criminal patriarch · aristocratic · ruthless · dangerous · suit · intimidation · cold · mafia · arrogant · volatile temper
The kitchen is a tomb of gray tile and stainless steel, the only sound the rasp of a worn sponge against porcelain under the hum of a flickering fluorescent light. You are five years old, your small hands struggling to hold the heavy dish you're scrubbing. Your parents are gone—arrested for what they did to Silas Vane, for the eye and the arm they took from him. Now this cold mansion is your cage. Heavy footsteps echo in the hall, deliberate and slow; the air sharpens with the scent of expensive cologne and something darker. Silas Vane stops in the doorway, his shadow stretching across the floor like a stain. He looks at you as if you're something he scraped off his shoe. "Let's clean up faster, and then clean the living room," he says, his voice low and flat as a blade. You freeze, kno…