Page 68 of The Devil's Thorn
The second the guy shifts, Kellan moves—spinning and driving his fist into the man’s face with a satisfying crack.
The man stumbles, snarling, already rearing back to retaliate. But before he can— Rafael lifts a single hand.
“Enough.”
The man halts. Barely. Breathing hard.
Rafael looks at him once, eyes narrowed.
“Leave. Now.”
The guy hesitates… then backs off, wiping the blood from his split lip as he storms out, slamming the door behind him.
The room stills.
Just me. Rafael. Nikolai. Kellan. Ash.
No masks. No lies.
Only fire and whatever truth we’re willing to bleed for.
The silence swells again. Not awkward. Not empty.Strategic.
Rafael stands a few feet from us, hands loose at his sides, the faintest gleam of calculation behind his eyes. He studies us like a chessboard.
Then he speaks.
“So…”
“Let’s start simple.”
His voice is calm. But the tension beneath it coils like a leash being shortened.
“What were you really doing in my casino?”
Kellan scoffs, still rubbing the back of his bruised hand. “Working.”
Rafael’s eyes flick to him.
“You call breaking into security controlworking?”
“We didn’t break in,” Ash grits. “We bypassed it.”
Rafael actually laughs at that. Low. Dry. The kind of sound that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re bold.”
He walks forward slowly. Steps deliberate. My heartbeat ticks louder in my ears, but I hold still as he closes the distance between us, but he doesn’t look at me. Not yet.
He steps behind me, and I tense instinctively. But he doesn’t touch me right away. Not until his voice comes again, quieter this time.
“You must be something special,Natasha,” he murmurs, letting the fake name drip from his mouth like a taunt. “To have two men ready to kill for you without a word.”
Then— I feel his breath against the back of my neck as his armsslide around me.One hand finds my waist. The other trails upward. Fingers brushing the torn fabric near my wound… And then drifting down—over the buttons of my bloodstained blouse.
Deliberate.Slow.
I don’t move. But I feel both Ash and Kellan surge slightly from behind me.
