Bound To The Devil's contract のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 57

*UNKNOWN*The photograph of the manor was still glowing on the phone when he placed it face down on the table. The wood was cold under his palm. Outside, the city was quiet, that hour between 2 and 3 a.m. when even the traffic sounded tired.For a moment, the room was silent.Then the man sitting across from him spoke. His voice was rough from no sleep. “They received it.”“I know.”“How?”A faint smile touched his mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Because Dante Alighieri doesn't ignore threats.”He leaned back in the chair and let the silence stretch. The leather creaked under him. He was around Dante's age. Early thirties. Dark hair, neatly cut, with a few strands falling across his forehead. His face was sharp without looking harsh, his expression almost calm enough to be mistaken for indifference. He wasn't wearing anything distinctive. Black shirt. Dark trousers. A watch on his wrist. Nothing that would make him memorable in a crowd.That was intentional. Men like

*ELENA*I couldn't stop thinking about Leo's words. Not Rafael. Not even the Raven. The man before him. The one whose face Leo couldn't remember. The one whose name made my father write warnings on the back of photographs. By breakfast, I'd barely touched my food. The eggs were cold. The coffee had gone bitter an hour ago and I was still staring at it. Dante noticed. Of course he did. “You're thinking too much.” I looked up from my plate. My fork was still hovering over it. “That’s rich coming from you.” His mouth twitched. The smallest hint of a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. “I mean it.” “So do I.” He reached across the table and took my hand. His palm was warm. Steady. A contrast to how cold I felt. “We'll figure it out.” I looked at him. “You don't know that.” “No.” He squeezed my fingers once. “But I'm not going to let you figure it out alone.” Across from us, Leo pushed his toast around his plate. He hadn't taken a single bite.

*ELENA* I couldn't stop hearing the sentence. `She can't know what she is.` It had followed me from the library to my room, through dinner, and into the early hours of the morning. It was in the steam of my coffee. In the sound of the door closing. In the space between Dante's words when he thought I wasn't listening. By sunrise, I'd given up trying to ignore it. I found Jack in the greenhouse. He was sitting on the old wooden bench beside the window, repairing one of the gardening tools. The morning light fell across his hands. Gold and dust. He looked up when I entered. “You're up early.” “I need to ask you something.” His expression changed. His shoulders tensed. “What?” I closed the door behind me. The glass muffled the sound. “Rafael.” Jack's hand stopped moving. The screwdriver froze mid-turn. I knew immediately. He knew something. “You know what he meant when he said I couldn't know what I was.” Jack looked back down at the tool. “I d

ELENANobody spoke after Jack's last words.The sentence just hung there in the stale air of the library, too heavy to fall. They planned for it.The laptop remained open on the table where Marco had left it, its screen dimming slightly before brightening again, stuck on that final frozen frame. The image was grainy, corrupted by time and by whoever had tried so badly to erase it, but the three men in it were unmistakable.My father. Younger, his hair still dark, his shoulders not yet bowed by whatever guilt he would carry for the next twenty years.Rafael. Unchanged, somehow. The same cold stillness, the same watchful eyes, even then.And Jack's father. A man I had never met and yet felt like I had been running from my entire life.I couldn't stop looking at that third man. Not because I recognized him, but because of the way Jack was looking at him. Like a wound that had never properly closed had just been ripped open again.Because Jack remembered. And that meant there was somethin