Page 104 of Vows of Silence

Because the father I remembered would have argued. He would have shouted. He would have insisted that there was always another option, another contact, another favour to call in.

Instead, he sounded like a man who had already calculated every possible outcome and reached a conclusion he didn’t like.

Maybe he had fought harder than any of us realised. Maybe he had exhausted every lead available to him andspent countless sleepless nights searching for a solution. But somewhere along the line he had realised exactly who he was dealing with, and he had accepted a truth that Marco still refused to face.

He couldn’t beat the mafia.

That’s why he was being so secretive. He knew he had explored too deeply, tried too hard to reconnect with his old family roots. He might not know which mafia family was responsible for my disappearance, but he knew one of them was.

That’s the truth he couldn’t admit to his family.

And that’s the reason he’d never dig too hard to find me.

That realisation hurt far more than I expected it to.

For twenty-one years, I’d believed that if something terrible happened to me, my father would come for me. Not because of his money or his reputation, but simply because he was my dad. It was one of those truths children accept without question, right alongside the belief that their parents know everything and can fix anything.

Watching him now, sitting behind that desk while my family unravelled around him, I realised that somewhere between my disappearance and this moment, he had stopped looking for a way to bring me home and started looking for a way to survive losing me.

And I wasn’t sure I would ever forgive him for that.

Chapter 34

The Flame

I woke slowly, in the confusing way a person does when their body knows something has changed before their mind has caught up enough to explain what it is. At first, I thought I was still in the surveillance room, curled awkwardly in Silas’s chair after watching my family fall apart through a screen they had no idea existed. But the chair beneath me was gone, replaced by warmth, movement, and the steady rise and fall of a chest beneath my cheek.

It took me far longer than it should have to realise I was being carried, and even longer to care. After the night I had just had, being transported through a mafia manor in the arms of the man who kidnapped me felt almost reasonable, which probably said something deeply concerning about the current state of my mental health.

I didn’t open my eyes straight away. I knew it was Silas. I knew from the scent of him, the leather against my skin, from the way his arms held me securely without pressing too hard.Even the unnatural silence that followed him wherever he went was enough to give him away.

That should have frightened me, and maybe if I had been fully awake it would have. But in that strange place between sleep and consciousness, all I could think about was that he had come back. He had left me alone in that room with the monitors and the evidence of my family’s slow collapse, and at some point, instead of staying away, instead of leaving me there to wake up cold and stiff and alone, he had returned for me.

And God help me, I clung to that.

I was vaguely aware of being carried through the manor and into another room. Silas cradled my head as we passed through the doorway, protecting me from any accidental bumps. I curled into him, resting my head against his chest, wrapping my arms tighter around his neck.

With a gentleness that defied belief, he pulled back the covers of his bed and laid me on his soft mattress, covering my body with the duvet.

I had just rolled over, facing the middle of the bed, when I felt it dip next to me and Silas was there once more, pulling me close to his body.

He’d stripped out of his shirt and, without waiting for me to touch him on my own, he gathered my hands and placed them on his chest.The steady rise and fall of his breathing moved my hands with it, his heartbeat soothing against my palms.

He breathed a sigh that almost sounded like relief—relief to have my hands on him, relief that I was close to him.

Relief that I wasn’t pulling away. I was right here, accepting him.

And I realised then, this man needed me.

Whatever had happened, whatever had kept him away from me, he needed me.

And at a time where everyone else seemed to be giving up, when they all seemed to be pulling away and forgetting me, I needed that. I needed affection.

I needed someone to watch me.

To want me.

I fell asleep with that thought, my hands gently stroking over the burns and imperfections of Silas’s skin.