Page 262 of The Devil's Thorn
I hesitated—hovered my finger over the trackpad—then clicked it. At first, it was just static. Then… voices. Muffled. Male. Speaking Russian. Low. Abrupt. Clipped.
And then… English. Translated words, distorted just enough to feelwrong:
“It’s done. The girl is marked. We move on the parents.”
“Leave her alive. She’s more useful that way.”
“No mistakes. Clean. Fast.”
“Romanov approves. It came from the top.”
My heart stopped. My skin went ice cold. Romanov.Rafael’sname.
No—no, it couldn’t?—
The voices bled back into Russian, skipping, crackling. A splice. A stutter.
“One shot. Through the windshield. The father first.”
“What about the girl?”
“She’s a child. She won’t remember.”
And then— Silence. Abrupt. Final.
My hands were shaking. I closed the laptop, stumbled backward like the words were still playing in the room. The USB was still sticking out of the port like a weapon. Small. Sharp. Deadly.
My vision blurred. My pulse roared in my ears. They had something to do with it. The Russians.Him.
Rafael.
Had he known?
Had hebeen in on it?
I staggered to the counter and gripped the edge with both hands like it could hold me together, but nothing was working. My thoughts weren’t lining up anymore. They were frayed wires. Sharp. Sparking.
Had he known who I was the entire time?
Wasthatwhy he found me?
Wasthatwhy Anna had looked at me like that?
I backed away from the table like the USB might come alive and bite me. I didn’t even know what I was feeling anymore. Rage. Fear.Betrayal.All of it. Too much. Too fast.
And all I knew, all I could feel—deep in my gut—was that I wasn’t safe here anymore. Not with what I knew now. And definitely not with him.
I didn’t even realize I was moving until I felt the floor under my bare feet. Cold. Solid. Too real. My body moved on instinct while my mind spiraled somewhere else—still replaying the voices. The clipped words. The name.
Romanov approves.
I could still hear it, over and over, like it was burned into the air around me.
I walked to my bedroom with hands that didn’t feel like mine and opened the top drawer of my nightstand. The gun was right where I left it.
I’d forgotten I even had it until now—one of those things you keep for emergencies, locked in a drawer, hoping you never have to touch it. But tonight?
Thiswasthe emergency.
