Page 70 of Vows of Silence

My eyes fell on the section marked“sexual intimacy”and I forced the Luca folder shut before I could spiral any further. I just couldn’t look at it anymore. I couldn’t see the most intimate relationship of my life dissected so methodically.

It was horrible and invasive. Proof that something I had clung to as mine had never truly been private.

Instead, I turned to the next pile.

This one was different. It was far less emotional and much more tactical.

Frank’s name appeared first, written across the top of a thick file. Inside were shift patterns, photographs, notes on his military background, weapons training, weaknesses, habits. There were timestamps of every time he’d driven me somewhere, every time he’d stood outside my bedroom door, every time he’d spoken to my father when he thought I wasn’t listening.

Adrien’s file was bigger.

Muchbigger.

There were photos, hotel records, bank transfers. They were accompanied by names I didn’t recognise and women I didn’t want to recognise. And then there were shipments, meetings, all of them date and time stamped.

My stomach tightened as I flicked through page after page, realising Silas hadn’t just been watching me.

He had been watching everyone around me.

There were files on my father’s guards. Notes on which ones were loyal, which ones could be bought, which ones had already been bought. There were maps of my family estate with blind spots circled, security rotations listed down to the minute, photographs of unfamiliar cars parked outside the gates.

One note caught my eye.

Unknown vehicle outside the east gate. 02:14. Vescari plates traced. Isabelle asleep. No breach.

Another:

Frank distracted during garden walk. Western perimeter exposed for eight minutes. Corrected.

Corrected.

I swallowed hard, not sure I wanted to know what that meant. But even though I tried not to focus on it, I couldn’t help but remember just how much of a staff turnover we had. I had assumed guards were just on rotation. Now I was starting to believe something far more sinister had happened to them.

The more I read, the more the room shifted around me. It was still horrifying. Still wrong. Still a violation so deep that I didn’t know how to process it.

But it wasn’t only voyeurism.

It was protection.

Obsessive, controlling, terrifying protection.

There were screenshots from security feeds, timestamps from incidents I barely remembered, threats catalogued before I had even known they existed. Men photographed outside restaurants. Cars following mine. Adrien’s guards speaking into phones. Frank standing too far from me at parties. My father leaving meetings with people I now knew were dangerous.

He was guarding me…

One file near the bottom had no name on it at all. Just a date.

I opened it carefully.

Nightclub incident. Three males identified following Isabelle into restroom corridor. Intervention required. Threat eliminated before visual contact.

My stomach tightened sharply.

I remembered that night.

I’d been drunk with friends in Mayfair and complained to Luca afterwards that some creepy men had ruined the vibe enough for Frank to drag me home early. I remembered being irritated about it for days.

I had never realised there was more to the story.