Page 258 of The Devil's Thorn
“Alone?”
“Always.”
I didn’t ask for protection. I gave it. And that meant shielding her from everything—even the truth. Especially the truth.
“I want eyes on her twenty-four seven,” I said. “No mistakes. No breaks. If she moves, you move with her. If someone so much as breathes in her direction, I want to knowbeforethey do it.”
Yuri gave a slow nod. “Got it. Shadow and silence.”
“And if Lorenzo sends someone?” Nikolai asked.
“Kill them.”
They didn’t question it. Didn’t flinch. Because they understood what was at stake now. Not just blood. Not just leverage. Buther.
And that wasn’t something I was willing to put on the table. Not for Lorenzo. Not for anyone.
CHAPTER 21
ISABELLA
Seven days.
Seven days since we landed back from Italy, and it’s been like living in a vacuum. A world made of silence and unanswered questions—one that keeps caving in on itself while everyone who should have answers disappears into the dark.
I stared at my phone again. The screen was black, no new messages, no missed calls, nothing but a reflection of the girl I didn’t even recognize anymore.
No calls fromAnna.Not one.
Not even a single reply to the three messages I left. I didn’t want to sound desperate. I didn’t want tobedesperate. But Iwas, and I was done pretending otherwise.
We used to talk every day. She always picked up. Always.
Even when I didn’t need anything. Even when it was just to hear her voice for five minutes, or ask her if she remembered the name of that bakery I liked when I was ten.
Now?
Nothing. Like she’d vanished.
And Rafael— Five days.
Five days of silence from him. No calls. No texts. No messages. Not even a damn one-word reply.
I swiped through the list of sent texts like it would change the outcome:
“Where are you?”
“Call me.”
“Rafael, this isn’t funny.”
“I need to know what’s going on.”
Read none. Answered none.
It made no sense. None of it did.
I knew him—or at least IthoughtI did. He wasn’t warm. He wasn’t tender. But he was consistent. He didn’t ignore. He didn’tdisappear.
