Alle Kapitel von THE DEVIL'S TOY CAME FOR REVENGE : Kapitel 31 – Kapitel 40

ERDEMI gave him three days to recover before I raised the subject again, though patience had never come easily to me, and three days felt like an eternity spent circling a decision I'd already made somewhere in the fevered hours beside his bed. He was sitting up properly by the time I returned to the room, the fragile weakness of the fever replaced by his usual guarded composure. The mask had gone back on."You look better," I said. "I feel considerably less like dying, if that's what you mean.""It is." I took the chair beside the bed, the same one I'd occupied for two nights running, though sitting in it now felt different somehow. "I want to propose something.""That sounds ominous.""It's a bargain not a threat. Though I understand you may have difficulty distinguishing the two, given our history." Hendrix's expression didn't change, though something behind his eyes sharpened, the old calculation returning now that his body had recovered. "What kind of bargain?"

ERDEMThe council convened at my summons rather than the usual monthly schedule, which alone was enough to unsettle the room before I'd said a word. Rauf's replacement, a cautious man named Besnik, sat stiffly beside Yusuf and the others, all of them reading the unscheduled meeting as a sign of trouble they hadn't yet identified."There have been questions," I said, "about the informant I purchased several weeks ago. About why he continues to occupy space in this house rather than being disposed of once his usefulness expired."I let the silence stretch, watching several captains exchange glances."His usefulness has not expired," I continued. "Since the courtyard attack, since the ambush outside my own gala, I have used him as bait to draw out enemies. Niko Arzan revealed himself at the gala because of that boy's presence. The alley shooters revealed their allegiance. I intend to continue using him for exactly that purpose until every remaining threat against this house has been ide

HENDRIXWe burned Arzan's docks anyway. Not because Erdem believed the mark, but because refusing to retaliate would tell Silas we'd seen through it. The attack had to look real. The smell of smoke hadn't fully left my clothes by the time I found myself standing in the doorway of Erdem's study that night, though the docks were an hour's drive away from the quiet dark of the estate. I'd watched shipments burn. I'd watched men scream as fire found fuel lines and oil slicked black across the river's surface, I watched Erdem's retaliation against Niko's territory unfold, and I'd felt something twist in my chest that I still hadn't fully named — satisfaction, ugly and immediate, at watching an enemy's resources turn to ash, tangled inextricably with a horror at how easily that satisfaction had come. Erdem sat behind his desk, a glass of whiskey beside him, his own clothes still carrying the same smoke. "You're not sleeping either," he said, without looking up. "No." "Come in, then.

HENDRIXThe explosion came without warning, a concussive wave that threw both of us sideways into the stone wall of the lower corridor.We'd been walking toward the vault together — Erdem intent on reviewing the ledger's remaining sealed sections, the fragile truce between us still bruised from the pin still sitting untouched on my bedside table where he'd left it. Neither of us had spoken about it since that night.Dust and debris filled the air where the ceiling had partially collapsed behind us, sealing the corridor's upper exit beneath a wall of stone and twisted metal. Erdem was already moving before I'd fully caught my breath, checking the damage. "Are you hurt?" he asked. "No. You?"He didn't answer, and when I looked more closely, I saw the dark stain spreading across his shoulder — his old wound, reopened by the force of the blast, blood already soaking through his shirt."Erdem." "It's shallow.""You're bleeding. That's not shallow." I crossed to

HENDRIXKatya didn't appear for morning service, which wouldn't have alarmed me on its own if her note hadn't already planted a cold, specific dread in my chest days earlier.I asked Mrs. Kovac first. "One of the kitchen staff. Katya. I haven't seen her this morning."Mrs. Kovac's expression flickered, something guarded crossing her face before she smoothed it into careful blankness. "She didn't report for her shift. I assumed illness.""Has anyone checked on her?""That isn't my responsibility to manage, sir." The dismissal carried an edge that told me more than her words did — Mrs. Kovac already suspected something, or knew something, and had decided the safest response was distance.I searched the servant's quarters myself that afternoon, asking careful questions of anyone who might answer without reporting the inquiry to whoever was already watching who helped me. No one had seen her since the previous evening and no one, I noticed, seemed particularly surprised by her absence, wh