All Chapters of SOLD TO THE DEVIL KING: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

"You can't trust everyone in this house.""I'm not planning to," I said, and kept walking.Marco didn't follow. I felt his eyes on my back the whole way down the corridor, and I didn't turn around, because if I turned around I'd have to explain, and I wasn't ready to explain anything yet.The room was small, tucked at the end of the servants' wing, the kind of place with a weak overhead bulb and furniture nobody had bothered replacing in decades. Three men were already there when I arrived. One stood by the window with his arms crossed. One sat, knee bouncing, tapping a finger against his thigh in a rhythm he probably didn't notice he was keeping. The third refused to sit at all, standing near the door like he might need to leave in a hurry.It didn't look like the beginning of anything. It looked like three tired men waiting for a bus that was running late.I'd asked Marco for names, not the loudest or strongest men in Dante's organization, but the ones who'd been there before Dante

The phone rang while I was still holding a cup of tea I hadn't drunk."If you're really the Moretti heir," the voice said, flat and unfamiliar, "come alone.""Who is this?"The line went dead.A location came through a moment later, a set of coordinates with no explanation attached. I sat there staring at it for longer than I probably should have, and something about the address nagged at me until I pulled up an old map and understood why.It was Moretti property. One of the outer estates, supposedly abandoned after the massacre, sold off or seized or simply left to rot—I'd never known which, because nobody had ever told me, and I'd never thought to ask.I thought through the obvious possibilities. A trap. An enemy testing whether I'd really survived. Someone trying to draw me away from Dante while he was still recovering.I didn't go alone."You stay close enough to help me," I told Marco. "Far enough that whoever called me doesn't think I'm hiding behind you."He raised an eyebrow.

Alessia's phone slipped from my hand and struck the floor.Dante looked up from whatever he'd been reading. "What happened?"I stared at him for a second before I could make the words come out. "They want you to surrender me."He didn't ask who'd sent it. He didn't demand the phone first."When?""They didn't say a time. They said the Council made its decision.""That isn't a deadline.""Do you want me to ask them for one?"It came out sharper than I meant it to, the sarcasm escaping before I could catch it. He looked at me, and I regretted it, but not quite enough to take it back.He held out his hand. I gave him the phone more abruptly than I intended, and he read the messages once, then scrolled back to the first and read it again. I watched his face for something—fear, anger, anything—and got almost nothing. He paused halfway through, scrolled up, read a line a second time.Something in it had caught him."Did they give you a deadline?" he asked again."I told you. No.""Has this

"Play it again."Luca stood in the doorway, staring at the screen. Marco reached for the keyboard. I moved between Luca and the computer before I'd decided to."How do you know what we're watching?"Luca looked at me. For the first time since I'd known him, he seemed genuinely unsure what to say.Marco's hand stopped above the keys. Nobody spoke for a moment, and Luca started to answer, stopped, glanced again at the frozen frame on the screen."How do you recognize this?" I asked again."I recognize the room.""Have you seen this recording before?""No.""Then why did you tell Marco to play it again?""Because I need to hear something.""What?"He looked at the screen. "The part after she survived."Then the King must never know who brought her back. The line was still ringing in my ears from ten minutes earlier."Do you recognize the speaker?" I asked."I'm not sure.""You recognize the room, but not the man?""I recognize where it was recorded. That doesn't mean I know who's speakin

"Read it again."Dante stood at the head of the table, one hand resting against the chair for support. Marco read the Council's message aloud."Failure to surrender Alessia Moretti by midnight will be considered an act of hostility against the Council."Nobody spoke."Tell them no," Dante said.Marco lowered the phone slightly. One of the senior men glanced at Dante, then at the others, as though checking he'd heard it right."You're refusing the entire Council?" I asked."They've made their position clear.""That wasn't my question.""No," he said. "It wasn't."Marco asked if he should send a formal response. Dante told him no—no threatening letter, no public declaration, nothing that gave the Council room to reinterpret the refusal."Silence could look like contempt," Marco said."Then let it.""Why are you doing this?" I asked him."Because they don't get to decide what happens to you."I let the words sit without r