Page 48 of Vows of Silence

The movement had me gasping, but whether from the shock of the cold, or something else, I couldn’t be sure.

His gloved fingers reached for my throat with agonising slowness, giving me every chance to flinch, every chance to turn away. I didn’t. I couldn’t. My entire body had gone rigid, my pulse hammering wildly beneath my skin as his fingertips settledagainst the side of my neck, his gloved finger tapping on my pulse in rhythm to the beats.

A sob caught in my chest, and the tapping turned into a gentle stroke, caressing my heartbeat. Stroking my life source.

My eyes flooded before I could stop them. The touch was too soft. Too careful. Too impossible to reconcile with the man who had shot Frank in the head and dragged me beneath his house.

It didn’t make sense.

None of it made sense.

“You killed him,” I whispered, tears slipping down my cheeks. “You killed him, you kidnapped me, and now you’re touching me like that?”

His thumb stilled.

For one unbearable second, neither of us moved.

Then his hand dropped from my throat, and I fucking hated how cold my neck felt in his absence.

He stepped back, releasing me from the cage of his arms, and I immediately sucked in a shaky breath that sounded far too close to a sob.

Silas stared at me for another long moment, his gloved hand curling once at his side before going still.

Then he turned away.

I stayed pressed against the wall, crying silently as he crossed the room, picked up the tray he had dropped near the door, and placed it on the table as though I hadn’t just tried to attack him. And then he went about his usual routine.

He laid out some new clothes, pulled out bottles of water, displayed the food, and placed my dosage of painkillers next to them.

The same routine.

The same silence.

Just when I thought he was going to leave, he picked up the clothes and walked back over to me, grabbing hold of my numb arm and folding the clothes over them.

Another message that was painfully clear.

Once he’d left the room and locked the door behind him, I slid down the wall, one hand pressed against my throat where his fingers had been, trying to process what the fuck had just happened to me.

Chapter 16

The Flame

As the days passed, we fell into a routine.

I began to notice the passage of time simply through the timing of Silas’s visits.

In the morning, he always brought fresh clothes. I’d figured that out one day when his suit had the smallest patch of damp on the shoulder, which told me he’d not long since had a shower. He cleaned himself and brought me clothes, freshening us up for the day.

From there, I sometimes didn’t see him until evening. I was able to tell whenever he’d drop by at lunch, based on the number of painkillers left for me at breakfast.

No doubt mob murders kept him too busy to visit three times a day, every day. At least, that was my bitter assumption.

Evening would always be when he brought me food. Sometimes I could smell his own meal lingering on him, so I was able to determine that it was later in the evening, after he had already eaten—maybe he shared meals with his grandfather. IfRafael didn’t know about me, he couldn’t skip too many meals without an excuse.

After a few days, he began to bring me little treats, which made me feel like a caged hamster earning a reward for behaving.

Once, he brought me some books, which is how I entertained myself whenever he wasn’t here. Another time, he brought chocolates—Guylian seashells. My favourite. I didn’t bother asking how he knew that.