Page 105 of Scarred in Silence

Blood splatters on the floor. His body slumps. Dead.

The silence that follows is the loudest thing in the room.

Astra moves first. She steps over the body and walks to me, wraps her arms around my waist. I cradle the back of her head.

“You’re free,” I murmur into her hair. “He can’t touch you anymore.”

She nods, face pressed into my chest.

Behind us, Dante enters the room without a word. He doesn’t ask questions. Just drags what’s left of Miles into the corner and drops the body like trash.

“Incinerator?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“No evidence,” Astra adds, her voice cold.

Dante nods once and disappears with the corpse.

I lead her out of the room, trailing footprints through the blood. We walk hand in hand.

She doesn’t look back. Neither do I. He doesn’t deserve our memory.

Down here, in the basement, the dead don’t scream. They confess.

And we are the ones who listen.

* * *

“It feels good to have him gone. Evelyn is happy that everyone who burned down her mother’s house is dead,” Dante says over the phone.

“It does… I’m still worried about Astra. She has been quiet since we left yesterday…”

“She will come around. Give her time.”

I let out a breath.

“Just think, now you only have one enemy left, and you already killed him once,” Dante jokes. I don’t laugh. It’s not fucking funny.

“Yeah. Just one left.”

I end the call and stare at my beautiful wife sleeping next to me. I would burn the world down for her, and I don’t think she would do the same for me…

But that’s okay. I don’t need her love. I need her loyalty.

39

Astra

When I wake, he’s already watching me.

Lucien sits in the armchair across the room, elbows on knees, his hands laced together like he’s holding back the urge to rip something apart. Light filters in through the curtains.

His jaw clenches when my eyes meet his.

For a second, I forget where I am. Then it all rushes back like a punch to the ribs.

The basement. The screams. Miles.