The Day Silence Spoke novel Chapter 146

Her previous apprehension of him had curdled into outright terror. She tried to shrink back, but the chair wobbled precariously, forcing her to stay put, her head bowed in fear.

Santino lifted her chin, making her meet his gaze.

“Remember anything yet?”

Tears streamed down her face as she looked at him, desperately racking her brain, trying to recall anything, everything from the past few years. What did he want her to remember? What could it possibly be?

She stared at him pleadingly, hoping for a clue, an answer.

He just smiled, seeming to read her mind, and shook his head gently. “I won’t tell you. If you remembered, you wouldn’t be looking at me like that.”

Latisha’s lips parted, but before she could form a silent word, Santino leaned in closer. Her eyelids fluttered, and she instinctively tried to pull back. His face filled her vision, their noses almost touching, their breaths mingling in an unnervingly intimate way. She held her breath, frozen in place.

“Latisha,” he whispered, his voice a silken threat, “you really deserve to die.”

Her eyes met his smiling ones, and her heart stopped.

The next second, he grabbed the chair and shoved it hard. It toppled over, and she crashed to the floor again, the impact jarring every organ in her body. Pain radiated through her, and her face went ashen. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. She couldn’t even scream.

Santino didn’t linger. He turned and left, the door closing behind him, leaving her alone on the cold, hard floor. Her wrists and ankles were raw and bleeding, the crimson staining the ropes.

Latisha pried her eyelids open, her gaze fixed on the closed door through a curtain of tangled hair. For a moment, she couldn’t tell what hurt more—her body or her heart.

She couldn’t understand Clifford, and she couldn’t understand Santino. Nothing they did made any sense.

Clifford sat on the sofa in the living room, surrounded by the shredded remains of the divorce agreement.

In the past, whenever he’d torn up the papers, she had always stayed, quiet and obedient. But this time, the scraps of paper had lain on the floor for a full day, and there was still no sign of his little mute.

Ziven paced nervously outside, not daring to go in. A full day of searching had yielded nothing. Nikita had vanished into a surveillance blind spot, and there had been no trace of either of them since. Etherea City was massive. Without using their phones or connecting to the internet, a city-wide search could take weeks. By then, they could be long gone.

He peeked inside. The living room was dark, but he could just make out the silhouette on the sofa.

As Ziven wrestled with what to do, a car sped up the driveway and screeched to a halt. Killian jumped out and hurried over to him.

“Any leads?” he asked in a low voice.