples, the buds taut beneath the thin shirt. It’s a deadly combination, her need to do what I say so I’ll reward her and feeling weak for taking orders with no fight.

Coraline Whittaker likes to behave.

And there is nothing I love more than turning a headstrong woman into a needy whore. Completely, utterly at my mercy, watching her whine and cry for an orgasm she can’t have unless I say so.

Her underwear slips to her ankles, and before she lets them fall to the floor, I catch them in my left hand, squeezing a fist around the soft material.

I hold it between my teeth, the smell of her arousal so close to my nose making me groan as I jerk my jeans down, just enough so I can pull my throbbing cock from my boxers. The thick tip is red, aching and begging for relief.

A loud gasp makes me look up just as Coraline speaks. “You’re pierced?”

The silvery moonlight catches the metal along my shaft, three barbells evenly spaced from base to mid-shaft, glinting as they stud the hard muscles of my cock.

I drop her panties to my lap before I answer.

“If you beg me to fuck you, I’ll show you what they’re for.”

Her eyes leave my face and travel down my body, taking in the sight of my fingers wrapped around the base of my cock, the piercings cool against my palm.

“We—” She swallows, eyes flicking from my waist to my eyes. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Is that why you’re leaking on my desk?” I grunt, motioning with my eyes toward her pussy.

Her naked, exposed pussy, pink and crying for me to make it come. It wants me so deep inside of her that she can’t fucking stand it. I roll the harsh pad of my thumb against my reddened tip, smearing precome.

She blushes, pupils dilating. Coraline watches every movement as I release my cock before picking up her silk panties and wrapping them around my shaft.

The feel of my callused hands and her underwear tugging at the piercings beneath my palm elicits a hiss from my throat.

I use my feet to move forward, the chair beneath me rolling closer to the edge of the desk where she sits, forcing her to spread her legs wider to accommodate the size of my shoulders. This puts my face directly in front of her cunt, right where I’ve been dying to be for months.

“Don’t worry, Hex. I’m not gonna fuck you tonight. But you’re going to wish I did.”