All Chapters of The Silence Of His Vows: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

He poured himself a glass. The sound of liquid hitting crystal was obscene. He drank slowly, making loud gulping noises, his throat working.I watched him.I couldn't help it. My eyes tracked the glass, the water, the way his lips touched the rim.He saw me looking.He grinned."Thirsty?"I looked away quickly. Stared at the fork in my hand.I wouldn't beg. Not from them."Here," he said, his voice full of mock generosity. "I'll help you out."He poured a splash of water onto the polished mahogany table. It pooled near my elbow, dangerously close to the pile of clean silver."Drink up, princess."I stared at the puddle.It was degrading. It was the kind of thing you did to an animal. To something less than human.But I was dying.My body was screaming for water. Every cell crying out for moisture.I leaned forward slowly."What is going on here?"The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.Every guard in the room went rigid.Killian.He stood in the arched doorway, backlit by the

He scooped me up in his arms.I was dead weight. My head lolled against his shoulder. I could smell his cologne mixed with the antiseptic smell clinging to his shirt.He carried me out of the clinic, down the hallway.We didn't go to the servants' quarters.We went to the guest room. The one with the IV pole and the private bathroom.He laid me on the bed.I immediately curled into a tight ball, cradling my freshly bandaged hand against my chest. Protecting it.I was shivering violently even though my skin was burning hot. Chills racked my body, making my teeth chatter.Killian stood at the foot of the bed.He looked at me with an expression I couldn't read."You are a liability," he said quietly. "You fall. You burn. You get infected. You break."He walked to the closet.When he came back, he was holding the chain.The heavy steel chain with the leather cuff.My stomach dropped.He walked to the bed."Leg."I was too weak to fight. Too exhausted to resist.I let him take my ankle.He

It was all theater.Father knew exactly where I was. He knew what was happening to me. And he was alive because of it.I was the shield. The meat shield taking bullets meant for him.As long as Killian's rage was focused on me, Father was safe. As long as I was here, bleeding and breaking, Father could rebuild his power. Make deals. Consolidate territory.He didn't want me back.He wanted me right here, taking the beating so he didn't have to."He offered everything," Killian continued, mistaking my silence for shock. "His entire fortune. His connections. His life."His life.I almost choked on the bitter laugh trying to escape.Father would never offer his life. He'd offered mine instead. That's what this whole arrangement was.I was the price he paid to stay breathing.Killian was watching my face, waiting for tears. Waiting for hope to flicker in my eyes.But there was no hope.There never had been."I told him no," Killian said, leaning closer. "I told him you were unable to come

The laundry press had left a ghost on my skin.My right hand, the burned one, was now doubly ruined. Carmina had placed the heavy iron plate directly on top of the bandaged burn. The pressure had crushed the healing blisters underneath, leaving a deep rectangular impression in the gauze. When I flexed my fingers, I could feel the new damage layered on top of the old.It was a bruise on top of a burn on top of raw nerve endings.My left hand was still good. The only part of me that still worked properly.I was in the library again. Killian had ordered me back to the scene of my first collapse.If you fall again, he had warned, I will chain you to the grate.I wasn't scrubbing the fireplace this time. I was polishing the books.It was a meaningless, Sisyphean task. There were thousands of books, leather bound and ancient, lining the walls from floor to ceiling. I had to climb the rolling ladder, pull each one out, wipe dust that wasn't there, and replace it.With one good hand and one r

The chain was a cold snake wrapped around my ankle.I sat on the rug at the foot of Killian's bed, my knees pulled to my chest, staring at the heavy mahogany door.It had been hours since he left me here. Hours of silence. Hours with nothing to do but think.In the silence, the ghosts came back.But they weren't the ghosts of Mama or the phantom pain in my burned hand. They were the echoes of Father's voice, filtered through Killian's accusations.He is frantic, Killian had said. He is begging.I rested my chin on my knees. A bitter laugh echoed in my mind, silent and dry.Killian Alatorre thought he was a genius. He thought he had broken the code. He thought he was torturing a beloved daughter to destroy a loving father.He was a fool.A lethal, terrifying, powerful fool.Father wasn't screaming because he loved me. He was screaming because I was his insurance policy. I was the contract that kept the other families from eating him alive. If I was gone, the Moretti alliance crumbled.