Page 24 of Thorns of Death

He shook his head. “I don’t have it. Only Sofia knows the names, and she doesn’t share them with anyone.”

Then he was of no use to me. A shot rang out, echoing through the dark dock.

“Tell them not to touch his daughter,” I instructed Manuel while flicking a look at Kingston. The frigid air rolled off him in waves. I kept my eyes on him as I switched to Italian and said, “Stai bene?” You good?

“Sì.” Kingston was a man of few words.

It was the wrong time for him to have one of his episodes. Not that he could control them. I waited, studying his features to ensure his complexion didn’t pale further. It was usually the first sign of his seizures. The episodes weren’t pleasant to witness.

“I’m good,” he repeated, his voice steadier this time.

I nodded.

“We have to find the mole,” I declared. “Before it costs us all we’ve built. Only the four of us know about it.” I fixed my gaze on Lykos, Kingston, and Manuel. “It doesn’t leave this room until we find whoever it is.”

And then that damn mole would pay with every drop of their blood.

EIGHT

ISLA

My life went on.

Somehow, I had divided my life into two sections: before Enrico and after him. Before the most incredible sex of my existence, and after… Damn him! It was almost worse knowing it was actually possible, and not just a thing of steamy novels.

It had been a week since I last saw him, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was being watched.

A few times, I swore I caught a glimpse of Donatella Marchetti on the street. But when I went after the person, they’d disappear, or turn out to be an innocent bystander simply roaming the streets of Paris. It made me edgy, but I was unsure what to do about it. I could call my big brother, but that seemed extreme. Besides, I’d have to admit to Illias that I slept with Enrico Marchetti, and that was a hard pass.

Instead, I just went on with my normal routine. Winter was approaching and the rehearsals at Opéra National de Paris for the upcoming performance of Tchaikovsky’sSwan Laketook up most of my time. It would be performed over and over again over the holidays. It was my least favorite piece of his. The1812 Overturewas my favorite. Not because it was the story of Napoleon’s defeat at the hands of the Russian army, but because it portrayed so many complicated emotions. The distraught mood of the people after Napoleon declared war, that sorrowful harmony declaring the end was near.

It was late in the night, and all the girls were asleep. Except for me. I tossed and turned, unable to find rest. Usually, playing my violin soothed me, but it’d wake up the entire building, never mind my friends.

It left me staring at the dark ceiling, my mind scrambling with random thoughts, but always circling back to my mother.

Some girls grew up with daddy issues, but I didn’t have that problem. Illias filled that hole with the role he played in my childhood. He was my brother, my father, my uncle. He even tried to fill the impossible role of my mother. Of course, I’d never tell him that he’d failed. He’d tried so fucking hard.

My mother.

She was an enigma. While Illias told me plenty about our father who was a ruthless businessman and had become unnecessarily cruel as he got older, he kept tightlipped about my mother. About who she was. Her lineage. Her parentage. She must have had one, yet he refused to share it with me.

I always had a sense he did it to protect me.

It was hard to just brush off. She was my mother. Every girl should know certain things about her mother. Did she love Father? Was she satisfied being second best? Because knowing bits and pieces that my brother Maxim had let slip, our father lost his mind when his and Illias’s mother died. It made me wonder if he’d sought solace in my mother.

I sighed and turned to my side, staring at the landscape of Paris glimmering under the full moon.

All in all, I was a happy girl. I had great friends. We’d been through thick and thin. We always had each other’s backs. And even though life might get complicated now that Reina was getting married, we were a unit. Always would be.

And I had wonderful brothers. I immediately winced.One brother. I had one brother left. Maxim died last summer, and while it hadn’t come as a surprise—not after he’d been struggling for so many years with addiction issues—it still hurt. It still saddened me. I remembered him as he was before he fell into the abyss of drug abuse.

A soft knock against my door startled me, and I shot up on the mattress.

The door creaked—sounding much louder in the dead of the night—and Reina’s curls of spun gold peeked through.

“Did I wake you?” she whispered.

I shook my head and patted a spot next to me on my queen-sized bed. “Nope. I can’t sleep.”