Silva

Epilogue II

• Irisa •

Ten Years Later

—

"What are you looking at?"

Silva looks away from the window, narrowing a skeptical glare to the rustling trees before those stormy gray eyes meet mine.

I huff, swinging my leg to nudge his shin under the table.

I mumble, "I don't believe in ghosts, but the way you were looking outside makes me think otherwise."

I believe what I see, but I'm not closed-minded on possibilities. When Silva looked at the window for longer than a passing glance, it hit something unnerving in me to question it.

Maybe I'm paranoid. I haven't had the best experience in isolated places, and part of me still blames Mammon and Sunflower Home. Nothing about that place screamed happiness; it was a makeshift house of horror and disrespected religion.

Silva had been exposing me with trips to isolated areas, but the itch underneath my skin can't be scratched despite the exposure.

"There is no such thing as ghosts," he scolds evasively.

I counter rather absurdly, "I don't believe in Santa, but he brings me presents."

That is if Santa is a tall, burly, attractive man wearing only red pants. On every important date, holiday or not, he always has gifts for me.

He grunts, eyeing the window again. "I bring you more than presents."

When Silva offered me the choice of picking one of his many properties as our home, I hadn't thought out the implications in his words. When I moved out of the place that he bought me, he told me that we were going to get married.

He didn't propose or ask; it was a simple command with those fierce gray eyes daring me to challenge him.

If he thought I was going to let him become my husband that easily, then he was correct. I still made him court me; no woman would turn down a big, powerful, handsome man pursuing them with too much vigor.

He's rather frightening when he smothered me with his affection.

He knew showering me with expensive gifts wouldn't work. From the very beginning, he had been spoiling me beyond what's appropriate for whatever we were back then.

In hindsight, it could be called courting when he moved me into a massive home after the landlord died.

So, Silva took a different approach. He went for affection, and it worked like a charm to a girl who had abandonment issues.

He promised that he would never leave me, and I took the promise willingly despite Silva being a deceitful man.

That's rich coming from a natural liar.

Silva's keeping his promise.

"I can live without you. I'll grieve and move on, but I'll remember you. You're my wife; you'll always have me, in life and death. You're not replaceable. You've tried to kill me; I came back for you. I've never imagined living without you."

To some, Silva's a tyrant. To me, he's akin to the desire to live.

Earlier in our relationship, I had doubts that I could understand what being in love felt like. Silva had made it abundantly clear that his feelings are not infatuation, nor am I a passing fancy.

He was in love. Over ten years, he had taught me love in the senses of platonic, familial, and romantic. He's my friend, family, and husband. I thought being the powerhouse mafia boss is the most he could accomplish.