Page 213 of The Devil's Thorn

“I think you’re a contradiction,” he said. “And I’ve stopped expecting clarity from you.”

I shot him a sideways glare, but he was already turning.

“Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

I hesitated again, but only for a breath.

He didn’t look back to see if I’d follow. He didn’t need to.

My feet moved before I told them to. I followed him down the hall lit only by gold sconces and velvet shadows, silence folding around us like a shared secret. His pace was unhurried, but I could feel the tension in him—coiled just beneath the surface, never resting.

He stopped in front of his suite, pulled a key card from his pocket, and opened the door. The lights were off, moonlight casting a faint silver glow across the marble floor and the glass decanters on a dark wood bar. I stepped inside behind him, the door shutting softly behind us.

I didn’t know what he was about to show me. But the look in his eyes told me this wasn’t just about a view or a memory. It was something deeper. Something that lived inside his silence.

And I was about to walk into it.

The dim light bathed Rafael’s room in gold, the amber hue flickering over the walls like candlelight, soft and low. I stood there, just a few steps inside, my fingers still lightly brushing against the pendant Anna had given me earlier, the cool metal grounding me. My thoughts were a mess—fragments of everything that had happened between us, the chaos of Naples waiting for us tomorrow, and the strange serenity of standing in a place that felt too intimate, too quiet.

Rafael didn’t speak at first. He moved with quiet precision, walking toward the dresser. He turned the dimmer on the wall until the overhead lights glowed low, washing the room in a warm, amber shadow. Then he turned his back to me and slowly reached for the hem of his shirt.

My heart beat once—hard—as I realized what he was about to do. “You always like undressing in dramatic silence, or am I just special?” I said, the sarcasm half-hearted, an instinct to mask the sudden shift in my chest.

He glanced over his shoulder, his mouth twitching like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite get there. “Only when the moment calls for it.”

And then he pulled the shirt over his head, not rushed, not showy—just slow, deliberate, as if he knew the tension was thick enough to slice with a knife.

The second he turned, I froze.

The phoenix tattoo on his back spanned shoulder to shoulder, inked in masterful strokes—sharp wings stretching wide, the creature rising from flames and ash. But what caught me, what stole my breath, was the crimson red thread winding around the wings, like a ribbon binding it in place.

I blinked, staring, something inside me twisting. “You have one too,” I murmured, not a question. I stepped forward without realizing, my voice barely above a whisper. “The red thread.”

He turned toward me fully now, the shadows catching along the edges of muscle and ink, and for a moment, he said nothing.

“Yuri told me what it meant,” I added before he could speak. “That in your world, it symbolizes your first kill. He didn’t exactly ask when he tattooed it on me. Just gave me some poetic line about blood and fate.”

I paused, studying Rafael’s expression. “I didn’t regret it,” I added, quieter. “Still don’t.”

Rafael’s eyes settled on mine like they always did—steady, intense, too-knowing. “That’s one version of what it means,” he said. “The part Yuri tells people who’ve already crossed a line.”

I tilted my head slightly, unsure whether to brace myself.

He looked away for a second, as if dragging the words out from somewhere deeper. “To me, it means survival. Every man who lives long enough in this world leaves something behind—his soul, his mercy, his softness. That thread…” he gestured toward the ink spiraling over the phoenix’s wings, “…is what binds the ashes of who I used to be. It’s what remains after fire.”

My mouth parted slightly, but no words came. Because that? That I hadn’t expected.

“So when Yuri marked you with it,” Rafael added, quieter now, his eyes back on me, “he didn’t just link you to the Bratva. He tied you to something bigger. Something he should’ve told you.”

The silence stretched. But I didn’t break it. I stood there, feeling the thread braided into my hair and the one inked onto my skin burn like an echo of something I hadn’t fully understood until now.

And still—I didn’t regret it. Not a single thing of it.

I watched him, my fingers curling tighter around the pendant as Rafael turned slowly, the dim light brushing against the lines of his face, softening everything but the intensity in his eyes. There was something strange about the quiet between us—thick, like the air before a storm.

My heart was still tracing the edges of the phoenix on his back, the way the red thread wound around its wings like fire and fate, and I couldn’t shake the way it made something in my chest ache.

He hadn’t said anything in a while, just stood there like he was lost in thought—until finally, he blinked and looked at me. “You have it too,” he murmured, eyes trailing down to where the thread wove itself around the blade on my skin.