Page 83 of Iron Roses

Everything inside me goes still.

The chair crashes to the floor behind me. I’m down the corridor in seconds, boots striking the tile hard. The front doors blast open again, and the cold evening air hits my face.

My eyes scan the driveway.

Then I see it.

Far down the path. Red tail lights. A black sedan turning sharply onto the road.

Fausto.

Lorenzo catches up behind me.

“Shit,” he says, chest heaving. “He took her.”

I turn and run back inside. My keys. My gun.

I make it to the hallway and grab them both in one motion.

Lorenzo grabs my arm.

“Cassian—wait. Wait—listen.”

I shove him off.

“Stop.” His voice is sharp. “Listen to me. You can’t go after him like this.”

I don’t answer.

“You’ll walk into a trap,” he says. “You know how he plays. You run in now, and he wins. You want her back?”

I nod once.

“Then think,” he says. “Because Fausto won’t give her up without a war.”

Chapter Fourteen – Elaria

The guard walks ahead of me, not speaking.

The garden behind the house stretches far. This garden is walled by tall hedges and stone. Ivy curls along the southern perimeter, and gravel paths slice between small groves of lemon trees and low white roses. There’s a bench at the far end I’ve sat on once. A fountain that doesn’t run anymore.

We pass it all.

Fausto was my uncle. My father’s brother and business partner, until he wasn’t. To me, he was a strange man who disappeared from my life, not that he was ever there.

Why is he searching for me now?

The guard leads me past the rose beds and the trellises that bend beneath wisteria. We walk deeper, where the trees grow thicker and the path narrows. The earth here is darker.

He stops at a small alcove pressed into the hedge wall. It's barely visible unless you know to look—half-shrouded by a twisted vine and an arch of thorny branches. The space behind it is just wide enough for someone to crouch behind the lattice that’s warped into the stone.

“Here,” he says. “Stay low. I’ll watch the entry.”

I nod, stepping into the space. The gravel here is uneven. A root juts from the wall at ankle-height. The wind whistlesthrough the branches above, just enough to drown distant sounds.

I crouch. And then I hear it.

The soft buzz of his phone.

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