56. Silas
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
I jolted awake, sucking in a sharp breath .
Fuck. How long had I been out?
The weight of sleep clung to me, my limbs sluggish as I pushed myself upright in the chair. My neck ached, stiff from the angle I’d been slumped at, and my fingers twitched against the desk as if trying to grasp onto the time I’d just lost.
The coffee was cold.
I still drank it, swallowing past the bitterness, letting the lukewarm liquid sit heavy in my stomach. It didn’t do shit to wake me up.
Rain hammered against the windows, relentless, the downpour rattling against the glass. The low hum of the storm filled the silence of my office, and my eyes burned as I scanned the proposal on my laptop screen, words blurring for half a second before snapping back into something clearer.
Come on. Focus.
Small Tech Startup Seeking Funding.
My pulse ticked in my throat as one hand flexed against the armrest before curling into a fist.
They were asking for a modest cash injection—just enough to get them off the ground, just enough to breathe. The product wasn’t revolutionary, but it was solid. Thoughtful. Practical. A niche software solution for businesses struggling with outdated automation systems.
I should’ve been able to make a decision, sign off, close the file, move on. But I leaned back in my chair, rubbing a hand over my jaw, fingers catching on the stubble I’d let grow too long. My whole body was running on fumes, but my brain wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t shut of f.
I exhaled through my nose and dragged the document to the side, letting it sit open. There were emails to answer. Reports to finalise. A dozen other things that needed my attention.
The monitor I’d set up next to the laptop flickered as the AIFG tracker cycled through another face. Then another. Then another.
Not him.
My jaw clenched, eyes flicking between the constant, methodical rotation of faces and the actual work on my laptop.
I checked the time. 3a.m. Then the unread emails. Then the notifications piling up like static in the corner of my screen.
My stomach grumbled, a sharp twisting reminder that I hadn’t eaten since…
Shit. When was the last time I ate?
I should’ve gone to bed. Lilith was there, warm and waiting. But I couldn’t.
The tracker loaded a new face. My heart stopped.
Come on, give me something.
Another mismatch.
I gritted my teeth, my knee bouncing, body thrumming with agitation. My eyelids burned. My body ached. I needed to shave. I needed to eat.
I dragged my focus back to the proposal. The startup. The cash injection. The people behind it who needed someone to take a chance on them. I clicked back onto the financials, scanning the numbers.
I couldn’t fucking focus.
A sharp exhale punched from my lungs.
Monitor.
Emails.
Monitor.
Emails.
Monitor.
Emails.
The pain was unbearable—sharp and raw and furious—before I could think better of it, my hand shot out. The pot of pens on the desk went flying, before clattering to the floor.
“Silas?”
“CHE CAZZO VUOI?!”
The words exploded out of me, snapping through the silence before I even processed turning, spinning on my chair.
A sharp gasp.
My stomach dropped.
Wide-eyed. Lips parting. Flinching.
Fuck .
FUCK .
Her body tensed, her breath hitched, her fingers curled just slightly against the doorframe.
I hadn’t touched her, but that didn’t matter.
Because too many people already had.
She was soaked to the bone. Her shirt clinging to every curve, water dripping from the ends of her hair. Her skin was littered with goosebumps, her whole body shaking.
What the hell had she been doing?
I needed to go to her, touch her, make her warm, make her safe.
“Lilith,” I breathed, already pushing back from the desk, stepping toward her, hands raised, already apologising, but the look she gave me stopped me dead.
She gave me a sharp, sadistic smile, all teeth, her tongue pressed to them like she was biting back something. But her eyes— fuck. Her eyes were as wet as her clothes.
Guilt hit me like a hammer to the ribs.
I fucked up.
“Lilith,” I said quickly, the words tripping over themselves in my throat. “I’m so fucking sorry, I’m just—”
“Stressed out?” she finished for me, her voice sharp as glass. “Yeah. I know.”
I couldn’t move.
She was stood there, dripping onto the floor, teeth clattering as she shivered.
“Why are you drenched?” I asked.
“I had a nightmare, asshole. I needed air. I went to the roof.”
“In a damn storm!?”
“Nope. You don’t get to be pissed with me right now you fucking ass.”
I needed to do something.
“Lilith, please.” My voice was rough, desperate. “Let me help you. Let me dry you off, get you warm—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Lilith—”
“No,” she snapped. “You don’t get to ‘ Lilith’ me right now. You don’t get to look at me and act like you give a shit, when you’ve spent the last few weeks acting like I don’t even exist.”
My jaw clenched. “That’s not—”
“That’s not what?!” She threw her arms out, flinging droplets of water onto the floor. “Not true? Not what I think? Then enlighten me, Silas. Explain it to me.”
She was shaking. From anger, from the cold—I didn’t fucking know. All I knew was that this was spiralling, and I needed to get control of it. Right now.
“I’m keeping you safe,” I swallowed hard. “‘Please. Just—let me get you warm.”
“No. You’re shutting me out,” she continued, her hands curled into fists, chest rising and falling hard. “I’ve barely seen you for weeks. You don’t speak to me. And the one time you do acknowledge me, it’s because you’re snapping at me!”
“I’ve been here. Been working from home like I said I would. And I really didn’t mean to snap, I’m so sorry, I’m so—”
“It hasn’t made a fucking difference, Silas!
” she cut me off, frustration pouring out of her.
“You’re still not here. You’re still locked in your damn office all day, and when you do come out, you barely look at me.
I get better conversations out of Katniss, and I swear to God your peace lily actually spoke to me the other day! ”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
My ribs tightened, coiling like barbed wire, puncturing my lungs.
“You do not get to rope me in and then cut me down like I don’t exist,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to, sweetheart. I just can’t have him out there,” I said, my voice thick, barely steady. “Living and breathing and walking around every single day after what he did to you.”
She was breathing harder now, her face pale under the storm in her eyes.
“I understand that. I do.” Her voice wasn’t soft. It wasn’t cruel, either. “But he’s nothing. He took so much from me,” she choked out. “And now, because of him, I’m losing you too.”
My stomach turned. It was happening. The room was too small. My skin burned. My hands tingled.
Keep your voice steady. Keep your hands still. Keep her calm.
“Lilith I’m keeping you safe. I’m doing everything I can.”
“Stop fucking saying that!” Her voice cracked like a whip, sharp and furious, ricocheting through the space between us. Her whole body vibrated with it. Furious. Done.
My heart slammed into my throat. I focused on my hands. Fingers twitching, jaw clenched so tight the ache pushed into my skull.
“This whole thing is bullshit! I’m so sick of this ‘ I want to keep you safe’ thing. It’s stupid!”
I couldn’t breathe. Why the fuck couldn’t I breathe?
No. No. No.
The pressure swelled, rising fast. My pulse slammed into my ears, in my throat, in my fucking teeth. I was slipping.
“I want to go home.”
No. Please. No.
“Lilith, please. You are home.” My hands were shaking so damn violently.
“No. I’m not. I want my house. I want my life back.”
“This is your life, sweetheart. I’m here. I’m here. You belong here.”
“The fuck I d o,” she snapped. “You may as well have that damn scarf on again because I don’t recognise you anymore and I’m sure as shit not happy. I don’t want a life like that.”
The panic hit hard, brutal, suffocating. My fingers dug into my pants, trying to find something— anything— to ground myself, to hold onto before this moment ripped me apart completely.
“It’s my fault he attacked you!” The words tore out of me, hoarse and jagged, my chest caving in around them.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
I cracked.
“One person.” The air caught in my throat, fingers fisting my hair, shaking. “Just one. And it didn’t fucking matter. It didn’t matter that I had no control. She got hurt, and everyone looked at me like—”
She froze, eyes locked on me. But I couldn’t stop.
“She got hurt. And then you—” A sharp inhale.
My lungs couldn’t keep up. “Then you got hurt. You got hurt. You got hurt.” The words rushed out.
“You got hurt, and it’s the same thing all over again, and I don’t know how to stop it, Lilith.
I want to, but I don’t know how to stop it.
I don’t know—” My hands trembled. My legs shook. My lungs burned.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I should’ve stopped it.
I should’ve known. I should’ve done something.
But I didn’t. I didn’t. And now—I should’ve never let you in.
” The confession tore out of me, ugly and raw, coated in every ounce of self-hatred boiling under my skin.
“I should never have—It happened, Lilith. It happened again. And I can’t fix it. ”
I was going under. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t—
“I can’t do this.”
My hands hit the desk so hard pain cracked up my wrists.
She moved. I barely saw it. Just a shift, enough for me to catch the outline of her through the mess in my head, through the collapsing, suffocating weight of it all.
No. No, she couldn’t—
If she did, I’d break.
No, I was already breaking.
“Silas, what—what are you talking about?” She sounded lost. “What do you mean it’s your fault? That doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense.”
She was trying to understand. Trying to dig through the mess I was making, trying to find the thread of logic in my unravelling, but there wasn’t any.
It was just me. The fucking disaster. The common denominator.
“Silas, talk to me.”
I shook my head, hands gripping to the edge of the desk to keep myself upright .
She took another step forward. Too close. Too much.
“Breathe with me. In for four, hold for four, out for four.”
I let out a rough, broken noise—something between a choke and a sob.
“Try again,” she whispered. “In. Hold. Out.”
I tried. I fucking tried. But it wasn’t working. Wasn’t slowing the panic.
“You don’t understand.” My voice was a wreck. “No one does.”
“Then make me.” She stepped closer, chest rising and falling hard, like she was barely holding it together. Like she wasn’t sure if she should be furious or terrified. Maybe she was both.
“I don’t—”
She took another step forward and I jerked back like she’d burned me. She was waiting for me to say something. But I didn’t know how to.
“I don’t know how to talk about it.”
Her throat bobbed like she was swallowing back a million things she wanted to say. She shifted, her arms tensing like she wanted to reach out for me but wasn’t sure if she should, like she already knew I’d pull away again.
Her voice came gentler this time. “Then try.”
I pressed my fingers into my temples, trying to get my brain to catch up and work for just a minute. “I don’t know where to start.”
She let out a small, shaky exhale. “Then start from the beginning.”
She wasn’t forcing. Wasn’t demanding. Just waiting. Waiting for me to give her something. Waiting for me to stop drowning.
The beginning.
My stomach twisted.
The beginning.