Chapter 35 #2
My hand closed around the handle, and for one horrible second I was convinced it wouldn’t open. That he had locked it without me noticing, or installed some silent mechanism that would trap me here forever simply because he had anticipated every stupid thought I’d ever had.
But the handle turned.
The door opened.
And I slipped into the hallway.
I walked quickly, forcing myself not to look back, forcing myself not to imagine him stepping out of the bathroom with water running down his scarred skin and murder in his eyes.
The hallway was empty, but I knew there were people in this house.
He had a full team of staff. I’d seen them many times over my days out of the basement.
Yet now, when I needed chaos, when I needed someone to shout or block my path or at least prove I wasn’t alone in a building full of criminals, there was nothing but quiet.
My phone felt heavy in my hand, and for a second, just a brief one, I was tempted to call Luca.
The thought of him came so automatically that it almost made me laugh. Of course, my first instinct while fleeing one dangerous man was to reach for another one.
Still, my thumb unlocked the screen and hovered over our messaging app.
No. Not yet.
I wasn’t dragging Luca into this until I knew what this even was. And perhaps there was a bitter, ugly part of me that wondered what he would tell me anyway. Calm down, little ember? Hide somewhere? Trust me?
I had trusted too many men already, and every single one of them had decided my life was something they were entitled to manage.
The staircase appeared at the end of the corridor, and my pace quickened despite myself.
I made it halfway down before I heard movement below.
I stopped so abruptly that my hand tightened around the banister to steady myself.
Two men crossed the entrance hall beneath me, speaking too quietly for me to make out the words.
They were both dressed in black, both armed, both completely unaware that I was standing above them with my pulse trying to escape my body.
I held my breath until they disappeared through a door on the far side of the hall, and only when the latch clicked behind them did I continue down the stairs, already debating what to do next.
The front door was right there, but that seemed too obvious. Too easy.
Which meant it was either impossible, guarded, or both.
I looked towards the corridor the men had vanished down, then towards another passageway leading deeper into the house. I had been through parts of it before, always with Silas, always too angry or distracted to map anything properly. I hated myself for that, too.
I had walked these halls beside him like a sulking prisoner, making sarcastic comments and pretending I wasn’t memorising the way his presence altered every person we passed, when I should have been counting doors, exits, windows, guards.
But regret was not a plan.
I turned away from the front door and headed down the quieter corridor.
The house seemed different without Silas beside me.
Larger. Colder. Less like a luxurious prison and more like what it actually was: a fortress built by men who expected enemies.
Every door looked heavy enough to withstand force.
Every window was beautiful and useless. Even the silence felt monitored.
I reached the end of the corridor and found myself in a room I recognised vaguely. It had tall windows overlooking the grounds, and beyond them, the dense woodlands surrounding the property.
But there, in the corner, hidden beneath thick curtains, was a door to the terrace.
I crossed the room and tried the handle, praying to a god I didn’t believe in to throw some luck my way.
And, to my utter disbelief, the door opened.
For one beautiful, terrifying second, I just stared at it, hardly daring to believe what I was seeing.
Then I stepped outside, quietly closing the door behind me, holding my breath until it clicked shut.
The cold air hit me hard enough to clear some of the fog from my head, and it was exactly what I needed. Nerves had my skin feeling too hot, anxiety had me sweating. The cool was the shock my system needed to think clearer.
I moved along the terrace, keeping close to the wall in the hope that anyone looking out from above wouldn’t see me immediately. The wind whipped my hair across my face, and I pushed it back impatiently, scanning the grounds for movement.
There didn’t appear to be too many guards. Silas was upstairs in the shower. Death wasn’t immediate. All in all, a promising start.
The terrace steps led down into a garden that was far too manicured for a man like Silas. It reminded me of home—neat hedges, stone paths, flowers planted in careful arrangements. It was yet another illusion. Another thing to disguise the true evil lurking within.
I moved through the gardens quickly, trying to keep low without looking completely ridiculous, which was difficult because there was no graceful way to flee captivity in jeans and bare feet across gravel.
By the time I reached the edge of the garden, my feet hurt, my lungs were burning, and I had absolutely no idea where I was going.
There was a path leading toward the cliffs.
Another curving around the side of the house.
A third disappearing through a line of trees.
The fourth, which led down the long, never-ending driveway, was an immediate no.
There was only one entrance in and out of Silas’s property—at least, one approved entrance. It wasn’t even an option for me.
The trees seemed like the obvious choice, which immediately made me distrust them. Silas didn’t strike me as the kind of man who left obvious escape routes lying around for kidnapped women with poor impulse control and a growing list of emotional issues.
I looked back at the house, indecisiveness making me chew my lower lip.
Silas would notice my absence soon. He would come looking for me—if he wasn’t already.
There wasn’t really a choice. I would have to run through the trees, barefoot and without any clue where I was going.
I would have to run, even though I was certain Silas knew every inch of the forest. Even though I was certain there would be hidden wires, cameras, and infrared sensors.
It just wasn’t possible that he didn’t know exactly where I was. But I had to try.
My mind made up, I pushed forward, scurrying behind the cobbled wall.
The ground changed beneath my feet almost immediately, soft grass giving way to mud and roots that seemed determined to break my ankles.
Branches caught at my clothes, and the wind grew harsher as I moved further from the shelter of the house.
Solid plan here, Isabelle. Real solid.
Destination? None. Just distance.
Plan? None. Just distance.
How could this possibly fail?
Let it never be said that I’m not my biggest supporter.
Shaking my head to force away my own sarcastic thoughts, I swept my gaze over the thick trees, picking up my pace to a sprint, frantically searching with every step to make sure I wasn’t stepping on a hidden bear trap or thin wire.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I immediately froze.
For one wild second, I thought it might be Silas, which was ridiculous because Silas didn’t text me.
Silas didn’t talk.
Silas didn’t explain.
Silas simply appeared and expected the world to adjust.
My phone buzzed again, and I pulled it out with shaking hands.
Luca: What have you done?
I stared at the words until they blurred slightly.
How the fuck did he know?
Then another message appeared.
Luca: Isabelle, answer me.
A horrible laugh escaped me, quiet and breathless and dangerously close to a sob.
I gripped the phone tighter, every instinct in me screaming to reply, to tell him everything, to let him be the voice in my ear because that was what Luca did. He made the unbearable feel manageable. He took my panic and rearranged it into something I could survive.
Isabelle: If you have to ask, you already know. I don’t care how you know, just fucking help me.
Luca: I can’t help you. Not with this. You’re going to get caught, little ember. There is no escape.
As soon as I was done reading the words, I heard the sound of dry leaves crunching under shoes behind me.