Chapter 5 005

Rayna

Silence had a sound. I'd heard a lot of people say that, but personally, I wouldn't say I actually understood that phrase. Until now, that is.

I’d never believed that before tonight, sometimes I laughed when people said that, but standing here, and trapped in this room with him, I could hear it. It was nothing short of a low hum beneath my skin, steady and sharp, like the room itself was holding its breath.

Zero hadn’t moved since the Mistress left, and I hated that I didn't know what to think of it. He sat on the edge of that throne like bed, one elbow resting on his knee, his hands clasped loosely together. He wasn’t even looking at me now. He was just staring somewhere past me, but somehow, that was worse, because he didn’t have to look to own the room.

I’d faced killers before. Pimps, dealers, men who thought a gun made them gods, but this man, this was something else entirely. His stillness wasn’t human. It was control. Absolute, unnerving, suffocating control.

And yet, somehow, it drew me in.

Given the rumors and what the mistress had confirmed, I knew talking to him would be a waste of time, but I found myself doing it anyway.

“Is this how you win?” I asked, voice low but steady. “You just sit there until people tear themselves apart?”

I held my breath the moment the words slid past my lips. A small part of me had hoped that I'd hung around long enough for my voice to break something inside him, but I was wrong. Very very wrong.

I got nothing, not even a flicker.

“Wow.” I laughed under my breath, sharp and humorless. “You know, they make statues that move more than you do.”

In a huge twist of events , that got me something. Barely. It was a slow lift of his eyes. They were pale, glacial blue that caught the candlelight and turned it to frost. When our gazes met, the room shrank. The air went colder, and my breath hitched before I could stop it.

He didn’t blink, he didn’t need to, because he was studying me, not like a man studies a woman, but like a predator learns the rhythm of its prey’s heartbeat.

“What? You think you can scare me just by staring?”My fingers curled at my sides. “Newsflash, you'll have to try harder than that.”

Still nothing.

I took a step closer, forcing the sound of my boots to fill the silence. The velvet carpet swallowed most of it, but it was enough to keep me grounded. Frustration gnawed at me from almost all sides, but I pushed it aside.

The closer I got, the more I noticed, like the ink crawling up his neck, black lines that twisted into something I didn’t recognize. The faint scar slicing through his eyebrow, the way his chest rose and fell in calm, unhurried waves, like he’d already measured how this night would end and he didn't want to mess it up.

“You don’t talk,” I said softly, more to myself than him. “You don’t move. You just… watch.”

I knew what I was doing, and the fact that I was already getting into character this early made my cheeks burn

“Tell me, Zero.” My throat felt tight as I pulled myself back to the present. “Do you even feel anything?”

He tilted his head slightly, a small, fluid motion that shouldn’t have felt intimate but it did. His gaze flicked down, to my throat, then to my hands, then back to my face. His gaze was slow, and purposeful, like he was touching me without contact, and you just had to believe that was the hottest thing I'd felt tonight n

My heartbeat stumbled as realization dawned on me. He’d answered, but without words.

The bastard was mocking me, testing me even to see just how much it took before I broke.

“Fine. You want to play quiet? I can play quiet.”I exhaled sharply, trying to gather myself. I moved to the small table in the corner where a crystal decanter sat, poured myself a drink, and let the clink of the glass punctuate the silence. “They said this was a game. So… tell me something.” I took a sip, forcing a smirk. “Are we supposed to talk, or are you going to just stare at me until morning?”

Nothing.

He leaned back slightly, resting his shoulders against the headboard. The movement was lazy, confident, but the way he looked at me, his eyes half lidded and assessing, sent a prickle of heat down my spine.

“You know,” I murmured, pacing slowly toward him, “for someone who’s supposed to be terrifying, you make it weirdly hard to look away.”

That was when I saw it, a flicker, small but unmistakable. His jaw tightened, just a fraction but I saw it.

A crack.

A reaction.

“Got you,” I thought.

Without thinking, I closed the space between us until I could feel the cool air shift with every breath he took.

“Tell me,” I whispered. “Do you think I scare easily?”

His eyes darkened, and then something followed. It was the smallest tilt of his head again.

No. He'd said no.

“No?” I echoed, smiling faintly. “You’d be wrong.”

For a second, I thought I imagined it, that faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a smile, but something colder and sharper.

I took another slow step until I stood right before him, close enough that his scent, dark, clean and metallic, filled my lungs. My pulse thundered in my ears, and I hated that he could probably hear it too.

“I came here to break you,” I said quietly. “To make you speak. So if you’re planning to sit there and wait for me to lose my mind, you’ll be waiting a long time.”

His eyes flicked over my face, steady, and calculating. Then, slowly, he raised a hand.

I froze..The motion was deliberately slow enough that I could stop him if I wanted to, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. His fingers brushed the side of my face, feather light, just long enough to trace the line of my jaw.

A chill shot straight through me as I told myself that I should’ve stepped back there and then, but I didn’t.

When his hand dropped, I realized I was shaking, and in a good way. My pussy was throbbing, and it took me clenching my thighs together to stop whatever embarrassment was itching to jump out of my skin.

“Oh wow.” My voice came out rougher than I meant. “So that’s how you play.”

He said nothing, but the air between us changed. I could feel it, that low, dangerous pull that wasn’t just fear anymore. It was something heavier, and something I didn’t want to name.

“You know, for someone who doesn’t talk, you sure say a lot.” I turned away fast, pretending to study the room instead of my own reflection in the glass.I waited for a sound, a sign, anything.

Nothing. Just that silence again, heavy, and deliberate, swallowing everything I said.

“Fine. Keep your secrets.”I swallowed hard and forced a smirk. “I’ll find another way to make you break.”

But when I looked back, his gaze was already on me, cold, patient, and terrifyingly sure.

And that was when I understood why everyone feared him. It wasn’t because he killed, it was because he didn’t have to.

He could unmake you with silence alone.

And this was the person I was supposed to break. Great.