Page 27 of Vows of Silence

Luca:His grandfather left, but he’s around. I can’t find him on the cameras. But I didn’t see him leave.

My heart started hammering again.

Isabelle:Where’s my dad?

The typing bubble came and disappeared again.

Isabelle:Luca?? Where is my dad??

Luca:He left.

Oh, God… Oh,God!

My mother would be long asleep by now, and my brother rarely spent the night at home. He had been given a penthouse in the city for his twenty-first birthday years ago, and I’d read enough gossip magazines to get the perfect picture of what happened there.

Which meant it was just me and Silas. Alone. In the dark.

Oh, God.

The house creaked, and logically I knew it was just the old house settling. Pipes groaning. I knew that. And yet I couldn’t help the irrational thought that it was Silas, slowly pacing up and down outside the hallway. I couldn’t help but think that he may even be in the walls, following me around endlessly, always able to see me even though I could never see him.

Isabelle:Talk to me, Luca. Where is he?

Isabelle:Luca??

He had fucking cameras everywhere. How could he not know where Silas was?

A nagging question knocked at the back of my mind, latching onto the thoughts of the cameras.

If Silas had known exactly where I was, and was so familiar with this place, how had he not known where the cameras were?

Or did he? Had he looked at Luca the same way he’d looked at me? Had his mere presence intimidated Luca the way it had terrified and intimidated me?

Is that the real reason Luca had disappeared? He was clearly connected to Silas in some way. They knew each other. Just like Luca knew Adrien, my father, Rafael, and everyone else tangled in this evil web. I just didn’t know the how or the whys.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Luca, thank God…”

I looked down and almost blacked out.

Not Luca.

Unknown:Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Chapter 9

The Flame

I screamed.

The phone fell from my cold fingers, crashing to the floor, cracking the screen, and I screamed.

I fell to my knees and screamed until my voice was hoarse. Until my breath felt like fire.

Until two pairs of hands clutched at me, pulling me back to my feet.

And then I screamed some more, fighting against the figures, pushing away the hands that grabbed at me.