Chapter 19
The Flame
By this point, I had read almost half the books Silas brought me.
At first, I’d ignored them entirely, leaving them stacked untouched in the corner out of sheer stubbornness.
I didn’t want gifts from my kidnapper, didn’t want entertainment from him, and certainly didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I appreciated any of it.
But there were only so many hours I could spend staring at concrete walls before boredom won the battle.
Now, reading had become part of the strange little routine forming around us.
With books I was able to escape—not just from this room, but also from my thoughts. The dreams of Silas and Luca were becoming much more frequent, and it was hard to distinguish imagination from reality.
I sat curled against the headboard with one of the books balanced open across my knees, absently twisting a strand of hair around my finger whilst rereading the same paragraph for what was probably the fourth time.
My attention wasn’t really on the story.
For some reason, today was harder to focus. And it was all because of the cameras.
I had found three more over the past few days—one tucked into the smoke detector above the bathroom door, another hidden behind the vent near the ceiling, and the third had been almost impossible to notice, the tiny lens catching the light only when I shifted position in bed.
Silas must have known I was on the hunt. After all, the cameras were always running. I had to wonder what he thought of my findings.
The strange thing was, I no longer believed he was trying particularly hard to hide that fact from me.
In the beginning, I had thought the cameras were there purely for surveillance, another way to control and monitor me.
But now… now I wasn’t so sure. Sometimes it felt intentional, like he wanted me to notice things.
Wanted me to observe. Wanted me to learn.
But if that was the case, what did he want me to notice? What wasn’t I seeing?
I focused on the book, as though it would suddenly give me the answer I was looking for, when I heard the lock on the basement door click.
I looked up automatically, expecting Silas with dinner or another stack of books. Instead, the heavy door slammed open so violently it cracked against the wall, making me jump hard enough that the book slipped from my hands.
Rafael Falcone stormed into the room.
Fear hit me instantly. Real fear. The kind that tightened every muscle in my body and made my stomach drop painfully. I scrambled backwards across the mattress on instinct, dragging the blanket with me as though cotton could somehow protect me from a man like him.
He glared at me, but barely stopped to pay me much attention. It seemed once he confirmed I was down here, all of his attention was fixed behind him.
“You idiot! You stupid fucking idiot!”
Silas entered the basement a second later, calm in a way that felt almost unnatural beside Rafael’s fury. The silver mask turned briefly towards me, scanning me from head to toe in that now-familiar way of his before returning to his grandfather.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Rafael barked. “Every police force in the country is looking for her. Adrien Vescari is tearing this city apart trying to find her, and you’re down here playing house like a lovesick child.”
My stomach twisted at the words.
Playing house.
That couldn’t have been further from the truth—and it said a lot about Rafael if this was his version of playing house. But I wasn’t about to open my mouth to correct him. Not when his outburst might lead to my freedom.
Silas gave no visible reaction, but I was beginning to know him well enough to notice the smaller tells now. And his breathing had already changed.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Silas? I said to prevent the fucking marriage, not kidnap the bitch!” Rafael continued furiously, stalking further into the room. “You shouldn’t have touched her. You should have left the girl alone and dealt with the issue. Carbone and Vescari.”
The mask tilted slightly.
“This girl could have been leverage,” Rafael spat.
“All you had to do was communicate for once in your fucking life! If you had told her about the real plans Adrien had for her—what her father agreed to, she may have become a useful pawn! She could have worked for us, Silas! Instead, you’ve turned her into a liability because you couldn’t control your own fucking obsession! ”
My eyes flicked sharply towards Silas.
Obsession.
“This is your father all over again. I told him to leave Maria alone, and did he listen? Did he fuck. Now where are they both? Dead, Silas, that’s fucking where!”
Silas clenched his fists.
“You’ve put a price on her head, I hope you know that. I suggest you find something new to obsess over, because you won’t be able to keep her forever. You’ve killed her because you couldn’t control yourself. I hope you’re prepared to deal with the fallout.”
My eyes flew wide with panic, and I hated—fucking hated—that they turned to Silas for reassurance.
He glanced at me briefly and the darkness behind the silver mask seemed to stare straight into my soul. He turned back to Rafael, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his breathing.
This conversation felt very different from what I had expected. Rafael wasn’t speaking about me like a business arrangement gone wrong. He sounded furious with Silas personally, as though taking me had been reckless rather than strategic.
“I saw it,” Rafael hissed. “I fucking saw it. You’ve been distracted for weeks.
I call for you, you’re nowhere to be found.
You’ve been using our men to cover your tracks, involving them in business you should have been dealing with personally.
We’ve lost shipments because of you, Silas, and I’m guessing it’s because you’ve been down here fucking your little toy! ”
Delightful.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes.
Silas remained completely still, but the atmosphere in the room shifted anyway. Rafael noticed it too. I saw it in the way his posture changed slightly, some of his rage giving way to something more cautious.
“You were trained better than this,” he said, quieter now but somehow even more venomous. “One woman should not be enough to compromise you.”
Rafael stepped closer, fury overtaking caution once again. “I should have killed this obsession before it ever started.”
Before I could fully process the meaning behind the words, his arm suddenly lifted.
I genuinely thought he was going to hit him.
The movement happened fast enough that I gasped aloud, instinctively flinching before the blow could even land. But it never did. Silas caught Rafael’s wrist effortlessly mid-swing, his gloved hand wrapping around the older man’s arm with terrifying ease.
The room fell silent. A dangerous silence that had the breath stuck in my throat. I was scared to move. Scared to even blink.
I stared at the gloved hand locked around Rafael’s wrist whilst my pulse hammered painfully against my ribs. Silas didn’t shove him away or retaliate violently. He simply held him there, the silver mask angled slightly downward as though studying him.
For the first time since entering the basement, genuine uncertainty crossed Rafael’s face.
Silas slowly tilted his head.
No warning shake this time. No silent correction. He simply stared at the older man whilst his grip tightened ever so slightly, just enough to make the leather at Rafael’s wrist creak softly beneath the pressure.
And suddenly I understood something that shifted the ground beneath my feet entirely.
Rafael Falcone was afraid of Silas—his own grandson.
But why? Everyone knew that Silas was Rafael’s silent assassin. That he struck on Rafael’s commands.
Just what exactly was Silas capable of, if even his own family feared him?
And why didn’t that thought terrify me anymore?
Rafael slowly lowered his arm, and Silas released him immediately. The older man straightened his suit jacket with visible irritation, but he made no further attempt to strike him.
“Office,” Rafael snapped sharply. “Now.”
Silas didn’t move straight away.
Instead, the silver mask turned toward me once more, and from across the room I heard the rough sound of his breathing beneath it.
One gloved hand flexed slowly at his side before curling tightly into a fist, the leather creaking faintly as though he were physically restraining himself from something.
Rafael noticed the hesitation immediately. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
The mask remained fixed on me for one final second before Silas finally turned and followed his grandfather from the basement without a word. The heavy door slammed shut behind them, leaving silence flooding back into the room once more.
I sat frozen on the bed long after they were gone, staring at the closed door whilst my thoughts spiralled faster than I could organise them.
Until now, Silas had felt untouchable to me.
Like some terrifying creature lurking in the dark, silently controlling every inch of my world without answering to anyone.
But monsters didn’t get dragged into offices and screamed at by their grandfathers.
They didn’t stand there absorbing insults with clenched fists and restrained breathing.
Slowly, I pulled my knees to my chest and stared toward the door.
For the first time since waking up in this basement, a thought slipped into my mind that unsettled me almost as much as Silas himself.
Maybe this wasn’t only my prison.
Maybe it was his too.