Chapter 25
The Mask
Leaving Isabelle was difficult. But it was the right choice.
After what she had seen, she needed time to process.
I’d noticed that about her over the years. She always needed space. She needed time to draw her own conclusions.
I had no doubt in my mind that she would come to the same agreement I was at—that everyone responsible for causing her harm needed to die.
Her father and Adrien were on my list already. And they’d be dealt with when the time was right. First, they needed to know how badly they’d fucked up. They needed to know what they’d lost, and everything I had gained.
Isabelle wasn’t ready for that stage yet.
But she would be. In time.
Once that was done, once they’d felt the pain of their losses, only then would I deliver the killing blow.
Right now, my focus was on the dangers in this house. The man who saw her as a risk and not an investment. Who still believed she was a liability, something to be taken care of and used as a weapon.
I walked away from my little bird’s bedroom, confident that she wasn’t going anywhere, and made my way to my grandfather’s room, stopping off at the kitchen as I did so.
The manor was mostly silent. The staff had performed their duties and were hiding away in their own section of the house, avoiding any contact with me.
It never bothered me. But tonight, it delighted me. The fewer people in my way, the better.
I walked up the stairs silently, my shoes barely making a sound on the cold marble.
One maid came out of Rafael’s room, noticed me, and quickly scurried back down the hall, whispering prayers under her breath that I wouldn’t notice her.
I noticed her. I noticed everything in this house—and beyond. But there was a difference between noticing and caring. I couldn’t care less about that woman. She was just another person in a sea of faces.
As I arrived at the top of the stairs, the door to my grandfather’s room opened once more, and the doctor quietly walked out, briefcase in hand.
“Fuck me,” he hissed once he saw me. “You scared the crap out of me, Silas.”
I glared at him.
“I wouldn’t bother with a visit tonight. Your grandfather isn’t himself right now. He’s refusing his medication again.”
I noticed the blood then, dried on his lip. The doctor must have sensed where my eyes were, as his hands came up to his lip, rubbing at his wound.
“He needs rest, Silas. Whatever it is you need, I’m sure it can wait until the morning,” he said with a sigh, ever the professional. Ever taking care of his patients.
I raised my arm, the metal in my hand reflecting in the light.
Immediately the doctor paled, his throat bobbing as he gulped through the sudden terror that had just wrapped around him.
I took a brief moment to enjoy that. To inhale the thick scent of fear, closing my eyes as the familiar sensation of someone else’s horror as their life flashed before their eyes washed over me.
And then I let my wrist drop, the sharp point of the blade pointing down the hallway in a silent command.
Move.
He didn’t hesitate. He scrambled forward, his shoulders bunched around his ears, his briefcase held in front of him with both hands. He cringed as he rushed past me, holding his breath, until he broke out into a sprint on the stairs.
I didn’t turn to watch him go. I simply listened to the sounds of his shoes slapping against the floor, of his terrified sobs, and the slamming of the heavy door behind him.
I cracked my neck, first to the left, and then to the right, and then tipped my head back, closing my eyes, rolling out the tight, tense muscles.
And then I focused on the door.
Crossing the hallway in two strides, I lifted the blade once more and tapped on the wood with the metal side of the knife.
“Silas,” my grandfather said as he opened the door a crack. “What the fuck do you—”
His words ended with a shocked gasp, his face paling, his eyes immediately dropping down to his torso. He stumbled slightly, his focus locked on the wooden handle between our bodies, the blade lodged in his stomach.
I withdrew the knife, grabbed hold of his shoulder and plunged it back in, twisting as I did so.
This time when I withdrew, I allowed him to pull back from me.
I allowed him to cover the gaping wound with his hands. I watched as he pushed against his stomach, blood spilling between his fingers.
With every step he took backwards, I took one forwards, following him into his room and calmly closing the door behind me.
“What the fuck have you done?” he whispered, his face paling, his breathing betraying the amount of pain he was in.
“I’ll kill you for this,” he spat at me, stammering over his words. “I’ll fucking bury you alive next to that useless mother of yours. I’ll—”
I slammed my knife into him again, the sticky, wet sound filling the bedroom, followed by a vulgar squelch as I pulled it out again.
“Why?” he asked, stumbling even further back.
I cocked my head at him.
“Is this because of her?” he asked me. “You fucking idiot. Do you think she’ll stay once she knows what you are? You think that girl will ever truly belong to you? She’s fucking terrified of you.”
She was terrified of the man she thought I was.
She knew better than that now.
My only response to Rafael was to plunge the knife back inside him.
And this time, I didn’t pull it back out. I twisted and pushed, deepening the wound. Making it fatal.
His knees crumbled, and I lowered him to the floor, holding him under his elbow as blood pooled at his lips.
“Y-you ungrateful little bastard,” he spat weakly at me, words trembling. “I g-gave you everything. I raised y-you when nobody else w-would even l-look at you after what hap… happened to your f-face. I m-made you useful.”
He was whispering by the end, his words barely audible.
He hadn’t made me useful to anyone other than himself. He shaped me into what he wanted me to be and reaped the rewards of my brutality.
Now he was learning just how far gone I really was.
I stepped over him, looking down at his pathetic form. His face paled even further, seeing his own demise reflected back at him through my mask.
“I sh-sheltered y-you. I t-took you in. You’re des-destroying everything we b-built for a wo-woman.”
Not just any woman.
My woman.
And I wasn’t destroying anything.
I was building our empire. The one we would share together.
I crouched down low, resting my wrists on my knees, the knife dangling between them.
Rafael looked up at me, and I slowly reached up, removing the mask. For the first time in years, he saw me for who I was. Saw the monster lurking beneath the silver.
“Y-you’re r-revolting,” he cringed.
I gently stroked the knife up his face, and he curled tighter into the foetal position.
I leaned in closer, bringing my scarred face up close to his. “And so are you,” I whispered with a chuckle.
And then I drove the knife up through his jaw and out of his eye.