Chapter 27
The Flame
I stayed in the bathroom long after I was certain Silas would have left.
I couldn’t bear to look at him. The memory of his touch, the lingering whisper of the sounds I had made… I was mortified. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was aware of every humiliating sensation I’d experienced.
The voice in the back of my mind tried to reassure me, tried to remind me that Silas hadn’t acted on it. He hadn’t shown any sign that he’d noticed, and he hadn’t embarrassed me over my stupid hormones.
But knowing he knew was humiliation enough.
When I was certain that he would be gone, I dared to crack open the bathroom door, peeking out into the bedroom before opening it fully.
My room was immaculate.
The table and chairs had been cleared away, the food tidied and removed. And no Silas.
Thank God.
The only sign that he had been here at all was the single rose from the breakfast table lying neatly on my pillow, its petals deep red against my sheets.
I picked it up, bringing it to my nose and inhaling deeper, closing my eyes as I detected the lingering, faint smell of leather.
Silas…
The same wave of desire danced around the edges of my brain, my skin beginning to hum with awareness and arousal.
I dropped the rose like I’d been burnt and backed away.
“You need to get out of this room, Isabelle. You’re driving yourself mad,” I whispered to myself.
That’s all this was. It was cabin fever. I’d had a very intense couple of weeks, and my body was in fight mode. It didn’t know how to process, and it was leaning on an emotion that had always been safe—arousal.
This wasn’t about Silas. I definitely wasn’t attracted to him or anything. This was a cut and dry case of fight or flight. And whenever I had experienced this before, what did I do?
I turned to Luca and got relief.
And since Luca wasn’t here, and Silas reminded me of him in his own way…
Yeah, this was natural. Completely natural.
You keep telling yourself that, Isabelle…
In reality, I was a touch-starved, confused, kidnapped idiot who apparently couldn’t keep her own body under control.
And I couldn’t help but feel as though I had betrayed Luca. Even though that was silly. I had no future with him—I didn’t even know who he was!
Luca wasn’t mine. Not really. He was a voice through a phone. A shadow behind a screen. A man whose face I had never seen, whose hands had never touched me, whose mouth had never kissed mine.
But he had been mine in every way that mattered.
My secret.
My safety.
My constant.
And now Silas was pushing his way into places I had only ever let Luca exist. Into my thoughts. Into my dreams. Into the parts of me I didn’t even like admitting were there.
That felt like betrayal, even if that didn’t quite make sense.
I shook my head, ridding myself of my confusing thoughts and headed for the door, determined to prove to myself that I could do this.
I didn’t need Silas to give me the guided tour.
I didn’t need his silent strength. I could walk through this house on my own.
I could leave the safety net of this room.
It swung open with zero resistance, just as I knew it would. Yet for some reason, I had braced myself for a blaring alarm. For a dozen armed guards ready to send me catapulting back into my prison. Or Silas appearing from the shadows like the nightmare he enjoyed being.
Wow.
I really was letting my imagination get the better of me here.
When none of that happened, I forced my body out of the door and took a deep breath.
The hallway beyond my room was dimly lit, the lamps along the walls casting soft gold pools across the polished floor.
The manor was silent in that unnerving way expensive houses always were at night, as though every room was holding its breath, watching and waiting, anticipating what my next move would be.
I walked slowly at first, drinking in everything I could see.
The manor was a typical rich mansion, with gold adornments, weird marble statues and even a suit of armour in one of the corners.
I kept my fingers along the wall as I walked, rounding one corner and the next, not knowing where I was going, simply allowing my feet to guide me instinctively.
I came across a hallway that was brighter than the rest. Along the walls were pictures, each with a name underneath. I stepped closer, seeing nothing but a row of stern-looking men and unhappy looking women.
Until I reached the end.
Maria Falcone.
Silas’s mother.
And right beside her was Silas’s dad, Antonio.
I was drawn to them for some reason, stepping closer to the wall to get a better look.
Maybe it was because they seemed happier than the rest, their smiles reaching their eyes. Maybe it was because they seemed so far removed from the dangerous-looking men before them. Or maybe it was simply because they were a link to Silas. A piece of his history I didn’t know.
The Silas I had heard of would have fit well with the angry-looking mafia men lined up first. But he came from this happy-looking couple. He belonged to Maria and Antonio.
So what had happened here? What had gone so wrong that he hadn’t inherited this radiance, and instead had been dragged into the dark, seedy world of his grandfather?
Before I could stop myself, I found myself gently touching the faces of his parents, running my fingers over the sharp cheekbones of his father, the full lips of his mother—did Silas look like her? Or did he favour Antonio more?
I’d heard what happened to Silas as a child. The acid attack that had his scarred face. The murder of his parents. That was why he wore the mask. Even though rumours said differently.
But since being here, I’d learned to stop trusting rumours. Because Silas was not the man I had heard about. He was not the man I had been so terrified of whilst hiding under the sofa.
I stroked the picture again, my mind caught up in the mystery, when suddenly the lights clicked off, plunging me into darkness.
I gasped, blinking through the dark, willing my eyes to adjust quickly so I could see something—anything.
“Hello?” I called out softly, not daring to project my voice any louder. “Silas?”
One of the lights clicked back on, and I gasped again.
There he was, illuminated under the bright bulb, the shadows from the rest of the hallway bleeding around the edges of him.
The light clicked off again.
“Silas? This isn’t funny!”
It clicked back on and he was closer, his silver mask glaring directly at me.
“What are you doing? You’re scaring me.”
The darkness came again, and my body began to shake with nerves.
“I promise I wasn’t running,” I whispered into the dark, frantically scanning to see where he was.
This time, when the light clicked back on, he was right in front of me, the silver mask hovering above my head, looking down at me in that cocked way he always did.
I hated how much taller he was. Hated how easily he swallowed the space around him. Hated how every part of me became painfully aware of every part of him whenever he stood this close.
“I wasn’t running,” I repeated, though weaker this time.
He raised one gloved hand, and for one moment—one stupid, pathetic moment—I thought he was going to touch me. To cup my cheek and show me affection. I was so starved for it I almost leant into his non-existent touch.
And then he held his hand in the air, his fingers extended.
Five.
The lights went back out, and when they came back up, he had curled his thumb into his palm.
Four.
“Four what? What does that mean?” I hissed at him.
The lights went off, and I knew what I would see when they came back on again.
Three.
He was counting down.
But to what?
My pulse hammered painfully against my ribs as I stared at the two curled fingers against his palm, my brain desperately trying to catch up with whatever game Silas was playing now.
He could catch me whenever he wanted.
That was the part my body understood immediately.
Silas didn’t need darkness. He didn’t need a head start. He didn’t need anything except the decision to take me down, and I knew—without question—that he could.
But he wasn’t doing that. Instead, he was waiting, giving me time. Warning me.
Giving me an opportunity.
The realisation slithered down my spine slowly, tangling with adrenaline until I could barely separate fear from anticipation anymore.
He wanted me to run. But he didn’t want me to run away from him. He wanted me to run for him. To join him. To participate.
The thought should have terrified me. Especially as I didn’t know what the end goal was. Instead, heat bloomed low in my stomach, sharp and humiliating.
The lights clicked off again, swallowing us both whole.
And this time, I ran.
I shoved against his chest with both hands as I passed him, but the giant barely moved, his body solid beneath my palms for the briefest second before I stumbled into the hallway beyond him.
The lights flickered back on.
When I glanced over my shoulder, Silas had turned slowly to watch me flee, only two fingers raised now.
God help me…