Chapter 10
The Flame
The next few days passed in a blur.
Frank stepped up his guard dog routine and never left me alone for more than a minute. Whether through guilt, or he had been instructed, or a mixture of both, I wasn’t sure. But I was appreciative of it.
If my dad—or, more likely, Adrien—had instructed him to be extra vigilant with me, that also validated my memory of that night. Because fear has a way of making things hazy, of warping reality with horror. But the fact that my family was concerned proved to me that Silas was a real threat.
Adrien had even stepped up with his commitment to the engagement party, bringing it forward once again.
I wasn’t even concerned anymore. Sure, the thought of marrying him fucking terrified me, and I knew I was still being na?ve as to the reality of what married life would be like, but I was more terrified of remaining in this house.
The feeling of being watched had amplified. Every corner I turned, every meal I ate, every movement I made, I felt watched.
My skin never stopped itching with awareness. I was constantly tense. I closed my eyes and I would see that silver mask looming over me. And then, as the days progressed, I kept thinking I would see the mask in my house, in the gardens, surrounding me with its presence and evil.
And the worst part of it all was the fact I could no longer depend on Luca.
Every time I thought of him watching me through those cameras, I couldn’t help but think of Silas.
Of that mask. It was unfair to blame Luca for it, but I saw so many similarities.
I had always known allowing Luca into my life was a risk—that it was fucking stupid, if I’m being honest. But I’d responded to his warmth and affection, and now I was paying the price—the cameras, the easy access to every aspect of my days, the constant surveillance.
There was nowhere to hide, not from Luca, and not from anyone else.
I also resented Luca for abandoning me—I know he hadn’t. Not really. I was such a hypocrite because I was mad that he was watching me and then mad that he’d disappeared for five minutes. I was a mess, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any better unless I removed all of this nonsense permanently.
So I pulled away from him, rarely responding to his texts.
I shut down our online streaming account and stopped watching our TV shows.
He texted me constantly, and even tried ringing on a few occasions.
To start with, I was a mix of scared and pissed off, and so I hadn’t responded as frequently.
And then I stopped being as frightened and grew more angry, so I stopped replying at all.
The final move had been switching my phone off completely, and last night I had covered all the cameras I could find. I was sure I had missed more than a few, but he would get the message anyway.
I was done playing this game.
I had been stupid to entertain it in the first place. What sort of idiot replies to an anonymous text and essentially starts a relationship with their stalker?
Well, I was an idiot no longer.
The weird thing was, though, that the more I revoked Luca’s access to me, the more the feeling of being watched amplified. As though I had made the wrong move in a game I didn’t know I was playing.
I checked the cameras hourly, ensuring they were still covered, but my skin still burnt in awareness, feeling eyes all over me.
It was impossible, and yet I was beginning to realise nothing was impossible at all. Not in this life.
My father had tried talking to me a few times over the past few days.
I knew he was more than a little suspicious of what had happened the other night, and he was trying to work out what I had overheard.
But whatever Silas had done to erase himself from those cameras, he’d also done the same with my footage too.
No one could prove I was present during that meeting, and I wasn’t going to open my mouth and let them in on the truth.
I didn’t know what it meant by Silas protecting me—or if he was even protecting me at all, or simply lining up his next move. I took the victory in the way I chose to interpret it and did exactly what Frank had advised.
I kept my guard up.
“Isabelle.”
I looked up to see my mum standing in my doorway.
“Isabelle, where is your phone? I’ve been trying to contact you for the past hour.”
“It broke the other night, Mum. You know that.”
It hadn’t.
“We have enough money to buy a new one. Why haven’t you taken care of it?”
“Frank couldn’t find time in his schedule, and I’m not allowed to leave without him.”
The lies were spilling from my lips much easier these days.
“Frank works for us, not the other way around. If you want to go out, he finds time in his schedule. You are his schedule. This is ridiculous!” she hissed, throwing her hands in the air and storming back out of the door.
“Good talk, Mum. Glad we cleared that up.”
I ran my hands over my face, sighing heavily.
Why were things so impossibly complicated?
I was sitting on my bed, my back against the headboard, my legs curled underneath me, staring away into absolute nothingness.
This is where I could always be found lately. In my room, doing absolutely fuck all.
My life had shrunk to these four walls. Without a phone, I couldn’t contact my friends. With a phone, Silas and Luca could contact me.
I couldn’t leave the house without armed guards anyway, and my friends were already uncomfortable with Frank’s presence.
Add on Frank and his best buddy Mr Rifle—something that he constantly had slung over his shoulder—plus the four or five other guards that accompanied him… Yeah, my friends were at their limit.
They were young women, ready to get into mischief, not have ex-army machines reporting them to mummy and daddy.
Plus, now that my engagement party was only days away, my friends no longer saw me as fun-loving, rich as sin Isabelle Carbone.
Instead, I was Isabelle Carbone, fiancé to Adrien Vescari. The woman who had tamed one of the richest men in the world. The woman about to inherit a fortune, to become Mrs Vescari.
Already the offers were piling in. Models wanted to get to know me. Fashionistas wanted me to wear their clothes. Makeup lines wanted me to collaborate with them, the papers wanted an exclusive interview, Hello! Magazine had offered an eye-watering amount to be the photographer for our wedding.
Funnily enough, the attention had increased my mother’s love for me. I thought she might burst with happiness when I told her that I trusted her implicitly, telling her to handle everything. She could control who interviewed me, what I wore, and when it all took place.
I really didn’t care.
This was all surface level bullshit. Because with every passing minute, my thoughts lingered on what I had seen that night.
There were transfer papers. Property management. When I thought back, I’m sure I remembered the names of some drug lords in there—and Googling had only confirmed my suspicions.
I’d done enough internet research over the past few days.
I’d learned more about the Falcones and the seedy, dark history surrounding them. Human trafficking, drugs, guns, sex workers, gambling, off-shore accounts, hell, even ties to the Russian mob and terrorists were all search results with valid evidence.
I’d done my homework on my husband to be, even creating a spreadsheet that cross-referenced every time his name appeared alongside the Falcones.
Of course, a lot of this was about the recent conflict of interest in Paris and the fire that had burned down Adrien’s hotel.
I vaguely remembered Adrien saying that he wanted to partner the Falcone casino with his hotel. Instead, the Falcones had burnt his casino to the ground—“small fire,” my ass!—and rushed the rebuild of their own hotel on top of the casino.
A hotel that already had a reputation less than a week after opening. Though logic told me most of that was unfounded rumour and gossip stemming from previous hotels and circumstances.
I’d also tried looking up my dad, seeing how he tied into it. Minus the news of my engagement, there wasn’t much tying us to the Vescari Empire. And it was really fucking hard trying to find anything when the internet was flooded with stories about me and Adrien.
I hadn’t bothered to read a single one. I knew myself and my truth. It didn’t matter what these reporters said. They were just after making a quick buck off the latest big hitting news.
So then, when everything else had been done, I searched up Luca.
And, of course, drew a blank. As I had expected.
His name didn’t appear to connect anywhere. Not even when I had braved visiting the dark web. Not that I knew what I was doing on there, and had left as quickly as I’d logged in. But wasn’t it weird that the name didn’t appear once?
All in all, I was more confused than ever.
I’d tried to break into my dad’s office again, but without Luca, I couldn’t get past the code.
And though I knew he was probably still watching me—especially as I couldn’t cover the cameras outside this bedroom since they belonged to my dad—I didn’t want to risk it.
Because if he unlocked the door for me and I entered the office, I would be acknowledging Luca’s presence. I would be accepting his help.
And I didn’t want to do that.
With an angry sigh, I grabbed my laptop off the desk and hauled it onto my knees.
Luca: What are you doing, Belle?
The chat head popped up instantly. I had blocked the IM programme he had made me download. But he kept hacking his way back in.
I closed the chat and ignored it, clicking on the internet icon and typing in Silas Falcone.
Luca: You’re playing a dangerous game, little ember.
No.
Everyone else was playing a dangerous game. I was an innocent pawn, finally ready to make my own move instead of having my moves played for me.
The results were the same as they always were.
Silas Falcone.
Thirty years of age.
No surviving parents.
Victim of a brutal acid attack that had killed his father and permanently disfigured him at the age of seven.
Wears a silver mask permanently.
Never speaks.
Mother murdered in a mob attack.
Sole-surviving family member, Rafael Falcone.
Rafael was seen entering a hospital clinic, and rumours were flying that he was seriously ill, though no evidence had been discovered.
He hadn’t looked ill that night in the office, that’s for sure!
I shivered at the memory and clicked on the next article, rereading words I’d already memorised.
Silas had been arrested for the murder of three men last year. He was later released after psychological evaluation, though once again the results of that hadn’t been released—or they had been scrubbed from the internet.
Luca: What is it you’re looking for?
I shut the chat head down without reading his message.
Luca: Stop shutting me out, little ember.
The chat head was bigger this time, taking up more than half my screen.
I clicked off it.
I flicked from one article to the next, not quite knowing what I was looking for, but knowing in my gut I was on the right track.
Instinct told me Silas was the link. I just hadn’t connected the dots. If I failed in this, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying!
And then, just when I was giving up hope, I came across an article regarding Silas’s mother, and my curiosity was piqued.
Luca: Don’t do it, little ember.
SUSPICION CLOUDS THE DEATH OF MARIA FALCONE
By Elena Moretti | European Crime & Financial Review
Questions continue to surround the death of Maria Falcone, wife of the late Antonio Falcone and mother of current Falcone underboss Silas Falcone, despite the case officially being closed over twenty years ago.
Maria Falcone was killed during what authorities described at the time as a “targeted attack” on a Falcone safehouse in Palermo. Reports state that multiple armed men entered the property shortly after midnight, opening fire on occupants before setting sections of the residence ablaze.
Mrs Falcone was pronounced dead at the scene.
Her husband, Antonio Falcone, was absent during the attack but later died from injuries sustained during a chemical assault only months later. Their son, Silas Falcone, then aged seven, was reportedly caught in the attack and suffered permanent facial disfigurement.
Although the Falcone organisation publicly blamed rival syndicates for the violence, rumours within organised crime circles have long suggested the attack may have originated much closer to home.
Several anonymous sources connected to the Italian underworld have alleged that Maria Falcone had been attempting to leave the organisation in the months leading up to her death. Unverified reports claim she had sought protection for herself and her son shortly before the attack occurred.
Others insist her death was linked to internal disputes over money laundering routes and offshore holdings following Antonio Falcone’s growing instability in the years before his death.
More disturbing theories suggest Maria Falcone may have possessed information capable of damaging the Falcone empire itself.
No evidence supporting these claims has ever surfaced publicly.
The Falcone family has repeatedly denied any involvement in Maria Falcone’s death, and no arrests were ever made in connection to the attack.
The case resurfaced briefly last year following Silas Falcone’s arrest in connection with the deaths of three men tied to the Moretti trafficking investigation.
Though Falcone was later released without charge, renewed public attention has led amateur investigators online to revisit old rumours surrounding the family.
Interest intensified further after archived photographs emerged, allegedly showing Maria Falcone attending multiple charity galas alongside prominent British businessman Vittorio Carbone during the late nineties.
The nature of their relationship remains unclear.
Neither the Carbone Group nor representatives for the Falcone organisation responded to requests for comment.
More recently, investigators revisiting the case have drawn attention to sealed financial records connected to Maria Falcone’s father, Mr Biancheri.
My laptop went black, and I slapped it in frustration.
Biancheri…
Should I know that name?
My knowledge on Silas was pretty limited, and I’d never felt the need to look into his mother that much. But my mind had latched on to that name, Biancheri, and refused to let go.
I really, really believed I should know it. Recognition was flashing in my mind, but I couldn’t figure out why.
“God!” I groaned, running frustrated hands over my face.
I hadn’t solved the mystery, but I was certain I had a lead.