Page 41 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

Chapter twenty-nine

Devil's Night

Katya

T he gown is a masterpiece of black silk and quiet control, stitched by someone who knew exactly how to cage a woman without chains.

Selected by my father, delivered without a word, it waited in solemn wait in Maria's arms. Wearing it now, surrounded by candlelight and carefully curated decadence, it clings to my body like a silent contract, one signed in legacy, obedience, and blood.

The room pulses with elegance. Shadows swirl between chandeliers and lace-veiled faces.

Each guest dons their mask with practiced ease, a crowd of strangers pretending to be friends, monsters pretending to be men.

Voices hum around the dining table, laughter floating in the air like perfume, the sharp clink of silverware against fine porcelain keeping tempo.

At a glance, this could be any exclusive gathering in the upper echelons of society, wealthy men, powerful women, aged wine and veiled intentions.

But something festers beneath it all. Something ancient and grotesque, like rot masked with roses.

Something isn’t right.

The glass in my hand catches the glow of candlelight, the liquid inside too red to be wine.

Swallowed out of courtesy, it burns down my throat with the bitterness of something I don’t want to understand.

No one speaks plainly here. Every sentence is a riddle, every toast a threat wrapped in metaphor.

The older men speak of “preserving the lineage,” of “tasting power at its purest.” They smile behind their masks like snakes curled in velvet.

A menu lands in front of me with a practiced flick of a waiter’s wrist.

Fingers curl around the edge of the card as my eyes fall to the page, and everything stops.

No entrées. No delicacies. Just names.

Columns of them. Some accompanied by symbols, others labeled by vague descriptions. Sweet. Fragile. Cured. Aged to perfection. Each name is branded with an age, eight, ten, eleven. My stomach twists, a tight coil of nausea rising up the back of my throat. This isn’t a dinner.

It’s a ritual.

They’ve dressed it up in crystal and silk, hidden it behind tradition and generational wealth, but the truth is clearer than any wine: this night is a celebration of hunger, and the hunger they feed is unspeakable.

From the head of the table, my father raises his glass.

The others follow. Their eyes, those I can see, gleam behind their masks with fevered reverence.

He speaks in metaphors, references “Devil’s Night” as if it were a sacred rite.

He thanks us for our loyalty, our silence.

Talks of sacrifice and rebirth, of removing the mask of society to reveal what we truly are.

His smile tightens when he speaks of those “ripe with power,” when he lifts his glass and references the “first taste of legacy.” His voice is warm. Inviting.

It makes my skin crawl.

Then comes the moment.

With a proud grin and a hand lifted toward the doors, my father makes the announcement. “Now,” he says, drawing every eye in the room, “let us welcome our esteemed guest. ”

Stillness descends like a curtain falling over a stage.

The double doors part slowly.

And through them walks the last person I wanted to see tonight.

No mask. No disguise. No hesitation.

Echo Kane strides into the room like a man returning to a warzone, his presence magnetic, undeniable. Every movement is calculated, each step a weapon. Blood has been cleaned from his hands, but something darker clings to him still. His suit is pressed, his eyes blank, unreadable.

He doesn’t search the crowd. Doesn’t acknowledge the sea of masked eyes turned his way.

He looks only at me.

There’s no smirk. No softness. Just silence between us, thick and strangling.

Whatever brought him here, it’s not about saving anyone.

It’s about survival.

And suddenly, I’m not sure who’s wearing the mask anymore.

The room doesn’t breathe as Echo crosses the threshold.

Not a flicker of movement, not a whisper from the guests who moments ago laughed freely over their flutes of sin.

The silence around him is thick, reverent.

The kind of stillness reserved for saints and sacrifices.

But there is nothing holy about the man walking toward the head of the table, only a dangerous kind of reverence, the same one given to predators in a den full of lesser beasts.

He doesn’t look away from me. Not even once.

And I don’t dare look away from him. He moves like he owns the floor beneath him, like the very tiles bend to his will.

But there’s something off in his eyes, something dulled, almost hollow.

The same sharpness is there, the same Echo, but faded…

like the soul behind him has been scorched into submission.

A chill coils through me as my father rises slowly to his feet, his wine glass catching the light like a blade.

The clapping starts, slow, deliberate, mechanical. One by one, each masked face joins in, and the room echoes with applause. It’s not joy they’re celebrating. It’s ownership.

“My friends,” my father begins, his voice smooth and practiced, his hand sweeping toward Echo like he’s presenting a prized stallion at auction.

“It is my pleasure, my honor… to introduce a man many of you have heard of. A man who has operated in the shadows of power, steering the unseen with skill and silence. Tonight, he no longer hides. Tonight, he steps into the light, as one of us. ”

Whispers ripple through the room, approving nods exchanged behind masks. The mask I wear is suddenly suffocating, the velvet pressing against my lips like cloth meant for the dead.

“Echo Kane,” my father continues, “former head of Catalyst. Weapon of the Briars. Architect of order in chaos. A man born in fire and sharpened by betrayal.”

A sick warmth blooms in my chest. The name burns. Former. He said former head. My stomach turns.

“But tonight,” my father says, his smile spreading wider, colder, “he sheds his past. He has seen our ways. He has looked upon the truth of House Romanov and not flinched. He comes to us willingly… reborn. ”

The guests murmur with pleasure. Glasses rise. Blood-red wine swirls.

“You see, we do not just break men,” my father says, walking toward Echo, who stands impossibly still, his hands at his sides, his jaw clenched tight.

“We rebuild them. And tonight, Mr. Kane has made his choice. He has bent the knee, and in doing so, will be granted the highest gift a sinner can ask for...absolution.”

He reaches into his coat.

A ceremonial blade. Ancient. Polished. Romanov-engraved.

My breath stalls as my father lifts Echo’s shirt, baring his chest to the air, to the room, to them . And without hesitation, he carves. Slow, shallow. Not for pain. For permanence.

Blood drips as the symbol is etched into his skin, the House crest, precise and cruel.

Echo doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even breathe.

“He is a servant to House Romanov now,” Dimitri declares, raising the bloodied blade. “A child reborn.”

More applause. The sound of madness dressed in civility.

No one questions. No one blinks.

Except me.

And Echo still won’t look away. His eyes never leave mine, even as his blood stains the collar of his shirt, even as the brand still glistens fresh along his chest.

But whatever he’s trying to tell me through those unblinking eyes, whatever piece of himself still fights inside that shattered shell, there’s no saving either of us now.

Not tonight.

Dimitri's blade glints crimson in the candlelight, a slow drip of Echo’s blood tracing down the curve of his abdomen.

The air is thick with triumph and control, the silence among the guests not hesitation, but hunger.

They feast with their eyes long before any toast is raised, savoring Echo’s submission like the finest cut of meat.

And still, he doesn’t flinch.

The applause fades, replaced by a dry, low chuckle. My father's hand hovers in the air before he lets the knife rest gently against a linen napkin, as if it were any ordinary utensil.

“Ah, Echo,” he muses with amusement, his voice curling around the name like smoke. “I must admit, I never imagined you would be the one to come crawling to our doorstep. The infamous architect of Catalyst, groveling at the feet of the family you once hunted.”

He turns toward the room, addressing the crowd now like a ringmaster welcoming the night’s finale.

“How far the great have fallen. And yet… how beautiful they look once broken in.”

A few masked guests chuckle, a toast is raised, and Echo’s lips part, but no words come. His chest rises, slow and tight, the fresh wound pulsing with every breath. But his eyes, they never waver from me.

Dimitri follows the gaze and lets the silence settle before he speaks again, this time with a faux gentleness that sends a chill up my spine.

“Katya, dear,” he says, as if this were any ordinary family dinner. “Would you do me the honor…” He pauses, savoring the pause like a course between wines. “…of serving our guest his first drink?”

Every gaze turns to me.

The velvet mask suddenly feels suffocating, the gown a noose. For a heartbeat too long, I don’t move.

My father's smile doesn't fade, it sharpens.

“This is a celebration, after all,” he adds, his tone coated in honey but laced with command. “He is one of us now. Let’s toast properly, yes?”

A servant steps forward with a crystal tray. Balanced atop it, a single black chalice, ornate, heavy, ancient. The liquid inside is deep red, far thicker than wine.

The scent hits me first.

Rich. Metallic. Sweet.

Not wine.

God. Not wine.

The tray lingers in the air between us, and slowly, carefully, I reach out and take the chalice into my hands.

It’s heavier than it should be, weighted with symbolism, with consequence.

Every inch of me screams to drop it. To run.

To put a bullet in every man seated at this cursed table and never look back.

But I walk.

One step after the other. Across the polished floor, toward Echo, toward the man who once peeled the world open with his cruelty and held me in the aftermath.

He watches every step. Not with pride. Not with desire. Just that same unreadable stillness, his face a stone mask cracked only by the fresh blood glistening over the brand on his chest.

Stopping just before him, the cup trembling slightly in my grasp, I glance up.

He doesn’t move.

“Drink,” my father says from behind me. “Let the night begin.”

And still, Echo says nothing.

He just stares, at me.

Waiting.

The chalice trembles in my hands, heavier now that I’m standing directly in front of him, Echo, stripped of his mask, his title, and whatever pieces of himself he once claimed to control.

But something stirs beneath that impassive face.

It’s subtle, buried deep under layers of practiced stoicism, but I feel it like a wire pulled tight between us.

I shouldn’t have stepped this close.

Before I can react, his hand shoots up and tangles in my hair, fingers knotting at the base of my skull. The gasp that leaves me isn’t loud, but it’s sharp enough to earn the attention of half the table. My body jerks slightly, the chalice sloshing just enough to lick the rim.

The room doesn’t move. No one dares intervene.

Leaning forward, his lips ghost my ear, slow, deliberate, the heat of him coiling through me like poison laced in honey.

“I’d hate for the precious drink to be wasted,” he whispers, voice low and rough. The kind of threat masked as seduction. The kind of tone that once made me weak. That still does.

His grip tightens, not painfully, but enough to remind me exactly who he is beneath all this pageantry. Or who he was. My body fights to stay steady, to keep the cup from tipping between us.

I can feel the eyes on us, their attention sharpening, their hunger mounting. This is a performance now, and we are center stage.

My lips part, but no words come out. There’s too much heat, too much memory. My breath catches as his thumb brushes the side of my neck, grazing over the pulse that betrays every lie I’ve ever told myself about him. About what this was. What it still might be.

He releases me just as slowly as he grabbed me, the tension hanging between us like smoke over a fire not yet smothered.

“Let him drink, Katya,” my father snaps, almost amused. “We wouldn’t want to keep our guests waiting.”

My hands move before my thoughts catch up, lifting the chalice to Echo’s lips.

He never takes his eyes off mine.

And when he drinks, slow and savoring, like he’s devouring something sacred, I feel it all unravel beneath my skin.

This isn’t submission.

This is war, dressed in elegance.

And we’re both bleeding.

The chalice is empty before I realize my fingers have gone numb from holding it. Slowly, I lower it. His lips are stained red, a smear of it at the corner of his mouth. Still, he says nothing. There is no thank you. No plea.

Only the fire of shame and something far more dangerous, smoldering beneath his silence.

My father claps his hands once.

The sharp sound cuts through the stillness like a gunshot, shattering the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Echo Kane,” he declares, his voice booming with theatrical reverence. “You are now a servant to House Romanov. Body, blood, and will.”

A cheer rises from the table. Glasses clink. Laughter blooms like something sour, and still, Echo stands in silence, his eyes dark hollows beneath the weight of the room.

Dimitri turns his attention to me next, a serpent’s smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

“Katya, dear,” he croons. “Why don’t you show him to his new quarters?”

My throat tightens.

Every eye returns to me. Every gaze a command.

My feet refuse to move. But I feel his presence beside me, Echo, still and waiting, like a knife left unsheathed.

The room watches. The mask on my face might as well be fused to my skin.

I nod once, barely.

And without another word, I lead him from the room.