Page 3 of The Devil's Thorn
Why didn’t I shoot him?
That question loops in my head, over and over, like a curse I can’t shake. I should’ve pulled the trigger. I had the chance. He was right there. It could’ve ended.
But something about the way he looked…
Something about that flicker—so brief, I almost convinced myself I imagined it.
Could a man who watched my family die have eyes so human?
I tuck the rifle into the case with mechanical efficiency, every motion precise. Muscle memory. No room for mistakes.
I zip it up and rise to my feet, knees stiff, fingers colder than they should be. The gravel crunches beneath my boots as I move toward the roof access.
“You good?” Kellan’s voice filters in again, low and calm.
“I’ll be better when I know,” I answer.
I don’t need to clarify what I mean. Kellan always knows what I mean.
The stairwell is dim, echoing with each footstep. I take them fast, needing to move. The adrenaline’s fading, and in its place comes the ache. Not physical. Something else. Something deeper.
I shouldn’t feel this. I shouldn’t feelanythingwhen it comes to Rafael Romanov.
But I do.
And that’s a problem.
The alley behind the building is empty when I push out the rusted door, hood already pulled over my head. The city feels different at night—darker, hungrier. A stray cat darts past my boots. Headlights flicker in the distance. A black SUV waits in the shadows, engine running low.
Ash leans against the hood, arms crossed, black jacket stretched over a frame built for breaking bones. His gaze snaps to me the second I step into view.
“You hesitated,” he says flatly.
Not a question. A statement.
Kellan’s in the driver’s seat, tapping something on the tablet in his lap. He doesn’t look up.
I stop in front of them, dropping the rifle case to the ground beside me. The echo of that moment still coils around my ribs like a vice.
“I didn’t have enough,” I say.
Ash’s jaw tightens. “You had a clean shot.”
“Clean shots don’t mean shit if you kill the wrong man.”
He pushes off the hood, stepping closer. “You’ve been chasing him for fifteen years. Planning this for the last five. We set it up perfectly. Intel was solid. You were ready.”
“IthoughtI was,” I snap. “But something doesn’t add up. The photo, the letters, the tipoffs… they all point to him, but it’stoo clean. Almost like someone wanted me to believe it.”
Ash narrows his eyes. “You think it’s a setup?”
Kellan finally speaks from the car. “She’s right. I started digging deeper after the last letter came in. The timestamps on the surveillance images were scrubbed and reuploaded through three different proxies. Someone wanted to leave a trail.”
I stare down at the rifle case. My reflection stares back, warped in the metal.
“They wanted me to kill him,” I murmur.
Ash scoffs. “So what, he’s innocent now? That’s what we’re doing?”
