Page 30 of Of Flames and Crows

Shivers racked Vincent Rochette’s frame as he sat in the hospital bed. He glanced at Budimir’s bodyguards where they framed the door of his private room before staring blindly at his lap.

“It was dark,” he mumbled. “I didn’t get a good look at his face.” He raised his head and finally met Budimir’s gaze. Though he flinched, he didn’t look away. “But I—I’ll try.” He fisted his hands and swallowed convulsively. “I owe Roman my life.”

Budimir studied Vincent impassively. He could see why his grandson had become friends with the boy. He had guts.

Vincent cleared his throat. “Has there—has there been a ransom demand?”

“No.” Budimir paused. “And I don’t expect there will be one.”

Vincent’s figure shriveled as he sagged on the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I thought Roman was joking when he told me about his magic.” His breath hitched. “I never meant for any of this to happen.” He cast a wild look at Budimir, tears glittering in his eyes. “You have to believe me!”

Budimir watched him for a silent moment.

“Anyone would assume the same upon hearing such an assertion, child,” he finally said. “This might bring you little comfort, but I’m confident what happened had little to do with your choices, however regretful they were. Those men would have found Roman eventually.”

Vincent sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of a hand.

Budimir suddenly felt his age where he sat in the visitor’s chair next to the bed. Regret crumpled his heart.

Was I wrong to stop Roman from using his powers?

The words of his dead wife echoed through his skull.

“Please, Budimir,” she’d begged him on her death bed. “Promise me you’ll keep Roman safe. You have to hide him, or they’ll take him away and do God only knows what to him!”

Budimir ground his teeth.Damn those Vissarions!

Alas, it was thirty-three years too late to curse them. Though his wife Eleanora had told him about her family’s extraordinary abilities when he’d decided to ask the Vissarions’ matriarch for her hand in marriage, Budimir had not believed her. He’d assumed Eleanora meant her family were into some kind of pagan ritual when she’d spoken about magic. As far as he’d been concerned, that kind of stuff didn’t exist.

What a fool I was.

He still recalled the day Roman first manifested his Fire Magic with vivid clarity. The boy had been eight at the time. Eleanora had told Budimir it was the trauma of Roman losing his parents in a recent car accident that had triggered his magic core.

Budimir would never forget the terror that had filled his wife’s face when she’d seen the rare and powerful ability their grandson had inherited from the Vissarion bloodline.

He’d known little about Katarina Vissarion, Eleanora’s second cousin. Katarina and her brother Yuliy had attended their wedding and he’d worked alongside Yuliy through the Bratva he’d aligned himself with, but he’d never been close to them. It was only after Katarina’s death that Eleanora had finally told Budimir the secrets she had long kept about the Vissarions. About how Katarina had been the most powerful fire witch to have ever been birthed in the world of magic and how the main Vissarion house had practically enslaved her with their lies so as to use and abuse her powers.

It was then that he’d understood why Yuliy, who’d come from immense wealth and privilege, had joined the Bratva at age eighteen. The only way he could remove his younger sister from the reach of their influential kin was by forging blood bonds with another equally powerful family.

Vincent’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Zak and his friends. Are they really…gone?”

“Yes. They died of cyanide poisoning.”

Vincent recoiled at his blunt answer. A bolt of pity shot through Budimir as he observed the boy’s ashen face. The trauma of what he’d seen would likely live with him forever more.

Let’s hope a day comes when he can forgive himself.

“I still can’t believe it was real,” Vincent murmured. “That—magicis real!”

Budimir pressed his hands on his knees and rose. “It would be best if you refrained from telling other people what you witnessed that night.”

A bitter expression flitted across Vincent’s face. “Don’t worry. The cops and my family already think I’m crazy.”

Budimir’s tone softened a little. “They’ll put it down to shock. Still, the less you talk about this, the better. Those men let you get away because they thought you didn’t pose a threat to them. Make sure you keep it that way.”

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