Chapter 28 The Price of Silence
CHAPTER 28: The Price of Silence
Vera
The phone continued to ring in my hand, buzzing like a livewire that threatened to stop my heart entirely. The glittering lights from the chandeliers and the melodic hum of the elite suddenly felt distant and far away.
I looked over at the women through a blur of rising panic. They had drifted back into their own sophisticated chatter, leaving me isolated in my own private hell.
The ringing finally stopped.
Consequently, I held my breath.
I knew Damien. He would never give up easily.
Immediately, the ringing was replaced by a sharp vibration and a single, commanding message:
“PICK UP. NOW.”
I slapped my palm over my mouth to stifle the sound of anguish that threatened to spill out.
My deepest wish at that moment was that Silas would magically appear.
Instead the screen lit up with the same unknown number again.
With trembling fingers, I picked the call, and pressed the device to my ear.
The moment his voice slithered through the line…low, gravelly, and saturated with that familiar, chilling, predatory timbre that had haunted me for years, a physical chill washed over me, turning my blood to ice.
“Did you miss me, cosa mia? My thing
Damien’s voice was a ghost from a nightmare I thought I’d escaped.
The silk suddenly felt too constricting…the diamonds on my neck too tight, like a hand pressing and squeezing my airways.
Even the ballroom suddenly grew smaller and suffocating like all the air had been sucked out.
Before I could even force a sound past my constricted throat, he cut me off.
“Don't speak. You can tell me how much you missed me when we’re face to face.”
My eyes widened, my heart rate increasing erratically.
“Just listen. Turn toward the service exit behind the floral arrangements and keep walking.”
I remained frozen, not making any movement. There was no way I was going to willingly put myself in Damien's orbit again.
“If you don't follow my directions, and start walking, I’ll walk right into the center of that floor and wait until your husband returns and personally introduce myself to him.”
My heart leapt into my stomach, the fear making my spine straighter.
The demon’s eerie chuckle floated through the line.
“I’m sure Silas Rutherford has plenty of questions I can answer.”
Left with no choice and driven by a primal need to keep him away from Silas, I did exactly as he commanded.
I had barely taken a few steps before someone called me.
“Going somewhere, darling?”
It was Rowena.
I halted, and tried to pull my face into what I hoped looked like a convincing smile.
“I'll just go to the powder room.”
She stared at me.
There was something in her eyes that told me that she was not totally convinced.
But she nodded, going back to their conversation, and I slipped away.
I moved like a ghost through the crowd, my black silk trailing behind me as I took directions from the voice in my ear, winding through service corridors until I finally pushed open a heavy iron door, and emerged onto the cold, wind-swept rooftop.
Immediately, I was hit by the chill, and I had to wrap my arms around myself. I didn’t have to look too far to find him.
There he was.
Damien.
He was there, a dark silhouette leaning against the stone balustrade. The monster I thought I had escaped.
It all came back to me, every punch, every kick, every slap…all the verbal and emotional abuse I suffered at his hands.
Everything hit me with the speed of a tsunami.
Instinctively, I spun around to run back toward the safety of the ballroom, but his voice lashed out, stopping me in my tracks.
“Don't even think about it," he warned, turning to face me.
I turned around, slowly.
The moonlight caught the sharp, jagged lines of his face and the stillness in those soulless black eyes…my knees nearly buckled.
Tears ran down my face before I realised that I was crying.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I stayed rooted to the spot, “Damien, please. I’m so sorry for running away. I’m sorry I stole your money. Just... please, let me go…let us go. Let me and Lily go.”
He threw his dark head back, and let out a sharp, toe-curling laugh, his eyes glinting with a terrifying mix of anger and betrayal.
He tsked. “What an ungrateful tramp you turned out to be,” he spat, stepping toward me until I could see the lethal edge in his expression.
I instinctively took small steps back while he kept advancing leisurely, but purposefully.
“You came to me, Vera. And what did I do?” He shrugged like it was obvious. “I gave you everything. I provided for you and your bratty sister. And how did you repay me? You stole from me and vanished,” he thundered.
If the goodness he showed me meant forcing me to become a dancer at his nightclub, abusing me, then trying to traffic Lily to his friends, then he was really unhinged.
I shook my head, more tears streaming down.
“You were hurting me. And you were going to sell Lily!”
He ignored what I said, even though it made his jaw tighten.
He stopped.
I stopped.
“You know, I wanted to make you suffer. Moreso Lily, because I know how much that would make you suffer. I wanted to find you and make you pay for what you did, especially when I saw those wedding pictures splashed across every headline,” he added with a bone chilling grin.
He stepped closer, his gaze dropping to my middle with a mocking smirk.
“You know, when I found out that you were pregnant, I almost thought that it was mine,” he scoffed. “But then I did the math.”
I shut my eyes, and fresh tears ran down my cheeks. “Please…”
He laughed… cruelly, at my misery.
That was Damien. He always found satisfaction with my pain, almost like it gave him a certain high.
“Tell me, cosa mia,” he said, drawing closer. “Does the great Silas Rutherford know that the bastard in your womb isn't his? We both know how that happened,” he added, his jaw tight with sudden anger.
If there was anyone to blame for this, then it was him.
He was the one who drugged me and served me up to a stranger.
But I feigned ignorance, my spine straightening as I refused to leak a single detail of my contract with Silas.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
He chuckled, a dark, vibrating sound.
“I see the frightened mouse has grown some spine,” he drawled, reaching out a hand to tuck a stray tendrils from my face.
I neither replied nor drew a breath until he withdrew his hand.
For a second, genuine curiosity flickered in his cold eyes.
“I still wonder how you were able to catch the eye of Silas Rutherford.” He sucked in air, shaking his head as if to dismiss his thoughts. “It doesn't matter. It still works to my advantage.”
“Please, just let me go. I’ll pay you back. Every cent…every single cent of the two thousand dollars I took. Just take it and leave us alone!”
He laughed.
Like I had cracked a funny joke. And it was a sound so cold it made the hairs on my nape stand.
“Don't make me laugh, amore. I know what your husband is worth—” his expression and voice turned darker. “...what you're worth.”
Deep down, I knew this was not going to be good.
“What do you want?” I managed to ask in a small voice.
“I don't want your pathetic two thousand dollars anymore, Vera. That’s pocket change for a Rutherford missus. Your husband practically owns all of Hudson Yards, Manhattan. He's loaded.”
The humor disappeared behind the veil of cruelty in his eyes.
“Five million dollars.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
That was exactly the amount that Silas had deposited in the account he had opened for me.
“I don't have that kind of money, Damien. Please, don't do this.”
There was no way I was giving him the money I was saving for our future.
He stepped more into my personal space, until his shadow loomed over me, suffocating and heavy.
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.
I shivered from terror and disgust, my body reacting to the familiar danger.
“You're going to give me five million dollars," he hissed, the threat vibrating through my bones. “Because if you don't, I think I'll go straight to Silas Rutherford and tell him a very interesting story about you.”
My eyes snapped to his, my breath quickening, as I recoiled in pure unadulterated terror.
No.
No. Surely he didn't mean what I thought he was.
He nodded, a sinister smirk on his face.
“Yes, that story. Your dark secret.”
A gasp escaped me, and I stumbled back in shock.