Page 204 of The Devil's Thorn
The thought should’ve been laughable. She was the one woman who wanted to see me dead—until she didn’t. And now… now I couldn’t stop thinking about her. About what we’d done. About how easy it had been to give in to her. To lose myself in her.
She wasn’t my weakness. No. But she was something. And I hated not knowing what.
I glanced over my shoulder, catching Yuri watching me from the leather chair, his drink untouched in his hand, eyebrow cocked like he was just waiting for the chaos to unravel.
“You’re out of your goddamn mind,” I muttered, turning to face him. “That’s not going to happen.”
“So you’d just let her raise a little devil on her own?” he asked, grinning as he took a sip. “Come on, Romanov. I’ve known you a long time. You wouldn’t walk away.”
“I wouldn’t have let it happen in the first place,” I snapped. Then paused. “But it did.”
Nikolai leaned forward from where he sat on the edge of the couch. “You really don’t know if she is on anything?”
I stared at him like he’d grown another head. “You think I fucking asked that?” I said, more to myself than them. “What do I look like—someone who checks expiration dates on protection I never used?”
Yuri let out a low whistle. “Rough week to start playing Russian Roulette with your bloodline, hermano.”
I ground my jaw. The truth was—I hadn’t been thinking. Not logically. Not like I usually do. When I touched her, when I kissed her, when I tore her apart and stitched her back together with my mouth and hands—nothing else had existed.
Not the cartel. Not the past. Not even the fact that she may very well be Lorenzo Silvani’s daughter.
It had been pure instinct. Lust. Rage. Obsession. And something deeper I couldn’t name without wanting to tear my own skin off.
Yuri stood and walked to the bar again, pouring himself another drink before raising the glass toward me. “To your future kid. May they inherit your temper and her eyes. Hell of a combo.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. My hands flexed at my sides, the burn in my arm still pulsing like a reminder of the night I bled all the way to her door.
Nikolai stood, the edge of his expression tight, serious. “You want us to start prepping security for Naples?”
I nodded once. “Everything. Routes, contingency plans, and I want eyes on Silvani the moment we land.”
“And Isabella?” he asked.
I met his eyes, voice low. “She doesn’t know anything yet. And until I’m sure… she won’t.”
He held my stare. “You think she’s lying?”
“I think she’s a bomb,” I said. “And I want to see whether she was built to explode… or to survive.”
They left after that—no more jokes, no more drinks. Just a heavy silence that trailed behind them like smoke.
And when I was alone again, the city outside looked a little darker.
But the fire inside me?
It hadn’t gone out. Not even close.
The echo of their footsteps faded, swallowed by the vast silence of the penthouse. I stood motionless for a while, still facing the skyline like it could give me answers. The sun was long gone now, buried behind the horizon, but the city below didn’t sleep. It never did.
I could feel it pulsing beneath the glass—lives moving, secrets unfolding, deals being made and betrayed all at once. I breathed in deep. Still.
Still she hadn’t said anything. Still she hadn’t asked. Still she was in my space, walking around like she didn’t turn the tide of my world the night I bled my way into hers.
Isabella Silvani.
I said the name in my mind—slowly, deliberately—like tasting something foreign on my tongue. No.
No, I didn’t believe it yet. Not until I saw them face-to-face. Not until I watched the way Lorenzo looked at her. Or didn’t. If there was blood between them, it would show. One way or another.
