Page 128 of The Devil's Thorn
“You found a target and you brought me a corpse.”
“He’s not dead,” I say. “But he will be.”
His eyes flash, and for a moment—just a moment—he looks almost impressed. “Why?” he asks. “Why save me?”
I tilt my head. “Don’t worry. You’re still the only one I’m planning to kill.”
That makes him pause. Still. And then—He laughs. Quiet. Dangerous.
Not the kind that carries amusement. The kind that burns under the surface. Like I just handed him a match and dared him to light it.
He steps closer. Slowly. His gaze drags over the blood on my hands, the fire in my eyes, the cut on my shoulder that never fully healed.
“You really were made for this world,” he murmurs.
“No,” I whisper. “I was made to burn it.”
His eyes linger on mine. And in that second, behind a locked door with gunfire in the distance and blood drying beneath my nails, I know what this is. A reckoning.
His gaze drops once—slow and deliberate—trailing my form. Then back to my face.
Rafael Romanov doesn’t thank people. He doesn’t trust them. But he just let me save his life. And now we’re locked in the fallout.
His words settle deep into my chest like smoke curling around my ribs.“You really were made for this world.”
But it’s what I said after that haunts louder.
The air between us pulses, heavier than the blood that once dripped from my blade. He doesn’t move at first—not really—but his gaze… his gaze doesn’t leave mine for a second.
And mine doesn’t stray either.
We’re standing in this silence like it was built just for us. Like the whole fucking world outside this door is fire and ash and gunpowder—and in here, it’s just this. Him. Me. The war between.
My hands are still sticky with Viktor’s blood. My heart’s still pounding from the shot I dodged. And Rafael… he’s looking at me like I’m the one thing in this place he can’t put into a box. Or bury.
His steps are slow. Controlled. Measured like a king deciding if he’ll spare the wild card that just changed the rules of the game.
But when he stops in front of me—so close I can feel the warmth of him—I don’t back down. I lift my chin instead.
“You shouldn’t have come for me,” he says softly.
“You’re welcome.”
“You could’ve let that bullet tear through me.”
“Believe me,” I murmur, “I considered it.”
And that makes him smile—but it’s that dark kind of smile. The kind that says he wants to peel me apart just to see how far I’ll let him go before I draw my blade again.
His hand lifts. Slow. Almost thoughtful. He brushes his knuckles against my cheek before his palm cups the side of my face, his thumb ghosting over my skin with the kind of gentleness I didn’t know he had.
“Why do you keep doing this?” he asks, voice so low it sounds like a secret. “Saving me. Even when you hate me.”
I stare up at him. My breath shallow. My heart loud. “Maybe I’m keeping you alive,” I whisper, “so I can be the one to end you.”
He breathes in slow. His eyes drop to my mouth. That heat simmers hotter now, wrapping around us, choking everything else out. His other hand lifts, fingers brushing the curve of my waist, slow and deliberate. Like he wants to know how I feel before he makes a move.
“I’ve bled for less than the way you look at me,” he murmurs.
