Page 41 of Scarred in Silence (The Twisted Trilogy #2)

Lucien

The engine hums like a threat beneath me. The Colorado sun’s just beginning to slide behind the mountains, casting long shadows across the asphalt. I don’t turn the radio on. Silence suits me better today—quiet enough to think, loud enough to feel her absence.

Astra didn’t say goodbye.

She was still curled up in my bed when I left, tangled in the sheets, holding the gun to her chest like a warning. I wanted her to fight with me—to look at me with that fury again, the fire that says she hasn’t given up yet. But she didn’t. And for once, I didn’t force her.

I let her think in peace.

Even though I knew she wouldn’t stay that way forever.

Her silence this morning… it wasn’t fear. It wasn’t a submission. It was distance.

A line I didn’t draw.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as the compound comes into view on the horizon—gray concrete against roaring trees, our own little hellhole. The closer I get, the more this w eight settles into my chest. Not guilt. Anticipation.

If I don’t secure Astra’s place, I’ll lose her. She needs to see that she belongs here, because there’s nowhere else left for her to go. No one else who will keep her safe, even if I have to burn the world to do it.

She’s broken, yes. But she’s mine.

I fish my phone out of the console and call the number I haven’t used in weeks.

It rings twice.

“Lucien.” Gideon Monroe’s voice sounds exactly the same—expensive and venom-laced. “Didn’t expect a call. I assumed Astra was either overdosed or run off by now.”

“She’s not done either,” I say, eyes narrowing. “She’s clean.”

A sharp inhale. “Excuse me?”

“She’s clean. Off everything. Hasn’t used in weeks. No pills, no powder, no needles.”

A pause. “That’s hard to believe.”

“It’s not a request for belief.” I watch the gate rise as I roll up to the compound. “It’s a statement of fact. I fixed her.”

He laughs, but it’s hollow. “You fixed her? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, I gave her what she needed. Not therapy. Not love. Not lectures. Control. Pain. A reason to stay alive.”

There’s a longer pause this time, then, “You always did understand her better than I did.”

“Exactly. And you should see her.”

“For what purpose?”

I park the car, staring through the windshield at the doors I’ve walked through a thousand times. This place never changes. But she did. Or maybe… she just became what she always was. What she always needed to be.

“I want to show you what she looks like now. What you were too afraid to bring out of her.”

Another beat of silence.

Then he asks the daunting question, “When?”

“Next week. Wednesday.”

“You’re serious.”

“Dead fucking serious. And you’ll bring her mother.”

“She hasn’t seen her in years.”

“She deserves to. They deserve to see what you left behind. And what I rebuilt.”

“Lucien—”

“I said Wednesday.”

He sighs. “Fine. We’ll be there. But if you’re lying—if this is just another chaos play—I swear to God—”

I hang up.

No need for promises; I don’t plan to keep them.

I sit there for a moment, phone still in my hand, staring at my own reflection in the glass. The man staring back doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch.

I didn’t just fix her, I think. I claimed her.

And now it’s time to prove it.

* * *

The moment I step inside, the air shifts.

The hallway smells like bleach and rot. Like someone tried to clean up the aftermath but missed a few pieces of soul stuck between the tiles. The buzzing overhead light flickers, casting long shadows against the concrete. Familiar. Suffocating. Mine.

I don’t ask where they are. I already know.

Do wn the corridor, through the reinforced steel door, past the keypad that only two of us have access to. My boots echo on the floor, a metronome counting down to the end of a life.

Dante’s already inside.

He doesn’t look up when I enter. Just sits across from Silas, one elbow resting on his knee, a knife twirling lazily between his fingers. His face is stone. The kind of calm that only comes before a storm.

Silas… doesn’t look like Silas anymore.

He’s slumped in the steel chair, arms stretched out in the X-restraints bolted to the wall behind him. Swelling obscures his face, his lips are split, and one eye is completely sealed shut. Blood has dried in thick, crimson streaks down his chest. Flies hum around his legs.

“You took your time,” Dante says.

“I had a call to make.”

His knife stops spinning. “Astra?”

“No. Her father.”

That gets his attention. He looks up, one brow arching.

“I scheduled a meeting,” I say. “Next week. He’s coming to see what I’ve done.”

Dante whistles low. “What we’ve done.”

I don’t answer.

Because this—what’s about to happen—it belongs to him.

Silas has been his confidant. He used him for so many things, only to find out he is involved in trafficking.

He stands and approaches Silas. The man flinches, barely, like a dying dog who already knows the blow is coming.

“I gave him morphine four hours ago,” Dante says. “Not for kindness. Just to keep the bastard lucid enough to talk.”

“Did he?”

Dante tilts Silas’s chin up with the edge of the blade. “Some.”

I walk in slow circles around them, my gaze drifting over the walls, the cracks, the stains. This room has heard every kind of scream.

But not Astra’s.

I made sure she stayed far away.

“He brought in a young girl. She was sixteen when he brought her in,” Dante says, without looking at me. “Told her it was just a party. Just one night. She ended up in a cage for three days.”

I stop pacing. My vision goes cold.

Silas coughs, something wet rattling in his chest. “I—I didn’t touch her.”

Dante presses the knife to his cheekbone. “No. You just delivered her.”

“It was my job!” Silas shouts.

“And you said yes,” I murmur.

He turns toward me, one eye pleading. “I was loyal—”

The knife cuts deep, but I don’t focus on that.

I can’t stop picturing my little Siren.

What is she doing right now? Did she use the gun?

Panic settles in my bones. I need to see her. Now. I stand and exit, leaving them to finish what they’ve started. Dante will update me as soon as the bastard is dead.

* * *

The road stretches endlessly beneath my tires, but not a fucking second passes fast enough.

I keep one hand on the wheel, the other gripping my thigh so tight I can feel the nail marks through my jeans. Every turn of the highway feels like a heartbeat I’m about to miss. My jaw’s clenched so tight it’s sending a spike of pain through my temple. I deserve it.

I shouldn’t have left her.

Not like that. Not after giving her the gun. Not after watching her press it to her lips with a silence that looked too much like peace.

Then today, she was nearly on the verge of a mental breakdown. Stupid. I’m so fucking stupid.

The compound is behind me. Dante’s probably already disposing of the body. There’s blood under my nails. My shirt’s still damp with sweat from watching a man die slowly. But that isn’t what has my hands shaking on the wheel.

It’s her.

Astra. My Siren. My curse.

I told her the gun was a way out. I told her it was a choice. I didn’t expect her to believe me.

And now I can’t breathe.

The GPS says I have seventy-two miles to go. I shut it off. I could drive this road blindfolded. I’m not worried about the route—I’m worried I’m already too fucking late.

The rain starts halfway through the mountain range. Just a mist at first. Then a downpour. Wipers squeal across the windshield as lightning flashes somewhere far off.

Astra hates storms.

Used to tell me they made her feel like the sky was breaking open and showing her how loud the world could be when it actually cared.

I grip the steering wheel tightly.

I don’t deserve her silence. I don’t deserve her at all. But I need her to be alive.

Pl ease, be alive.

By the time I pull into the long gravel drive, the sun’s completely gone. The house looms ahead—dark, hulking, still. I cut the engine, let the silence crash over me. It takes me five full seconds to will my legs to move.

My boots hit the ground like I’m walking through fucking mud.

The front door creaks open without resistance. The lights are low, a single lamp glowing in the living room. Her blanket is still draped over the back of the couch.

My heart skips.

“Astra?”

No answer.

I move through the house slowly, every corner a landmine. The hallway smells like honey and fear.

Please. Just fucking be breathing.

I reach the bedroom.

The door’s cracked.

I nudge it open with my foot and step inside.

She’s there.

Curled up in the middle of the bed, eyes closed, arms wrapped around one of my old shirts like it’s a lifeline. The gun is on the nightstand, and she put it down. It’s untouched. Unfired.

She’s alive.

I drop to my knees beside the bed.

My whole body caves in.

She stirs, eyes fluttering open. Her gaze is slow to focus, and when it does, it lands right on me.

“Lucien?” Her voice is groggy. Raw.

I look like a wreck. I know I do. Rain-soaked, blood-splatt ered, pale. Haunted.

But I manage to speak.

“You didn’t use it,” I whisper.

Her eyes don’t leave mine. “No.”

The weight that drops off my chest is enough to make me sway. I bury my face in her blanket for a moment. My hands are shaking again.

“I thought—” My voice cracks. “I thought maybe…”

She sits up slowly, looking at me like I’m not the man who chained her to this world, but the man still begging her to stay.

“I waited,” she says simply. “I just… waited for you.”

I nod. Swallow. My throat feels like broken glass.

I press my forehead to her knee. Let her warmth remind me she’s still here.

Still mine. For now.

But I know the clock’s ticking.

Next week, I have to show her off like she’s a broken-down car I fixed.

Tonight, I’m just grateful I didn’t come home to silence.

I don’t want her silence anymore. I like her fire burning bright.