Alle Kapitel von THE DEVIL'S TOY CAME FOR REVENGE : Kapitel 21 – Kapitel 30

HENDRIXFather Oren's words followed me back to the east wing.Erdem might not have known Liora was brought to the estate but his empire had given someone the rooms, the guards, the routes, and the silence required to hide her.Innocence was a narrow word.I sat beside the window and watched the night settle over the garden.The tracker band rested against my wrist beneath the red thread. It had gone quiet after Erdem found me in the chapel, but I could still feel its presence. A small weight. A dark circle of ownership.Erdem had told me not to return to the chapel.A soft knock sounded at the door."Who is it?"No answer.I rose from the chair.My hand slipped beneath my sleeve and found the thin blade hidden along my forearm.The knock came again.Three times. Slow.I crossed the room and opened the door.Silas stood in the corridor.He was alone.The bruise along his jaw had darkened overnight. He had made no attempt to hide the injury.Silas caught me looking."Admiring Erdem's w

HENDRIXThe door closed behind him. The stylist unzipped the garment bag. Inside was a suit cut close to the body. The color was almost red. I stared at it. "Did he choose this?" "Yes." "Of course he did." The stylist laid the clothes across the table. "I'll need to remove your shirt." I looked at her. "No." She glanced at the camera in the ceiling. "Mr. Veyra instructed—" "Mr. Veyra can instruct the walls." The woman hesitated. I removed my shirt myself. The cold air touched my back. The stylist did not react to the scars. Instead, she dressed the wounds at my wrists with a thin layer of concealer, then fastened the wine-colored shirt around my throat. The fabric was soft. It fit perfectly. In the mirror, I saw the person Erdem had designed. The clothes made me appear slimmer and younger. My face remained boyish beneath the careful styling. The tracker band disappeared beneath my left cuff. If Liora saw me in this, she would have laughed and told me to make th

HENDRIX The last of the gala guests filtered toward the front drive in twos and threes. The night had grown cold. Erdem walked beside me down the front steps, one hand at the small of my back, guiding me toward the narrow service alley that ran along the estate's east wing — a shortcut back to the private entrance, away from the departing crowd and the cameras. "Almost done," he said, more to himself than to me. "You say that like the night's been hard on you." "The night has been hard on my patience." His eyes swept the alley ahead of us. "Arzan men in my garden, a boy who lies to me about talking to no one, and a party I still don't know the true cost of." "You'll find out the cost eventually. You always do." "Is that meant to comfort me?" "No," I said. "It's meant to be true." He almost smiled. The alley narrowed ahead of us, and for one strange moment the noise of the gala behind us faded into something almost peaceful — cold air, the two of us walking side by side li

HENDRIX The guard shift changed at two in the morning, a seven-minute gap between the outgoing patrol clearing the lower corridors and the incoming one settling into position.Seven minutes had never felt like enough before. Tonight, with Silas's keycard warm against my palm, I decided it would have to be.I slipped from my new room, quiet and unhurried. The corridor beyond Erdem's private wing was empty at this hour, lit only by the low amber strips set into the floor molding, and I moved along it with my back close to the wall, counting seconds.One chance before the next patrol. The lower east hall smelled of old water. I'd been here once before, chasing a signal from the tracker band toward the chapel passage, but I'd never come this deep. The first door yielded to Silas's card without protest — a storage room, empty crates, nothing worth the risk I'd taken to reach it. The second did the same, revealing a narrow server room humming with quiet machinery I didn

ERDEMAfter the interrogation, I left Hendrix in the lower holding room."This isn't punishment," I told him, before Konstantin locked the door."It looks exactly like punishment.""It's caution. My guards saw you attack me with a blade last night, so I can't let you walk free through the estate this morning as though nothing happened.""So I should stay locked up here?"I didn't answer. I left before I could see whatever expression crossed his face at that.The estate's records room sat two floors above the vault, a converted library my father had once used to catalogue the empire's transactions in ledgers too sensitive for digital storage. I hadn't set foot in it in years — Damir maintained it.I found the year easily enough, but I did not find Liora Vale.Not in the transaction logs. Not in the personnel files. Not in the acquisition records that catalogued every asset, informant, and captive the organization had processed that year. I went through the shelves twice, and came up wi