Page 227 of The Devil's Thorn
Only him. Only Rafael.
“I need to move,” I said quietly, suddenly aware of how still I’d been.
He nodded. “Come.”
His hand didn’t take mine. It didn’t need to. I walked beside him, matching his stride as we moved through the crowd. The air shifted as we passed, conversations dipping lower, eyes following.
Let them watch. Let them wonder. I was tired of being a shadow.
My heels echoed softly against the stone, and the scent of wine and expensive perfume lingered in the air. Gilded sconces flickered along the walls, casting gold light over frescoes older than anyone here could name.
I glanced up once, at the painted ceilings. A woman with a blade in her hand and fire at her feet. Her eyes were like mine—dark, unblinking. Unapologetic.
Good.
I followed Rafael as he led us away from the densest part of the room. We passed figures in crisp suits, faces I didn’t know, and a few I’d learned to recognize by their hunger. Every step felt like peeling away layers I hadn’t known I wore.
Finally, we reached a quieter stretch of corridor just beyond the grand hall—arched ceilings, moonlight slipping through tall windows. The hum of the gathering softened to a distant murmur.
My pulse began to even out, but the fire in my chest still simmered. “I don’t like him,” I said, eyes forward.
Rafael’s voice was low. “You’re not supposed to.”
I looked at him. “What do you see when you look at him?”
He didn’t answer right away. But when he did, it wasn’t what I expected. “A man who lost control a long time ago… and never forgave anyone for it.”
I let that sit between us. The weight of it.
“Then why does he still have power?”
“Because people mistake silence for strength. And fear for loyalty.”
I felt that. Deep.
“But you don’t,” I said.
“No,” Rafael said. “I see him clearly. Always have.”
I didn’t ask what that meant. I wasn’t sure I was ready to know. But my thoughts kept spinning, looping back to the way Lorenzo had looked at me—like he saw something he’d forgotten, something not quite formed.
The bracelet. My mother’s bracelet.
And the way his fingers had hesitated over the rose like it whispered something to him that he couldn’t quite hear.
“I don’t want to be part of anyone’s legacy,” I muttered. “Not his. Not Viktor’s. Not whatever past is clawing its way toward me.”
“You’re not,” Rafael said. “You’re rewriting your own.”
I stopped walking and turned to face him. “You knew that bracelet meant something to him.”
He didn’t confirm it. He didn’t need to. But he stepped closer, his voice low. “I know it means something to you.”
And that—somehow—was worse. Because it meant he wasn’t shielding me from the truth out of manipulation. He was doing it because he knew what it would cost me.
The silence between us stretched, not heavy now but fragile. Like something sacred neither of us knew how to name.
I looked out the window beside me, into the night. Past the gardens and the cliffs beyond, where the moon draped everything in silver.
