Page 171 of The Devil's Thorn
He let out a low huff that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so jagged. “I figured,” he said. “That’s why I came.”
“You’re bleeding all over the couch.”
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “It’s not the first time I’ve bled in silk.”
I stood there, arms crossed, trying to decide if I was more irritated at the blood or the man. “What the hell happened?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked past me, his gaze flicking toward the counter. “Who were you talking to?” he asked, voice lower now. Curious. Controlled.
I held his stare. “None of your business.”
He tilted his head, studying me like he was reading a book only he had the code to. “Everything you do is my business.”
“That sounds a lot like control, Rafael,” I said quietly. “You should know how that ends.”
He smirked, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “You’d have to kill me first.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The tension curled tight between us again—familiar, dark, threaded with too many things we hadn’t said. He sat there like a king bleeding on his throne, daring me to do something. To care. To leave. To stay.
“What happened?” I asked again, this time quieter.
His gaze dropped to his arm, then back to me. “Someone thought they could take what’s mine.”
“And?”
He smiled slowly. “I reminded them who the hell I am.”
I felt the heat crawl up my spine, not from fear—but from understanding. Because I would’ve done the same thing. Because I had.
“That person,” he said after a moment, nodding toward the phone, “was it someone you trust?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
“Because you looked at them like they were your anchor,” he said simply. “And people like us don’t get many of those.”
I hated that he wasn’t wrong. I hated that he could see it.
I walked past him without answering, heading to grab supplies for the wound. “Don’t get comfortable,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m only letting you bleed here because it’s better than letting you bleed on the street.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he muttered.
I didn’t look back. But I felt the shift in the air. The weight of everything he wasn’t saying. The things I didn’t want to ask. Yet.
I turned my back on him and walked toward the bathroom. The tile was cool beneath my feet, but I barely felt it. My thoughts were louder. Heavier. Tangled up in images I didn’t want but couldn’t stop.
Rafael. Bleeding. His voice like smoke and gravel, his mouth still curved in that maddening smirk even when blood darkened the fabric of his shirt.
He shouldn’t be here. Not like this at least.
He should’ve gone to Yuri or Nikolai. To anyone else. But instead, he’d knocked on my door—like a ghost stumbling in from a war I hadn’t been invited to.
I opened the cabinet and grabbed the med kit, fingers moving automatically. Alcohol, gauze, surgical thread. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t shake. Because I’d done this before.
I had stitched up Ash in a motel bathroom once while blood soaked the towels and Kellan held the door shut with a Glock in his hand. That was the night I’d realized emotions would get me killed.
So I buried them.
