Revenge on The Billionaire

Chapter 2 – Silence

The night Marcus and Nora Cruz were murdered should have ended with a scream but Lily never made a sound.

She stayed crouched behind her bedroom window until Dominic Sebastian and his men were gone, their boots heavy against the floorboards, their voices sharp, their presence leaving the air thick with smoke and death. When the door finally slammed shut, silence poured into the house like a suffocating fog.

Only then did she move.

Her small body shook as she crept down the stairs, each step creaking louder than she wanted. She paused often, afraid they might still be there, waiting. Her hands clung to the wooden banister until her knuckles turned white.

At the bottom, she saw them.

Her mother and father. Motionless. Their blood soaked into the carpet, dark and sticky. Their hands still touched, fingers barely linked.

“Mama....Papa…” Lily whispered, her voice so small it almost wasn’t there. She knelt beside them, pressing her trembling hand against her father’s chest, searching for a heartbeat. Nothing. She pressed against her mother’s arm, still warm, but her chest no longer rose.

Her eyes filled with tears. Her throat tightened. She wanted to scream, to wail, to call for help but the sound never came. Fear still sat heavy in her chest, silencing her voice. She remembered Dominic’s face, the way he had ordered her father’s death. She remembered the name that fell from her father’s lips—Blackwells. It meant nothing to her, but she held onto it, because it was all she had.

Then came the knock.

“Marcus? Nora?!”

It was the neighbor, Mrs. Gallagher, pounding on the door. The gunshots had been too loud to ignore. The door opened after a shove, and in came Mrs. Gallagher with two men from down the street. Their eyes fell immediately on the bodies.

“Oh my God.....”

Lily froze. She backed into the shadows of the wall, pressing her body flat against it. She didn’t want them to see her. She didn’t want anyone to know she was there.

When Mrs. Gallagher finally spotted her, her hand flew to her mouth. “Sweetheart....oh my God, the child...the poor child..”

Lily just stared. Her lips moved, but no words came.

The neighbors rushed forward, calling for the police, calling for help. The house filled with noise—voices shouting, footsteps running, radios crackling when officers finally arrived but Lily remained silent through it all. She didn’t answer questions, didn’t cry out names. She just sat curled up in the corner of the living room, her knees pulled to her chest, her wide eyes fixed on nothing.

“She’s in shock,” one of the paramedics whispered. “She won’t talk.”

And she didn’t. Not when they asked what she saw, not when they asked who did this. All she could remember was Dominic. His face. His voice. His command and Blackwells.

But she was only a child. What good were those names when no one believed gangs like that even touched small towns like Marion?

The funeral was quiet, small. Nora and Marcus had no close family nearby, no one except neighbors and a few friends from the local church. Lily stood between Mrs. Gallagher and a social worker, her black dress too big for her frame, her hands clutching a single white flower she never let go of. She didn’t cry. Not once. Her eyes stayed dry, empty, as though tears had abandoned her.

The state took her after that. The system tried to place her somewhere safe. They called her a survivor, but Lily didn’t feel like one. She felt hollow. Lost.

She stopped speaking altogether. Weeks passed, then months. Counselors tried to coax words out of her, but she only shook her head or stared at the floor. Sometimes, late at night, she whispered to herself, repeating the only two words she remembered from that night—Dominic. Blackwells, but never out loud to anyone else.

That was how Selene and Victor Aguas found her.

They were not strangers to tragedy; the wealthy couple had no children of their own, though their home was large, their lives stable, and their name carried weight in New York. When they saw Lily’s case, something in Selene’s heart ached. She had seen too many children get lost in the system, too many fade into the background.

“She doesn’t need pity,” Selene told Victor. “She needs a home. She needs a new life.”

And so, after months of paperwork and home visits, Lily Cruz became Lily Aguas.

At first, she resisted. She didn’t want new clothes, didn’t want a new room, didn’t want to be told she was “safe.” Safe was a word she no longer trusted. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dominic’s gun, heard the shots, smelled the iron of blood.

But Selene was patient. She didn’t push Lily to talk. Instead, she sat with her at night, reading books out loud, telling her stories even when Lily gave no response. Victor gave her space but always reminded her she was not alone.

Slowly, Lily began to adjust.

At school, she stayed quiet, often avoiding other children, but she excelled in her studies. She found comfort in books, in law, in rules that made sense when life didn’t. She wanted justice, even if she couldn’t name it yet.

Her new parents never hid her past, but they never forced it on her either. To the world, she was their daughter, the heir to Aguas Vale empire. To them, she was a chance at love they had never known.

And though she carried her silence like armor, one truth burned quietly inside her.

She had seen Dominic Sebastian. She had heard his name. She had heard the word Blackwells.

She had been a child then. But one day, she would not be and when that day came, she would not be silent anymore.