6. Silas
CHAPTER SIX
L ilith Vivienne Whitlock.
The driver had given me her address after making sure she got home safely. I hadn’t asked for it, he’d just been thorough.
I could have deleted it, forgotten about it. But I hadn’t, because apparently, I was incapable of being normal, and had to research her immediately.
Thirty-one years old. From some microscopic town in Maine I didn’t think anyone on the planet had ever heard of. It was so small I’d had to zoom in three times on the screen just to find it.
Her parents were gone. She had no siblings. No surviving relatives.
Normally, this stuff was clinical. Things I could analyse and use to my advantage. But this wasn’t clinical. This was personal, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was intruding on something I had no business being part of—because I was.
But I couldn’t stop.
After her mother died, she fell off the face of the earth. No trace of her at all. Radio silence, until nine months ago when she reappeared here in Seattle, like a ghost stepping out of the shadows.
She’d set up an Instagram account the same time.
Not that it told me much. No selfies, no captions about her day or carefully crafted posts to make her life look better than it was.
Her friend Molly had shared dozens of shots of them though, curled up on velvet chairs, laughing with oversized mugs of coffee or glasses of wine.
I knew it was wrong. So damn wrong. Deep diving into her life like this, peeling back layers of her existence like she was some file on my desk.
And yet, her name pulsed through my thoughts, uninvited and unstoppable. And with her name came the images, so vivid, like they’d been burned into my retinas.
Her silver eyes, like storm clouds catching the last sliver of light before the world went dark. Her black hair, spilling loose around her shoulders. And her lips. So soft, pink, perfect. The kind of lips that you want to press your own against and never come up for air.
It started with breakfast. A real one. Something I’d whipped up and left on her porch after that god-awful night. Just to make sure she ate. An innocent gesture. But then, it spiralled.
The stretch of sidewalk outside Sonnets and Spines had seen more of me in the last two weeks than my own damn office.
At first, it had been one quick drive-by. Just to check in. Just to make sure she was doing okay. That’s all it was. A glance. A moment. Nothing weird.
But then I’d seen that asshole through the window.
She’d frozen, until Molly had intervened, shielding her, saying something to make him leave. She’d come out of the shop twenty minutes later, pale and tight-lipped.
And that was it. That was all it took.
One drive-by turned into a few. A few turned into a walk past the window. Just a quick look.
But it kept happening.
I hadn’t seen him there since, but you could never be too careful with men like that, and that’s why I’d continued watching.
And of course I’d done my research on him too.
Clark Thorn. Up and coming news anchor. Golden boy.
Blah, blah, blah.
Not interested.
Just another self-righteous prick with his thumb jammed up too many people’s asses, convinced the world owed him something just for existing.
It wasn’t obsession. It wasn’t some creepy need to insert myself into her life.
It was caution. Protection. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
Even when I decided to start giving her moral support.
From a distance. It was all subtle. Small.
Little things to remind her that someone gave a damn, even if she didn’t know who.
Breakfast deliveries, handpicked rain lilies and gladiolus, a first edition of my favourite book, straight from my own collection. Woven between them, a handful of literary quotes I figured she’d appreciate.
And of course, I’d slipped into her doorbell feed. Pausing the live feed right as I got there, then scheduled the chime to go off after I was gone. So there was no chance of her running out and catching me in the act. She’d never see me. She didn’t need to. I didn’t need her to.
I could’ve gone further. Hacked into her cameras, intercepted her calls, but even I knew that was creepy as hell.
The doorbell was enough. A way to stay in the background, to keep my distance while still learning her routines, the rhythms of her life—just in case .
I knew she was late to work almost every morning, slipping into the bookstore minutes after they opened, coffee clutched in hand, head down, cheeks flushed.
I knew when she took her lunch break, flipping between the same three cafes on rotation. Burritos from a hole in the wall on 5th. A wrap or sandwich from the deli on Market. Pesto pasta with extra Parmesan from the tiny Italian spot tucked between a bank and a laundromat.
She had good taste. I had to give her that.
That was how I’d learned Molly’s order too. Because I’d followed them a few times. Just once or twice. Just enough. And it felt right to do something small in return for someone who was keeping an eye on her.
Which is why today, I’d ordered for both of them.
It wasn’t about getting close, I knew better than that. It was about making someone feel good about themselves when they’d been handed the sharp end of the stick.
“Mr. Graves?”
The voice cut through the fog like a bucket of ice water.
Shit.
Our project manager, and the entire room, were looking directly at me. “Could you clarify your thoughts on the proposed timeline for the launch, sir?”
Think. Focus.
I cleared my throat. “Right. Yes. The timeline—”
I glanced toward the screen at the front of the room, trying to replay the last two minutes of a conversation I’d been half-listening to. Something about two months ahead of schedule.
Accelerating the launch. Okay, sure.
“It’s possible,” I said finally, folding my hands on the table like I’d given it plenty of thought.
“But we need to be realistic about capacity. Launching the internship program ahead of schedule means shifting recruitment resources and dedicating additional staffing for oversight. I’d recommend piloting with a limited number of partnerships before scaling fully. ”
It sounded polished enough.
Thankfully, the team were satisfied with my answer and the presentation continued. But I could feel Finn’s eyes drilling into the side of my skull, like he was waiting for me to slip again.
I didn’t.
The meeting wrapped up with the usual polite chorus of handshakes and goodbyes.
Finn’s voice carried above the noise. “Great job, everyone. Let’s keep up the momentum.”
Once the room quietened to only the hum of the projector, I pressed my fingertips against my temples, trying to loosen the tension clawing at the edges of my skull .
Get your shit together.
“You’ve been off, man. You’ve hardly been in the office, you’re zoning out…” He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed like he was settling in for the long haul. “What’s going on?”
I shook my head, straightening in my seat, forcing my shoulders back as I reached for my phone out of habit.
“Nothing,” I said carefully. “Just tired.”
“Bullshit.”
I sighed and stood, shoving back from the table with enough force to make the chair scrape across the floor. “I said it’s nothing. Drop it.”
He didn’t budge. Didn’t blink. But he tilted his head slightly. “Whatever it is. You can talk to me, you know.”
“Don’t need to talk about anything,” I muttered.
“I know it’s that time of year again.”
“What do you mean it’s that time of year—”
Oh.
Nope. Not doing this right now.
“I said, drop it .” He didn’t deserve the sharpness that came out of me, but he didn’t flinch.
Truth be told, I hadn’t even realised it was that time of year.
But his assumption made sense.
No matter how good I was at compartmentalising or keeping things buried, some things had a way of creeping back in, settling into the quiet, slipping through the cracks.
It was permanent, a scar carved into my chest where no one could see.
It was the reason why I’d keep my distance from Lilith, just helping from the shadows. Making sure she was safe and happy, but without actually getting involved in her life.
Because being close to me came with a price, and I wasn’t about to let her pay it.
“Silas, dude. You know it wasn’t—”
“ Cristo, chiudi quella cazzo!” I snapped, turning on my heel. I strode toward my office, practically vibrating as the tension coiled tighter in my chest.
I grabbed my hoodie off the chair and yanked it on. Next came the coat, then the scarf, fingers moving fast, twisting it halfway up my face like I was trying to reconstruct my emotional barrier with clothes.
The city pulsed around me. Cabs honking, the distant hum of conversations, the faint rattle of a subway somewhere below.
The second I stepped onto the sidewalk, something brushed against me. Not a hard hit, but enough to knock me off balance for half a step.
“Sorry,” a voice murmured, quick and quiet.
I glanced down automatically and did a double take so hard I almost rearranged my spine.
Lilith?
She didn’t look up, just kept moving, head tilted downward, earbuds in place, a paper bag of food clutched tightly in her hands.
What the fuck?
It wasn’t just that she’d walked right into me without so much as a glance. It was the fact that she was holding lunch.
I’d just sent her and Molly lunch to the store. A good lunch. So, why the hell was she out here carrying food like I hadn’t taken care of that?
Curiosity flared and against my better judgement, I started trailing her at a distance—twenty feet, give or take. Enough to keep her in my line of sight.
She moved like she wasn’t part of the world around her.
She didn’t flinch when a cab blared its horn and veered too close to the curb, or when a burst of obnoxious laughter erupted from a group passing by.
She might as well have been in her own little bubble, and for some reason, that rubbed me the wrong way.
The sharp ding of a bike bell cut through the air.
I squinted toward the sound.
A delivery rider.
Except he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
No, this dickhead was on the pavement, weaving through the pedestrians like they were traffic cones.
One hand gripped the handlebars loosely while the other flicked between his phone and the people around him, his head bobbing as if he couldn’t decide which direction would cause the least damage.
What the hell was this guy doing?
He wasn’t slowing down. If anything, he was picking up speed.
A woman shifted at the last second, narrowly avoiding him, hot coffee sloshing over the rim of her cup and onto the front of her coat.
He didn’t look back. Didn’t stop. What an asshole.
Lilith was still walking, still completely unaware.
Look up, Lilith.
I moved, dodging the bodies between us.
He was closing in too fast .
My hand shot out, the distance closing in an instant, and in one sharp motion, I grabbed her arm and yanked her out of his path.
The momentum spun her straight into me, her back slamming hard against my chest as the delivery bike shot past, the whoosh of wind brushing against me.
Inches. That’s how close it had been.
The rider didn’t even pause. He just threw a half-assed, ‘ Sorry!’ over his shoulder, already vanishing into the sea of people.
“Yeah, sure. No problem, asshole,” I muttered.
Then I realised—
Her back? Pressed against my chest.
My hand? Touching her arm.
My brain? Absolutely fucking losing it.
Move, idiot. Let her go.
I couldn’t. My mind spun in a loop of absolute chaos.
This is bad. This is really bad. Why does she smell so good? Why does this feel—
She tensed, and the moment shattered like glass hitting the pavement. She twisted out of my hold, spinning around so fast her hair whipped across her face, tiny strands catching on her lips. Her pupils had blown wide, breath coming in short, uneven bursts.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped as she rubbed at her arm, fingers pressing against the spot where my grip had been.
Oh, shit . Had I hurt her?
Panic flooded my veins. I hadn’t grabbed her hard. Had I?
No. I knew I hadn’t.
She stared at me, waiting, expecting an answer.
The words were right there, waiting to tumble out.
‘ You were about to get mowed down by some idiot on a bike and I may or may not have saved your life. You’re welcome.’
But they wouldn’t come. They stayed tangled in my throat.
Someone jostled my shoulder as they passed, snapping me out of my frozen state, and before I could think better of it, I gently moved us out of the flow of foot traffic.
I could see every tiny detail of her face.
The silver swirls in her eyes. The faint crease in her forehead from frowning too hard.
“Well? Are you going to explain, or do I start assuming the worst?” she asked.
My brain had hit the eject button and left me to fend for myself saying, ‘ Good luck, buddy. You’re on your own.’ So I just stood there, a wall of awkward silence, staring at her like an absolute idiot.
“Seriously?” she asked, voice tinged with exhaustion. “What, did the cat get your tongue when you decided to ambush me? ”
Yeah, that’s exactly what this was. It definitely had nothing to do with her eyes scorching a hole straight through the visible part of my face, or the fact that my hand still tingled from touching her.
Nope. Definitely just a sudden, totally normal case of temporary muteness. Happens to the best of us.
She let out an exasperated breath, like she was searching for someone to share in her irritation.
And what was the genius thing I managed to do?
I just pointed over my shoulder like some kind of malfunctioning robot and muttered, “Bike.”
That was it. Not an explanation. Not an actual sentence. Just… ‘Bike.’
“Bike?” she repeated.
I nodded. Because that’s all I was now capable of—one-word answers and nonverbal confirmation.
Great. Really stellar performance, Silas.
Her eyebrows stayed raised for a beat, like she was waiting for me to elaborate. I didn’t.
“You know what? Whatever,” she snapped. “I’ve got better things to do, better places to be, and lunch that isn’t going to eat itself.”
She turned on her heel, leaving me stood there like a complete moron, watching her retreating figure as my brain finally decided to reconnect with my body, too late to be useful.
I had to be more careful. But I couldn’t not have done that. She could have been hit. Seriously injured. Worse…
No. She was fine.
I’d helped. And she was fine.