Page 183 of The Devil's Thorn

“Restless, huh?” He tilted his head, studying me with something far more calculating behind the easy smile. “Interesting choice of weaponry for restlessness.”

I didn’t answer. He didn’t press. Instead, he took another drag, exhaling toward the sky like he wasn’t watching me from the corner of his eye. But I knew he was. Watching everything.

“You’re not supposed to leave the property alone, you know,” he said after a moment. “Boss’s orders.”

I shrugged. “Last I checked, Rafael isn’t my warden.”

Yuri let out a quiet laugh. “No, but he does have a thing about keeping his pretty enemies breathing.”

“Then he should’ve killed me when he had the chance,” I said, stepping past him.

He made no move to stop me, just said softly behind me, “Just don’t get killed before I teach you how to throw a proper knife. You’ve got potential, but that grip—still too clean.”

I paused just long enough to glance over my shoulder. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then I kept walking. Out of the light, into the heavy heat of the Cartagena night. My thoughts sharpened with every step. I wasn’t looking back. Not this time. Not when something darker was finally within reach.

The night swallowed me whole the second I stepped beyond the gates of the resort. The roads were quiet. The streetlights here were duller, some flickering like they hadn’t been touched in months. The occasional buzz of insects and the distant hum of a boat on the water were the only reminders that the world still breathed.

Each step I took echoed louder in my own head than it ever could out here. The pavement stretched long in front of me, and I walked it like it owed me something—like it held the answers hidden in the shadows I wasn’t afraid to chase anymore.

The jacket clung to my skin, trapping the heat against my back, but I didn’t remove it. I needed the weight. The discomfort. It reminded me that I was still in control—that no matter how much I felt, I could hold it in.

My mind kept circling back to the conversation I overheard. To the nameDamyenwhispered in unease. To the way the voice cracked when he mentioned Rafael.

They’d ambushed him. Hurt him. Could’ve killed him. And now they were planning something more.

I should’ve told Rafael. But I knew him. He would’ve shut me down, told me to stay out of it, reminded me with that maddening voice of his thathis worldwasn’t mine.

Except it was.

It became mine the second my family’s blood painted my childhood. The second I chose revenge over grief. And the second I saved his life that night at the casino.

I didn’t do it for him. I did it forme.But now… now the lines were blurring. And I didn’t like that.

The night air thickened as I walked farther, past quiet houses, a sleeping gas station, and streets that grew more uneven with every step. Cartagena was beautiful, but it had its forgotten edges—the parts tourists didn’t see. That suited me just fine.

Every minute dragged like an hour. The sound of my boots on cracked stone. The way my eyes scanned every corner, every rustle in the shadows. I was careful. Kellan was tracking me. Ash was waiting. I wasn’t completely alone.

But the closer I got, the more I felt like I was walking into something I couldn’t name. A gut instinct. That quiet scream under the surface.

I clutched the phone in my pocket like it might slip from my grip if I didn’t. My fingers brushed the holster at my waist. The cool press of metal was comforting.

Almost there.

The buildings grew tighter, older. The kind of place where everything had chipped paint and bars on the windows, where people didn’t ask questions and didn’t want answers.

I moved slower now. Quieter.

And then I saw them. Three men standing near the side of a worn-down building with flaking brick and a rusted door. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t joking. One lit a cigarette with a shaky hand. Another kept glancing over his shoulder like something might leap from the dark and rip his throat out.

I pressed myself behind a tree, heart suddenly thudding against my ribs—not from fear, but from readiness. My eyes locked onto them, watching. Waiting.

I’d made it. And something was about to happen.

I crouched lower behind the wall, the rough stone biting into my legs through the fabric of my pants. I didn’t care. My eyes stayed locked on the men just a few feet away. The light from the lamppost above them cast jagged shadows over their faces, but I could still make out enough. The nervous way one of them paced. The way another kept fiddling with something in his hand—keys, maybe. The third leaned against the wall like he had no interest in being there at all.

I inched closer, slow and silent, slipping behind a stack of wooden crates and old rusted barrels at the edge of the lot.