Chapter 20
The Flame
Days slipped by without Silas visiting.
At least, I assumed it was days. Time was slippery down here and hard to measure, but I’d been here long enough to recognise routine—and unfortunately, my routine relied on Silas’s presence.
However, even without him visiting, he still made sure I was cared for. Twice a day, a guard brought me food. I was assuming since Rafael knew about me now, so did the rest of Falcone House.
Sometimes I’d feel bitter about this, thinking Silas must love not having to babysit me. It must have freed up so much of his time knowing he was now able to palm me off on whatever guard happened to be available.
Other times I felt sorry for him. I was the only thing that belonged solely to him—even if it wasn’t by choice—and now he had to share me.
I wasn’t sure what made me think that way, but my instinct where he was concerned hadn’t failed me yet.
As far as Silas was concerned, I belonged to him.
And if I was forced to answer, I would simply say to look at the evidence—he had cameras on me all the time.
He spent his free time with me. He kept me locked away where no one could so much as look at me without his permission.
He cared for me, clothed me, made sure I was fed and watered. I was like his own little pet.
Men like Silas didn’t go to these lengths for someone they weren’t possessive over. Even Luca had never gone to these lengths. He’d wanted to own me, but still allowed me my freedom.
Whenever the guards brought my meals, they were careful not to look at me. They were almost robotic in their system.
Door open, door locked. Cross the room, put food and clothes on the table. Leave the room. Don’t look at the prisoner and certainly don’t talk to her.
I didn’t mind. I had no interest in talking to them either.
The first day, the guard was on his own. I was wary of him. I didn’t trust anyone associated with the Falcones. The second day, a maid accompanied him.
I assumed Silas had seen my discomfort on the cameras and made adjustments.
Which was weird, because why should he care about my safety? And yet everything he had done since I’d arrived had been about my comfort.
Pillows appeared where before it had been a cold, sterile bed. Fluffy blankets, slippers, dressing gowns, skincare, and even bath products.
There were flowers arriving with the maids, more books than I knew what to do with. I had makeup, hair products, a whole wardrobe of clothes.
For life locked away in a basement, it was quite luxurious.
I even had vitamins with every meal. He might have removed the sun from my life, but a girl’s gotta have her vitamin D.
So, it wasn’t a crazy assumption to think that Silas prioritised my comfort and happiness. But it did beg the question why.
It also made me wonder why he had disappeared.
For the first couple of days, it hadn’t bothered me that much. I’d been mildly curious, but only fleetingly. I had enough distractions down here now that I could leisurely pass the day away.
Day three was when I started to grow concerned. Both for me and him.
Was he hurt? Had something gone wrong? Had Adrien found out what he’d done? Had Rafael double-crossed him and informed my father?
And then the more concerning thought… had he grown tired of me?
Why that would be the thing I was most concerned about wasn’t a thought I’d decided to dissect. I just was.
Silas still terrified me. But it had shifted more to being terrified of how he would end this, and not terrified of simply his presence.
His presence had actually grown into something familiar.
Something I could rely on. And whilst the logical part of me told me that every hour without him should feel like freedom, the emotional, hormonal part of me missed him.
Or maybe it was just the routine I missed.
Either way, something was broken, and it was making my skin itch.
Humans could adapt scarily quickly. And just as I had adapted to Luca in my life, I was adapting just as easily to Silas.
And deep down, I realised that was fucked up.
I realised I shouldn’t want the company of my captor.
But I also shouldn’t have been having phone sex with a man whose face I had never seen and who had contacted me anonymously the night my uncle was murdered.
I wasn’t exactly squeaky clean, either.
And time alone in this basement was giving me ample time to mull that over.
I had always felt different. And I had shared snippets of that with Luca.
He had seen the darker side of my personality.
The one that craved danger. The side that wanted to be owned and possessed.
And with him, that had always taken a sexual form.
Our late-night phone calls were about him dominating me, controlling me, pushing my sexual limits.
I missed that. I missed having that aspect of my life under lock and key.
Without Luca around, I was left to contemplate just how far the darkness within me spread, and it wasn’t a nice place to visit.
Which is exactly what I was doing at the minute.
Sitting on my bed, surrounded by discarded books and abandoned drawings, I was mulling over my life thus far.
Could it be that I’d been shaped by the aspects of my life I’d been blind to? Could I have subconsciously picked up on my father’s true nature, long before I consciously realised? Did he have more of an influence over me than I’d thought?
It was clear by this point that I’d been groomed to a certain extent—groomed to act a certain way, think a certain way, and to accept things I may not want for the good of the family. So by that reasoning, Silas was actually offering me freedom… in the form of kidnapping?
Yeah, my thoughts are a mess.
I was so deep in my musings that I didn’t hear the lock to my room click open.
It was only when the door smashed against the wall hard enough to leave a small pile of crumbled brick on the floor that I finally snapped out of my mind, a scream ripping from my throat before I smothered it with my hand.
My first emotion was relief.
Quickly followed by pure terror when Silas stormed into the room, slamming the door shut with such force that more crumbled dust fell from the walls.
“Silas?” I said, half shocked, half terrified.
He didn’t respond.
Over the past few weeks, I had learned his movements the same way prey learns a predator. Usually Silas moved with terrifying control, every motion measured and deliberate. Even his silence felt precise.
This wasn’t that.
His chest heaved, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly. His hands were clenched against his sides so hard I’m surprised the leather gloves didn’t split.
He glared at me, his dark eyes burning bright beneath the mask.
“Wha—” I barely had time to finish my word before I was scrambling backwards, trying to avoid his huge frame as he dived at me. Grabbing hold of my arm hard enough to bruise, he hauled me out of bed and dragged me across the room.
My feet barely touched the floor, my toes scraping against the rough concrete with every one of his huge strides. I cried out, trying to tear my arm from his grip, but he simply tightened his fingers hard enough to cause my hand to start tingling as he cut off my circulation.
In the next moment, I was slammed against the wall, forced to stand on my tiptoes as he pinned me against it, glaring at me like I was the source of all his hatred.
“I don’t understa—” my words were cut off with a shriek as he slammed his fist against the wall next to my head.
I flinched, trying to curl my body away from him. Trying to make myself smaller. Trying to avoid the firing zone I had been trapped in the middle of.
His grip suddenly shifted higher on my arm, fingers curling tighter, and for one horrible second I thought this was it. Thought whatever fragile restraint existed between us had finally snapped.
The silver mask lowered towards me, his breath hitting my face through the mouth holes, frantic and heavy.
“Silas…” I swallowed heavily. “What’s happened? I can help. I can—”
His forearm pressed against my throat, silencing whatever I had been about to say.
Tears welled in my eyes, and I struggled to catch my breath, my feet flailing against the floor.
But beneath my terror, beneath every dark, awful thought plaguing me, I realised something.
He wasn’t hurting me. Not really. Even though he looked as though he was barely holding himself together beneath that mask, he wasn’t causing me harm. He was simply… holding me?
Could it be… no, that was too stupid to even contemplate. Was Silas reaching out for human contact? Did he need—
Realisation hit me like a brick.
He did need comfort.
He needed me.
For what or why, I had no idea. But he needed me. He just didn’t know how to show it. He came to me in a moment where he was out of control, and he was trying to show me something. He just couldn’t vocalise it.
Before I knew what I was doing, I found the strength to push against him, slipping my arms between our bodies. The next second, barely aware I had moved, my hands were gripping either side of his silver mask, cupping his cheeks.
I was taking one hell of a risk here, but either the beast was going to bite my hand off, or he was going to lay at my side, purring and tamed.
It was worth a shot.
“You’re okay,” I whispered, leaning forward to rest my forehead against his masked one.
His shoulders tensed, and for one terrifying second I thought I’d made the wrong call. His fist hit the wall again, but it didn’t seem to have as much force behind it as the ones before. So I kept going, pushing forward with my reassurance.
“Silas, you’re okay,” I repeated. “Whatever has happened, it’s okay. It will work out. You’re Silas Falcone. You can handle anything.”
I lowered one hand to his chest, resting it over his heart. “But you need to get control of yourself. This isn’t like you. Will you let me help?” I asked, looking up at him through my lashes.
He nodded once. A swift, curt nod, but a nod all the same.
“Breathe with me, Silas,” I took a deep breath, showing him what I wanted him to do. “Breathe in deep and hold it—one… two… three… four… five, and hold. Perfect!” I praised. I had been tapping his chest with every beat, offering a physical grounding point in time with our breathing.
It seemed as though the entire world stilled, shrinking down to just the two of us and this moment. Until it was just two people who needed each other for different reasons.
“Good! Hold it one second longer and… release,” I blew out as I finished talking, a long, steady breath that blew over the mask and had Silas sucking in a sharp breath of his own.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that I was using the exact same words Luca had once used to calm me down, following the same technique he had used.
But that didn’t matter. I encouraged Silas to breathe in and out with me a few more times, nice and slowly, enough so that his breathing regulated, his shoulders relaxed, and his arm disappeared from my throat.
With that release, he stepped back ever so slightly, lowering me to the floor until I was off my tiptoes and able to stand on the soles of my feet again.
My hand was still over his heart, my other still cupping his masked cheek. I kept my eyes locked on his as I moved my thumb, running it over the silver lips.
“Whatever happened, Silas, you’re okay,” I repeated, my words firmer now. “I’m right here with you.”
His breathing hitched beneath the mask, and I realised too late that for whatever reason, that had been the absolute wrong thing to say.
His black eyes turned to granite, his shoulders tensed up, and I braced myself for impact.
But rather than pinning me again, his fist slammed into the wall once more, and then he was gone, tearing through my room like a hurricane.
Books scattered across the floor as he swept the small table sideways, sending plastic containers crashing against the wall. The chair overturned next, skidding violently across the concrete. He destroyed everything in his path, laying waste to the haven he had created for me.
I stood frozen near the bed, my pulse hammering wildly as I watched him unravel in complete silence.
But underneath it all, I wasn’t as scared as I could have been. Because this wasn’t rage directed at me. That was the part I couldn’t stop noticing.
He had stormed into this room looking capable of murder, and yet not once—not once—had I truly thought he was going to hurt me.
The thought disturbed me deeply enough that I almost missed the moment Silas stopped moving altogether.
His chest rose heavily beneath the black fabric of his shirt. One gloved hand braced against the wall whilst his head hung slightly forward, the silver mask reflecting the harsh basement lighting.
Then, without looking at me again, he walked out, slamming and locking the door behind him.
I stared after him for a long time, my heart still racing painfully against my ribs.
What the hell had just happened?
Slowly, I lowered myself back onto the edge of the bed, staring at the destruction scattered around the basement.
And then, despite every logical thought screaming at me not to, my eyes drifted toward the door.
Waiting.
I waited so long, my eyes grew heavy. And eventually, I curled up on my bed, the blankets ripped and destroyed on the floor, and fell into a strangely peaceful sleep.
Hours later, the lock clicked again, and I sat up just in time to see Silas quietly entering.
The first thing I noticed was that I was covered with a fresh, new blanket.
The second was that the destruction from earlier had already been cleaned up.
Someone else must have done it whilst I slept, because the overturned furniture was back in place and the broken items had disappeared completely.
Silas crossed the room slower now, some of the violent tension from before gone.
He placed a tray of food carefully on the table beside the bed. I watched as he picked up where we had left off. As though today had never happened. As though he hadn’t been absent for God knows how long.
My food, water, my small dosage of painkillers… and something else.
A single red rose.
Not shoved carelessly onto the tray. Positioned carefully inside a small glass cup filled with water.
Glass.
I stared at it in silence.
After my outburst weeks ago, everything he brought me had been plastic. Plates. Bottles. Cups. Every sharp edge removed as punishment for displeasing him.
And now there was glass sitting on the tray.
A reward.
Trust restored.
The thought came to me instantly because by now I understood the way Silas communicated. Everything meant something with him. Every object. Every action. Every tiny adjustment in behaviour.
Slowly, I looked back up at him, and the silver mask tilted slightly in response.
I glanced down at the rose once more before quietly saying, “Thank you.”
The harsh sound of his breathing softened beneath the mask.
It almost sounded like relief.
And for some reason, that felt more intimate than words ever could.