All Chapters of A Sinful Devotion: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The city was silent, almost eerily so. Rain had washed the streets clean, leaving behind puddles that reflected the fractured neon of the skyline, flickering like memories of a life Nicholas Rhodes no longer wanted. The night clung to him, heavy and suffocating, wrapping around his shoulders like a familiar, oppressive cloak.He sat in the vast, empty office of the Rhodes empire, the skyline sprawled before him through floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights sharp and cold. Everything was in place—executives had been briefed, security tightened, enemies eliminated—but the victory tasted bitter in his mouth. Nothing felt like victory. Not after Rafe. Not after what he had lost.The gun rested on the polished desk, a cruel reminder of the chaos that had swallowed everything he held dear. Nicholas’s hands trembled, an unfamiliar vulnerability creeping beneath the layers of control and composure he had meticulously maintained for years. His mind replayed the final moments, every hea

Nick didn’t leave immediately. He stayed in the café long after Rafe had walked away, sitting in the corner booth with his untouched coffee cooling between his fingers. Outside, the sky shifted toward late afternoon, amber light spilling through the windows and casting warm shadows across the tables. But Nick didn’t see any of it. His gaze stayed locked on Rafe. Every step he took. Every gesture. Every stolen glance toward Nick that he probably thought went unnoticed. Nick absorbed all of it. He couldn’t tear his eyes away even if he tried. For a year, he had lived off memories—grainy, fading snapshots of a man he thought he’d lost forever. But this? Seeing Rafe breathe… seeing him laugh… even seeing the faint frown lines when he concentrated— It was too real. Too vivid. Too much. Nick pressed his thumb against the ceramic mug until a sharp sting shot through his hand. The pain grounded him, reminding him this wasn’t a hallucination or a cruel trick. Rafe was h

Nicholas didn’t remember standing. He didn’t remember walking. He didn’t remember pushing the café door open or stepping into the cold afternoon light. All he remembered was the way his heart had stopped beating the moment he looked into Rafe’s face. Alive. Breathing. Smiling politely at strangers. Rafe. He kept walking. The street blurred around him—cars passing, voices rising and falling, the world continuing as if his entire life had not just shattered and reformed in a single breath. His chest felt tight. His hands were trembling. Nicholas Rhodes never trembled. But he was trembling now. Because the one thing he had mourned, buried, burned for— The one person whose death had hollowed him out— The man whose blood he still dreamed about— Was alive. Alive and unaware. Alive and serving coffee. Alive and looking at him with blank innocence. Nicholas stopped at the end of the street, bracing one hand against a lamppost as the realization hit him all at once. He wh

Rafe's POV The man with the dark eyes comes back the next day. I notice him before the bell over the café door rings — before I hear his footsteps, before I smell the faint trace of smoke and something sharper, metallic, like rain on steel. It’s stupid. But my body knows him. My hands still as I’m wiping down the counter, my pulse skipping in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with recognition. I look up. There he is. Same coat. Same posture. Same impossible stillness, like the room has shifted to accommodate him instead of the other way around. Nicholas. I don’t know why his name comes to me so easily. I told myself last night that it didn’t mean anything. That I was reading too much into a stranger who looked at me like I mattered more than the rest of the world combined. People look at people all the time. But not like that. His gaze locks onto mine the second our eyes meet. Something tightens in my chest. He doesn’t smile. He never does.

Nick's POV I know the moment he’s recognized.It’s instinct — the same one that kept me alive in rooms filled with men who smiled while sharpening knives. The same instinct that taught me how to read betrayal in the tilt of a head, the pause before a breath.The bell above the café door rings.Rafe looks up from the counter, smiles softly, and says, “Good afternoon.”The man who walks in freezes.Just for a fraction of a second.But it’s enough.His eyes lock on Rafe’s face like he’s staring at a ghost.And I feel it.That cold, crawling certainty sliding down my spine.Someone remembers him.---THE MAN FROM THE PASTHis name is Luca Santori.Former logistics runner for a splinter syndicate we burned to the ground three years ago. Not high-ranking, not brilliant — but observant. The kind of man who survived by remembering faces, debts, and blood.I killed his boss.Rafe killed his escape route.And Luca watched it all happen.Now he’s standing in my café — our café — with recognitio