To Capture a Thorn (The Society 2)

She sighed. “Clearly, I’m not sensible.” She threw the stick onto the table and turned toward me. There were still balls on the table.

“Saying yes and then … accepting this isn’t the end of it, Sian. They have rules, order, and they’re going to expect you to comply. If you don’t…” I couldn’t bring myself to even finish that statement.

Sian closed the distance between us, putting a hand on my chest. “Stop this. Stop worrying. Stop … thinking bad things. You’re William Martin. The guy who smiles at everything regardless of what it all means.” She went on her tiptoes and kissed me. “My dad wants to bring down your dads and in doing so, he wants to take over The Society. He’s hungry for money, power. He’s pure greed and has been all his life. It’s why he manipulated the outcome to get Joan. It’s all about what he wants, not about anyone else. I’ve got to stop him. He is dangerous.”

“I don’t want it to cost you,” I said. “I never want it to cost you.”

“And I’m not willing to give you guys up. Can’t you see this as a romantic gesture?”

I wanted to more than anything. “But you don’t know what you’re giving up.”

She sighed and stepped away from me. Her gaze went to the floor. “You’re probably right. I don’t know everything that’s going to happen or if I’m going to be able to handle what they throw at me, but love isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be. Drew told me once that if love didn’t hurt, then you were doing it wrong. I always thought that was crazy. She said real love, the kind of soul-searing, completely consuming love, was meant to be painful. If that’s true, then I want it. I don’t care to be in a relationship I can’t stand. Looking back, my mom has spent nineteen years in a drug haze where she barely knows me. Every now and then, she comes out of it, and she has these little sparks of memory. She becomes the woman I want to meet. That’s painful and it hurts so bad because I know I’m also so very angry at her for allowing this to happen. It makes no sense. Love, pain, feelings, none of them make any sense, and yet most of the world spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to be immersed into the very notion of it. We thrive on it. I know exactly what I’m giving up, William. I’m giving up my chance to have a peaceful life. One that would be boring and dull because not a moment would go by where I wouldn’t regret taking this chance. I love you. I love Gideon. I love Dante and Mateo. I love you all, and I know it’s wrong. I know to the world I shouldn’t love any of you, but guess what, I’m going to have to stay being wrong because this doesn’t feel wrong to me. It feels so very right.”

I didn’t stop her as she left the room.

Guilt filled me. I’d asked her to say and now I was calling her out on it for staying. I was a fucking wreck.

“You know, she reminds me so much of Joan,” George, my dad, said.

I spun around and found him in the doorway, arms folded, much like how I stood. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to know that you can’t let her go. She’s in love with you.”

“She’s been through so much. I don’t want her to feel any kind of pain, ever again.”

“I can tell she’s a strong one, son. You cannot force her to be something she’s not. If she doesn’t want to leave, don’t force her hand. Don’t make her leave. Believe me, if you think you’re doing the right thing letting her go, it’s a fucking lie. Trust me when I say living without the one you love is so much worse than you will ever realize.”

I stared at my dad. “I don’t want to be selfish with her. She deserves a life as far away from here as possible.”

“She deserves the life she wants, Dante. Not you. Not me. No one is going to tell her how to live her life. She is strong. You need to realize it.”

I moved toward the pool table, picking up the stick and potting the rest of the balls without much challenge.

I knew what my father was saying, but it was so fucking hard to do. As much as I wanted Sian to be part of us, I knew challenges faced us. Some we’d be able to handle together, others not so much.

“How are you going to handle the video?” I asked.

There was no doubt there was already a press conference being called with a big explanation as to what happened. They would do what they could to recover any image that might be damaged by this.