Page 1 of The Devil's Thorn
CHAPTER 1
ISABELLA
Thewind bites.
Sharp and relentless, it cuts across my face like a warning, but I don’t move. I don’t flinch. My body has been still for over an hour—prone, belly pressed against the gravel rooftop, rifle gripped tight in my hands. A sniper’s stance.
Beneath me, the city breathes its usual chaos—horns, distant shouting, laughter that doesn’t reach this height. But none of that matters. The world narrows to one building, one window, one man.
Rafael Romanov.
He sits exactly where he’s supposed to. At the head of a long glass table, surrounded by men who would kill for him without blinking. Whohavekilled.
He’s calm. Composed. The kind of composed that can only be born in blood. The kind of calm I’ve spent my entire life preparing to destroy.
My finger rests near the trigger.
I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times. No,more. I used to dream about it when I couldn’t sleep. I used to mouth his name in the mirror like it tasted of vengeance.
I thought when I finally saw him again, my heart would race. That fury would surge, that grief would come roaring back like a monster tearing through my ribs.
But all I feel is… nothing.
A hollow calm that scares me more than rage ever could.
His face is sharper now. Older. More angular. He was just a teenager the night my life was burned to ash. Now he looks like a man carved from stone and precision. Even through the scope, I can see the chill in his gaze. That cold control.
He’s laughing.
Smiling at something one of his men said. It’s casual. Effortless.
Does he even remember what he did?
I think about the photo I found six months ago—the one I wasn’t supposed to see. Blurry, but unmistakable. Him, standing outside a black SUV. His father’s men all around him. Blood on the snow. I was ten. He was eighteen.
He was there.
And yet here I am. Kneeling above him, watching him breathe. Watching him move, untouched, unpunished.
Kellan’s voice crackles softly through the earpiece.
“You’ve got the shot, Iz.”
I say nothing.
“You want the call?”
Still, nothing.
Because the truth is…
I don’t know.
My body is ready. My training is second nature. I could pull the trigger, vanish into the skyline, and be gone before they even realize where the bullet came from.
But my heart?—
God, my heart is hesitating.
