Page 25 of Vows of Silence

“I already signed.”

The room went deathly still.

Even Silas changed.

Not much. Barely enough for anyone else to notice, maybe.

But I noticed.

His hand tightened at his side. The leather of his gloves creaked softly.

Rafael’s voice, when it came, was quiet enough to terrify me more than his shouting had. “Then you had better hope your new son-in-law is as powerful as you think he is.”

My dad swallowed. I heard it.

“Adrien can handle himself.”

Rafael laughed under his breath. “Against businessmen, perhaps.”

The two older men left the room, and I waited with bated breath for Silas to follow. But he didn’t.

Instead, he strode forward, his feet barely moving,and yet somehow he crossed the room unnervingly fast.

He crouched down in front of the couch,ducking his head low enough that the silver mask filled my entire world.

I stopped breathing completely.

Rafael continued speaking somewhere above me, but the words faded beneath the roar of blood in my ears. All I could see was the silver. All I could feel was that stare, cold and impossible and knowing.

Silas’s head tilted.

Just a fraction.

The movement was so small it should have meant nothing.

It meanteverything.

“Silas,” Rafael barked from the hallway.

Silas brought his finger to his masked mouth, gesturing for me to be quiet, and then straightened and walked away.

I sucked in the smallest breath possible, my entire body shaking with the effort of staying silent.

“We’re done here.”

My dad followed quickly. Too quickly. “Rafael, surely we can discuss this further.”

“There is nothing to discuss. You chose Adrien. Now live with it.”

The door shut, the keypad beeped, and the door locked.

For several seconds, I didn’t move.

Then, my phone buzzed beneath my hand.

Luca:Breathe, Belle.

I dragged in a shaking breath, and it tore through me like broken glass.