Chapter 26
The Flame
The door was bothering me.
After Silas had left last night, I hadn’t heard the door click behind him. I’d tested it almost immediately and found the handle twisted easily in my hand.
I’d let go and stepped back before I even thought about opening it.
I tried to explain to myself that this was a test. That there must be cameras in here, and this was just another one of Silas’s games—one that he probably wanted me to lose so that he could punish me in his own sadistic way.
But that version of events didn’t line up with the Silas I currently knew. Yes, he played games with me. Yes, he ran his tests. But my punishment for failing these things was never violent. The punishments simply meant I stayed where I was, never making progress.
Since being in this house, Silas had given me no reason to believe he would hurt me, so there was no reason to believe leaving this room would come with physical punishment either.
And yet, for some reason, I wasn’t able to bring myself to open the bedroom door and step out—even if I was dying to explore this huge mansion.
When my eyes grew heavy and it became painfully obvious that Silas wasn’t returning tonight, I’d climbed into bed and fallen into one of the best nights’ sleep I could ever recall. It was like sleeping on a cloud—a huge improvement from the mattress in the basement.
Upon awakening, I’d taken a leisurely bath, pouring more products than was necessary into the water, relaxing in mountains of bubbles and perfumes until my skin had wrinkled and I resembled a prune.
I had been able to not only wash my hair, but also blow-dry and curl it. I’d been able to apply moisturiser to my sun-starved skin and gloss to my chapped lips. I’d been able to change into fitting jeans and a nice top, instead of the loose, comfortable joggers I’d grown so accustomed to.
Looking in the mirror afterwards, there was no indication I’d spent the past however many weeks a prisoner.
I looked like Isabelle. Young, fresh, and thriving.
Which was concerning, really. This was Falcone Manor, and nothing came here to thrive. You were either born and raised here, haunted by the stories the walls had seen, inevitably adding your own chapter to the book. Or you came here to die.
And yet I looked… almost glowing. Better than I had in months, actually.
Which felt like its own kind of sickness.
Now I found myself sitting on the bed, chewing my lower lip and staring at the door.
I must have passed through thousands of doors in my life.
But this one seemed so huge. So consequential.
I’d even crossed the room twice already, my fingers curling around the handle before my brain caught up with what I was doing.
But I could never bring myself to pass through it. To open it and step out freely.
“Get a fucking grip of yourself, Isabelle,” I muttered to myself.
It was just a door. Silas would obviously have the main door locked. Hell, the main doors were probably swarming with armed guards. He knew I couldn’t escape, so what harm was there in leaving and exploring?
With my mind made up—or at least half made up—I jumped off the bed before I could talk myself out of it and slipped my feet into the black ballet pumps Silas had provided.
Just as I was smoothing down my hair, the door opened and there he stood.
Silver mask donned, same as always.
Fitted black suit, worn with perfection.
And that intense stare that had me shrinking back—although it wasn’t from fear. It was just a really intense stare.
I chuckled under my breath, half from relief, half from my own silly thoughts, and smiled at Silas.
“Morning! I, err… well, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I just… well, I just stayed here,” I finished, feeling absolutely pathetic.
I noticed that today he didn’t have breakfast with him. He didn’t have supplies, water, or anything else. It was just him.
For some reason, that made me feel… weird. Wrong, almost.
Christ, Isabelle, you’re verging on some fucked up trauma bond, Stockholm syndrome here! You don’t need him to fucking feed you like a caged animal!
Didn’t I?
What did I need? Because none of this felt okay.
This felt… well, it felt like a husband coming to collect his wife, ready to start the day. It felt intimate. The kind of intimacy that came from years of familiarity and routine.
Domesticity.
Silas tilted his head at me, noting my discomfort, and then silently his arm raised, gesturing for me to follow him into the hallway.
My response was visceral.
I flinched, pulling backward, every nerve ending I possessed screaming at me not to follow him.
I didn’t feel as though I were in danger, but I knew on some deeper level that following him out of this room, sharing breakfast with him in his dining room, would cement something I wasn’t entirely sure of.
Silas’s head jerked back slightly, his arm falling as his fists clenched at his sides. For a second, the room filled with the sound of his breathing beneath the mask, harsher now, like he were forcing himself not to react.
He was getting angry, and I was powerless to do anything about it. Because even knowing my reaction displeased him, I couldn’t bring myself to walk forward and accept his invitation to leave.
As if I should even require an invitation for fuck’s sake!
Something flashed in my mind—a memory of a film I had watched as a child. The Beast had roared, “If she doesn’t eat with me, she doesn’t eat at all!”
The Beast hadn’t been angry. Not really. He’d been hurt by Belle’s rejection, and he’d lashed out the only way he was capable of.
He punished her, because he didn’t know how to process his emotions, and she didn’t know how to handle him.
I, however, Isabelle, did know how to handle my beast.
So before his anger could take root any further, I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and was honest.
“I’m feeling a little overwhelmed here, Silas. Could I—I mean… would it be possible to eat breakfast up here? In my room?” I locked eyes with him then. “With you?”
Silence I had expected. Silence was familiar. What I hadn’t expected was no communication at all.
His fists didn’t unclench, his head didn’t tilt, he didn’t stride towards me, his breathing didn’t change. He gave me none of his usual signs that I had said the right or wrong thing.
Instead, he turned on his heel and closed the door behind him, leaving me on my own.
Thanks to my new digital clock, I was able to see that exactly fifteen minutes passed before the door was opening again. I turned, expecting to see Silas, and instead was met with maid after maid, each carrying something new.
I watched as they transformed the small area near my bed, bringing in a round table and two chairs, which had a single rose placed on top of it in a glass jar.
They brought in cushions for the chair, coffee, tea, a teapot filled with hot water, and everything else to make a perfect brew.
Then came the food itself—cereals, toast, jams, croissants, bagels, sausages, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes…
more than I could keep track of, with new dishes appearing every few seconds until the small sitting area looked more like a luxury hotel breakfast than a prisoner’s room.
I did pause to wonder how Silas had commanded all of this. He didn’t speak to anyone, so how had all of these maids known what he wanted?
But then I figured Silas was intimidating enough, and after all these years of not talking, he would have been able to command his staff easily enough.
And all the while, amidst the chaos, Silas stood in the doorway, his intense, dark stare following them all, making sure they fulfilled their role exactly as he wanted.
When they left, each and every one of them shrank as they brushed past him, curling in on themselves as though he terrified them.
Leaving just me and Silas, and the feast he had prepared for me.
For a few long seconds, neither of us moved.
I stared at the table. At the ridiculous amount of food. At the rose sitting in the middle of it all, like this was some bizarre breakfast date instead of whatever the hell this situation actually was.
And through it all, Silas remained standing silently in the doorway, watching me.
My chest tightened unexpectedly.
Just like the original Beast, he’d been scared of rejection. I knew that as certain as I knew the sky was blue.
Beneath the scary exterior, Silas needed reassurance that someone—anyone—cared.
Him leaving hadn’t been a punishment at all.
It had been a response to my discomfort.
I’d asked to stay in my room, and instead of forcing me downstairs or getting angry, he had transformed the space around me to accommodate what I needed.
Somehow that felt far more intimate than if he had simply brought up a tray of food like before.
Slowly, I looked back towards him, taking in the black suit, the silver mask, the gloved hands resting calmly at his sides. He looked exactly the same as always, and yet something about him felt different today.
Less controlled. Less confident.
Though how I knew that without seeing his face was anyone’s guess. But I did. Maybe it was because I was beginning to understand him. Or maybe it was because he was beginning to let me.
“You did all this because I got overwhelmed?” I asked quietly.
The silver mask tilted slightly.
Yes.
God, this was dangerous.
“You know this is how Stockholm syndrome starts, right?” I muttered, mostly to myself, as I crossed the room slowly. “A traumatised girl gets kidnapped by a terrifying man who feeds her pastries and buys her flowers until she loses what little sanity she had left.”
Silas’s shoulder jerked once beneath his suit jacket.
A silent laugh.
“I get the feeling you wouldn’t be too upset with that outcome,” I told him, and then sat down at the table, not waiting for his response.
I’d let him sit on that little tease for a moment.