Page 105 of Vows of Silence

And the last thing I remembered thinking was that this man, with all his scars and his dangerous history… he might just be perfect after all.

Chapter 35

The Flame

I woke the next morning, still in Silas’s bed. His scent was all around me, and for one brief moment, I allowed myself to simply breathe him in, to enjoy the warm, masculine smell of my captor.

And then I let the little cocoon Silas had wrapped me in fall apart, because I knew this couldn’t continue.

Silas’s absence the past few days had proven something to me—I’d become too reliant on him. Too needy for his company. When he wasn’t around, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I had tricked myself into believing that what we shared was normal. Acceptable, even. Just because he’d opened up to me, and shown me his scars, I’d allowed that to erase all the harm he’d caused me. All the harm he’d caused others.

I climbed out of bed, quickly throwing on some clothes—not even bothering to question why Silas had some of my clothes in his wardrobe.

As I was pulling on a pair of fitted jeans, I noticed Silas’s clothes on the floor where he had discarded them last night.

Was I being crazy, or did that black jacket look… patchy in places? Slowly walking over to them, eyeing them like they might come to life and bite me, I tried to rationalise what I was seeing.

Maybe they were still damp from the rain? Maybe they were stained, but not with what I was thinking.

Crouching down low, I soon realised how very wrong I was. As soon as I picked the clothes up, I was hit with an overwhelming smell of copper. When I unfolded the clothes, I discovered more dark patches. Some splattered up the sleeves, and a larger patch in the centre of the jacket.

But the white shirt was truly the prized evidence in this puzzle—the cuffs were soaked in red, the liquid having bled up the material along the sleeves. His collar was also spattered with blood, and there were patches in the middle where it had seeped through the suit jacket he wore.

I dropped the clothes and marched over to the bed, ripping the covers back from his side.

There it was. Flecks of blood on the sheets.

For one moment, one stupid, idiotic moment, I had a flash of concern, thinking maybe Silas had been hurt. And then I remembered who I was dealing with.

The bastard hadn’t even bothered to wash the blood off his body before he came to collect me, forcing me to sleep with him whilst the evidence of his murders was still fresh on his skin.

I’d curled against him. Let him wrap an arm around me. Fallen asleep breathing him in, never realising there was blood drying between us.

What sort of sick fuck did that?!

None of this should have surprised me. I’d spent years hearing stories about Silas Falcone. I’d watched grown men go pale at the mention of his name. I knew exactly what sort of man he was supposed to be.

So why did seeing the proof feel so much worse?

Had I been idiotic enough to think I could change him? This is who Silas was. He was the silent assassin. The man who murdered without remorse.

The man who no longer had anyone to control him.

He had always been under his grandfather’s control—everyone knew that. And since Rafael was now dead, there was no longer anyone to keep Silas in check.

And to think, this was entirely his fault. I had been happy to bury my head in the sand. To accept a kidnapper as my lover, because I had been so starved for attention and affection. I had been so desperate for someone to actually want me, I’d been willing to play the fool. Then Silas had broken our routine, left me on my own, and now the illusion was shattered.

The truth was, I had no idea where he disappeared to when he left this room. I knew how he took his coffee. I knew which side of the bed he slept on. I knew he preferred silence to conversation and that he hated being touched without warning. But I didn’t know where he went, who he met, or whose blood was drying on the clothes at my feet.

And that was the part I couldn’t forgive myself for.

Not the fear. Not the confusion. Not even the attraction, though God knew I would be unpacking that particular disaster for the rest of my life if I survived long enough to have the luxury of self-reflection.

What I couldn’t forgive was how willingly I had stopped asking questions.

I had been so grateful for every sliver of tenderness he offered me that I had allowed myself to forget tenderness did not make a man good. It did not erase blood from his hands, or bodies from his path, or the fact that every choice I made within these walls had been offered to me only because he had decided I could have it.