Free Elias (New Adult Romance) (West Bend Saints Book 1) by Sabrina Paige Page A

lecture?"
    "Screw you, Silas."  I spat the words, already pissed off at his shitty attitude before we'd even had the chance to say more than two sentences to each other.  He hadn't always been like this.  I could remember a time when he was my best friend in the world.  I could recall a time when I'd take a bullet for him, and he would have done the same for me.
    His expression softened for a moment, clouded by something else.  Regret?  I wondered.  It was probably too much to expect from Silas, but I felt my fists begin to unclench anyway.  "They already cremated the asshole, you know," he said.
    "I saw," I said.  "She has him up on the mantle."
    Silas spit on the ground.  "Real fucking awesome," he said.  "On display, like he was some kind of goddamned saint."
    I shrugged.  "Did you expect anything different?"
    "Not from her," he said, his voice bitter.  Silas and I had always had different expectations when it came to our mother.  I think I always understood that she was incapable of being who we'd want her to be.  Silas was perpetually disappointed in her, angry at her for not living up to who he thought she should be.  Angry at the world for the same reasons.
    "She said you were in Vegas," I said, leaving off the rest of it, the unspoken part.  Vegas was a couple of hours from San Diego, not exactly on the other side of the fucking world.  My fucking twin, and he hadn't come see me after my leg had gotten blown the fuck off - not in the hospital, and not afterwards.
    Silas shuffled, kicked at the pavement with his boot.  "Yeah," he said.  "Got on the fight circuit out there for a while."
    "Legit?" I asked.  Silas had always been a fighter- wrestling, boxing, MMA, you name it.  Even when he was a kid, scrapping after school, taking on bullies, kids who used to talk shit about our family.  It was like he had no fear, no sense of self-preservation.
    "Mostly," he said.  "Until I tore my ACL."
    "I didn't know."
    He shrugged.  "I heard about what happened, the explosion.  I was going to come see you, but - "  His voice trailed off.
    "Yeah, well, shit happens."
    His expression looked pained, and he opened his mouth, then shut it again. 
    "You heard from Luke or Killian?" I asked.  I wasn't on the outs with them, not like I'd been with Silas, but my older brothers were incommunicado a lot of the time, on the road.
    Silas shook his head.  "Not in a long time," he said, the implication obvious.  Silas had established himself as the black sheep when it came to the four of us.  "You sticking around here?"
    I wasn't sure if it was hope or fear in his voice.  "Not sure," I said.
    "Yeah, well, West Bend ain't the place it used to be," Silas said.
    "What does that mean?"
    He shrugged, kicked at the ground.  "Have to watch yourself here," he said, not bothering to elaborate.
    A yell from one of the other bouncers interrupted us.  "Stop fucking socializing and get your ass back over here."
    Silas turned toward the direction of the sound.  "Fuck you," he yelled back.  "I'm coming."
    "Watch yourself how?" I asked.
    Silas opened his mouth, then closed it again.  "I didn't mean anything by it," Silas said.  He kicked the ground with the toe of his boot.  "I'll talk to you later.  I'm real sorry I didn't come out there when you were in the hospital.  Got a lot of regrets and shit, and that's probably the biggest."
    I nodded, calm on the outside, but really he might as well have knocked me over with a baseball bat, apologizing like that.  Silas wasn't ever one for apologies, not even back when we were tight.  "It's all right."
    "Nah," he said.  "It's not, really.  I've been a dick.  Don't want to rack up any more regrets, you know?  Bad karma."
    "Fuck, Silas," the bouncer yelled.  "Get your fucking ass back over here."
    "Duty calls," he said, a wry smile on his face.  "I've got to go."
    I drove away from the bar, my mind racing.  Silas apologizing had been the last thing on earth I expected when