Page 205 of The Devil's Thorn
But the message Viktor sent kept circling back, like a scent I couldn’t wash off.
Cryptic bastard. He never gave anything straight. That was his game. Letting people pull their own strings until they hung themselves.
I didn’t like the feeling building in my gut. The slow, gnawing one. The kind that told me something I didn’t want to believe was probably true.
I turned from the window, my movements sharp, and walked across the penthouse toward the bar. I didn’t pour a drink—I wasn’t like Yuri. I didn’t drink to take the edge off. I kept the edge sharp, honed like a blade that could split skin from bone when I needed it to.
Instead, I opened the drawer beneath the bar and pulled out my backup phone. No personal messages, no saved numbers. Just encrypted lines, contact lists coded by memory. I opened the private channel I rarely used and typed a name I hadn’t reached out to in over a year. A man in Milan who owed me more than just favors.
If there was any confirmation about Lorenzo Silvani’s bloodline, he’d find it.
I sent the message and locked the phone again. I didn’t trust easy. And I never moved without knowing the ground beneath my feet wouldn’t give out.
But if Isabella really was Silvani’s daughter… If she had been walking beside me this whole time, tangled in my sheets, digging her nails into my skin while the name of my enemy was written in her blood…
What the fuck did that make me?
A man betrayed?
Or a man who should’ve seen it coming?
I sat on the edge of the couch, elbows resting on my knees, and let my head hang forward for a moment. Breathing in.Breathing out. I still hadn’t told her. I didn’t plan to. Not until I was sure.
And when I was?
She’d either shatter like glass. Or burn with me. There would be no middle ground.
I reached for my lighter, flicked it open, then closed it. Again. Again. The click of it matched the rhythm of my thoughts. Sharp. Repetitive. Dangerous.
I didn’t know what the hell was coming in Naples. But I knew something was. Something bigger than her. Bigger than Lorenzo.
And it was already on its way.
Let it come. I’d be ready.
The room felt still, like the calm that settled before a storm broke open. Not the kind you hear rolling in from the horizon. The kind that justappears—heavy and sudden, as if it’s been waiting for the right moment to descend.
I leaned back against the couch, arms stretching along the backrest, my gaze fixed on the city beyond the glass. But I wasn’t seeing any of it. My mind was somewhere else entirely.
Naples.
The name alone was a trigger. The smell of salt in the air, the cracked cobblestones underfoot, the whispers of vendetta in every corner.
That was where the Silvani name lived. Bled. Ruled. And in three days, I’d be walking back into the heart of it. But this time, I wouldn’t be alone.
I tilted my head back against the couch, exhaling slowly through my nose.
Isabella.
She had claws under all that cool composure. I’d seen them now. Felt them. And if she truly was who Viktor hinted at—if—then she had been bred by fire long before I ever touched her.
My phone buzzed on the table in front of me. I didn’t reach for it right away. I just stared at the screen, waiting for the second vibration. It came a heartbeat later.
Matteo. Finally.
I grabbed the phone and swiped it open.
“I’ve never heard a whisper about a daughter. Not once. But if there’s something there, I’ll find it. Give me a little time.”
