Page 20 of Vows of Silence

My dad didn’t answer immediately. I heard the keypad beep, the click of the office door unlocking, and then their footsteps crossed the threshold.

One pair.

Two.

Three.

My stomach sank.

Three people.

And Rafael didn’t travel with his guards. He didn’t need to. Not when he had his own personal assassin following him everywhere.

I was so completely fucked.

The door shut behind them, and the room seemed to shrink around me. From where I was hidden beneath the couch, I could only see shoes and the bottoms of trouser legs. My father’s polished brown loafers. Rafael’s black leather shoes, worn and expensive, with a scuff along one toe that somehow made him seem even more terrifying than if he had been immaculate.

And then the third pair stopped.

Black shoes. Black trousers. Completely motionless. And stopping directly next to my hidden head. My heart stopped with them.

Silas.

I knew it before I saw the gloves. Before the faint glint of silver appeared in the reflection of the darkened floor-to-ceiling window opposite me.

I knew because the air changed.

That sounded ridiculous. Dramatic, even. Like something Luca would have mocked me for.

But it did.

The room was suddenly colder. The goosebumps raised on my arms, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It became difficult to breathe, every agonising breath like drawing tar into my lungs.

I stared at those black shoes, unable to look away. They didn’t move. Not even slightly. My father shuffled towards his desk. Rafael strode in like he owned the place. But Silas remained just inside the room, standing so still he might as well have been carved from the dark.

My phone buzzed, and I almost screamed. But I didn’t dare read it. Mostly because my soul had left my body, but also because I was fairly certain even the faintest movement would be enough to draw every eye in the room straight to my ridiculous hiding spot.

“I didn’t go behind your back,” my father said, his voice tighter than I had ever heard it. “The arrangement with Adrien benefits everyone.”

Rafael laughed.

It was not a nice sound.

“Everyone?” he repeated. “You think handing your daughter over to that smug little bastard benefits everyone?”

My stomach twisted violently.

Handing your daughter over.

As though I were some possession that could be passed from person to person, and not a real human, with thoughts and feelings of my own.

My mind flashed to the briefcase and the property transfer papers, and the lurching in my stomach kicked up a notch.

“I did what I had to do,” my father said.

Rafael’s shoes stopped near the desk. “You did what greedy men always do.”

“My agreement with the Vescaris does not impact my relationship with the Falcones. Our families have gone back generations—”