Chapter 7
The Flame
“And this really couldn’t have waited until the morning? It was necessary to drag me out of bed after everything that happened this evening?” My dad complained, his voice coming closer with every word.
I pressed myself flatter to the floor, clutching the envelope, photograph, and marriage agreement to my chest like they could somehow shield me from what was coming. My phone was face down beside me, the screen dimmed, my messages with Luca still open.
I didn’t dare touch it.
I didn’t dare breathe.
“Necessary?” a rough voice replied, and every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. “You make a deal with the Vescari boy behind my back, fuck up a simple shipment, and now you’re asking me if this meeting is necessary?”
Rafael Falcone.
I recognised the voice instantly. Everyone did.
Even people who had never met Rafael Falcone knew the voice.
It was the kind of voice people lowered their own around.
Gravelly, old, cruel, and soaked in so many years of violence that it was a wonder the walls didn’t start bleeding just from hearing it.
“And then we find out you’ve been having family meals with the boy.”
“He is marrying my daughter—”
“And yet you fucking owe me! Let’s not pretend the marriage is anything more than it is, Vittorio!”
What the fuck?
My dad didn’t answer immediately. I heard the keypad beep, the click of the office door unlocking, and then their footsteps crossed the threshold.
One pair.
Two.
Three.
My stomach sank.
Three people.
And Rafael didn’t travel with his guards. He didn’t need to. Not when he had his own personal assassin following him everywhere.
I was so completely fucked.
The door shut behind them, and the room seemed to shrink around me.
From where I was hidden beneath the couch, I could only see shoes and the bottoms of trouser legs.
My father’s polished brown loafers. Rafael’s black leather shoes, worn and expensive, with a scuff along one toe that somehow made him seem even more terrifying than if he had been immaculate.
And then the third pair stopped.
Black shoes. Black trousers. Completely motionless. And stopping directly next to my hidden head. My heart stopped with them.
Silas.
I knew it before I saw the gloves. Before the faint glint of silver appeared in the reflection of the darkened floor-to-ceiling window opposite me.
I knew because the air changed.
That sounded ridiculous. Dramatic, even. Like something Luca would have mocked me for.
But it did.
The room was suddenly colder. The goosebumps raised on my arms, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It became difficult to breathe, every agonising breath like drawing tar into my lungs.
I stared at those black shoes, unable to look away. They didn’t move. Not even slightly. My father shuffled towards his desk. Rafael strode in like he owned the place. But Silas remained just inside the room, standing so still he might as well have been carved from the dark.
My phone buzzed, and I almost screamed. But I didn’t dare read it. Mostly because my soul had left my body, but also because I was fairly certain even the faintest movement would be enough to draw every eye in the room straight to my ridiculous hiding spot.
“I didn’t go behind your back,” my father said, his voice tighter than I had ever heard it. “The arrangement with Adrien benefits everyone.”
Rafael laughed.
It was not a nice sound.
“Everyone?” he repeated. “You think handing your daughter over to that smug little bastard benefits everyone?”
My stomach twisted violently.
Handing your daughter over.
As though I were some possession that could be passed from person to person, and not a real human, with thoughts and feelings of my own.
My mind flashed to the briefcase and the property transfer papers, and the lurching in my stomach kicked up a notch.
“I did what I had to do,” my father said.
Rafael’s shoes stopped near the desk. “You did what greedy men always do.”
“My agreement with the Vescaris does not impact my relationship with the Falcones. Our families have gone back generations—”
“Used to. Used to go back. Our families stopped being friends decades ago, and you know it.”
“And you know I’m trying to make the Carbones what they once were. I’m trying to leave a legacy behind. I—”
“You saw the Vescari name, the money, the reach, and you spread your legs for him like a desperate little whore.”
My father inhaled sharply. “Watch your mouth in my house.”
“Your house?” Rafael scoffed. “You’re an even bigger fool than I thought if you still believe any of this remains yours.
Did you think that pretty daughter of yours was payment enough?
Do you have any idea the amount of money that Adrien shifts on a day-to-day basis?
” Rafael laughed his disgusting laugh once more.
“Granted, your daughter is pretty. But she’s not half a billion dollars a week pretty. ”
Half a billion dollars…
What the fuck had my dad got himself into?
Silas still had not moved.
Not once.
At least Rafael was alive in an obvious way. He was fury and age and violence wrapped in an expensive suit. Silas was nothing. No sound. No movement. No breath that I could hear.
Just presence.
And that presence made me sick to my stomach far more than the elderly men discussing my future and fate. My hands tightened around the papers, and one corner crinkled softly.
Silas’s head turned.
I didn’t see the movement fully. Not at first. I saw it in the window, that flash of silver shifting from the desk to the couch.
To me.
Every muscle in my body locked.
No.
No, no, no.
The mask was looking directly at me.
Not near me. Not around me. Not vaguely in my direction.
At me.
I felt it like a hand closing around my throat.
My vision blurred at the edges, and I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood for the second time in as many days. If he exposed me, I was finished. My dad would know I had broken into his office. Rafael Falcone would know I had heard everything. And Silas…
I didn’t know what Silas would do.
That was the most terrifying part.
I saw his head cock to the side in the window, and I had to fight with every ounce of strength I possessed not to throw up all over his expensive shoes.
He was just staring. That unnerving, frightening silver mask cocked in my direction, glaring into my soul.
My eyes stung. How the hell was I supposed to breathe when Silas Falcone was staring straight through the couch like he could see my bones?
But I did it anyway. Slowly. Silently. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. The way Luca had taught me when nightmares used to drag me awake after my eighteenth birthday.
The mask remained fixed on me for one more endless second.
Then Silas turned back to Rafael.
I almost sobbed with relief.
“The girl was never part of our agreement,” Rafael snapped, continuing as though death himself hadn’t just looked under the furniture and decided to let me live. “Your brother’s debt was settled three years ago. Blood for blood. That should have been the end of it.”
My uncle’s debt?
“My brother is dead,” my father said coldly.
“And whose fault is that?”
Silence followed, and my stomach churned.
The photograph in my hand suddenly felt heavier. My father shaking hands with Rafael Falcone. The night of my eighteenth birthday. My uncle dead on the dance floor. Silas standing in the shadows.
Pieces moved around in my head, but none of them fit. Not properly. If anything, I was more confused than ever.
“I have done everything asked of me,” my father said. “I moved the shipments. I transferred the properties. I opened accounts. I kept your name out of every visible ledger.”
“And then you went to Adrien.”
“I went where the protection was strongest.”
Rafael laughed again. “Protection? That boy doesn’t protect. He collects.”
My skin prickled.
“You think he wants your daughter because she’s pretty?” Rafael asked. “Pretty girls are everywhere, Vittorio. He wants her because she ties you to him. He wants her because once she’s his wife, your business is his business. Your ports are his ports. Your routes are his routes.”
My breath caught.
Ports.
Routes.
Shipments.
I fucking knew it.
This wasn’t real estate. It had never been real estate. That was his front. His “day business,” so to speak.
My father’s shoes shifted. “It is a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“It’s a noose,” Rafael said. “And you put it around your own daughter’s neck.”
For one awful second, no one spoke.
Then Rafael continued, lower this time. “The Vescari boy will bleed you dry, and when there’s nothing left, he’ll use her to keep you obedient.”
My dad said nothing.
Nothing.
Not one defence.
Not one denial.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that only made the tears gather faster.
My father knew.
He knew what Adrien was. He knew what this marriage meant. He knew this wasn’t romance or family honour or whatever pretty lie my mother had tried to dress it in.
He knew.
And he had still said yes.
“Wednesday was your deadline,” Rafael said. “You missed it.”
“I did not miss it. There was interference at the docks.”
“Yes. There was,” Rafael’s voice sharpened. “Because Adrien had men sniffing around a shipment that didn’t belong to him yet.”
“Yet?” my father echoed.
A horrible pause followed. Even from beneath the couch, I felt Rafael smile.
“Don’t act slow. It doesn’t suit you. You think you’re the only one dealing with the Vescari family?”
Silas moved then. Only slightly. One step. That was all.
One quiet, measured step deeper into the office.
My entire body went rigid again.
He passed close enough that I saw the leather of his gloves. His hand hung at his side, fingers relaxed, but there was nothing soft about him. Nothing human.
The hem of his jacket shifted as he stopped near the secret bookcase, and then he turned, giving himself the perfect view of me hiding under the sofa.
His head cocked to the side once more, glaring in my direction before looking back at the two men at the desk.
Rafael turned on my father. “Open it.”