Page 60 of The Devil's Thorn
“I’m curious,” he says simply, voice smooth. “You work like someone who doesn’t need to. Like someone who chose it. People like that always have stories.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, keeping my expression even.
“I like knowing who’s in my space,” he adds.
“Your space,” I echo.
He smiles slightly. “Everything below this floor belongs to me. The walls, the floors, the people who walk across them.”
“And the ones who serve your drinks?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. His silencesaysit.
Yes.
Everyone.
He walks past me then, not brushing against me but close enough that I feel the cold press of his control slip across my skin.
Then, slowly, he lowers himself onto the black leather couch that faces the windows.
He sits like a man completely comfortable. One arm across the back. Drink in hand. Watching the skyline like it’s a piece he helped build.
And he waits. Because now it’s my turn. To speak. To move. To lie.And every second I don’t? He learns more about me than I want him to.
He doesn’t speak. He just watches me from the couch, one arm resting across the back, drink dangling lazily between two fingers. Calm. Patient. Like he’s content to let silence do the talking.
And it almost does.
Because the longer I stand here, the more it presses into my skin—demanding something from me I don’t want to give.
I shouldn’t sit. I shouldn’t speak. But I do. Because not playing is more dangerous than stepping into the fire.
I walk slowly across the room and lower myself onto the edge of the armchair across from him, legs crossed, posture sharp.
I don’t touch the drink he offered.
He notices.
Of course he does. He always does.
He takes another slow sip of his own and turns his gaze back to the city lights, as if the conversation is entirely mine to start now.
So I do.
“Do you always bring people up here just to ask about their lives?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral, calm. “Or is this some rare honor?”
He glances back at me, amused.
“I don’t bring many people up here,” he says. “And I never ask questions I don’t want answers to.”
That gets a flicker of something in my chest. Not fear. Not yet.
Just heat.
From the way he says it. Like truth is currency, and I’ve yet to offer him anything worth trading for.
I tilt my head slightly, shifting the focus.
