Page 4 of Veil of Dust

The real kind. The kind Sylvie warned me about. She said he wouldn’t knock. He’d just walk in and start changing everything like it was already his.

I swallow hard. My throat’s dry, and my pulse jumps against my collarbone.

Tiziano Valtieri.

I don’t know how I know the name. I just do. It hits like it’s always been there, waiting to be said out loud.

He’s the one, the storm I felt building earlier. The way the cards burned in my hand. That draw. That pressure. It was about him.

And I’m not ready.

He steps farther in. His boots hit the wood with a steady rhythm—not rushed, not loud. Just final. I sit up straighter. My stool screeches as I push back.

The candlelight wavers.

My deck slips off the table.

Cards spill across the floor. There’s no time for ritual. No spreads. Just instinct. My whole body tenses, but not to run. Not to attack.

To stay in control.

Leon’s locket swings against my chest, cool and solid. It’s a reminder of everything I couldn’t change. Everything I lost.

Tiziano watches me. That faint smile still plays on his lips, like he knows how this is going to end, and I’m the last to catch up.

“Business,” he says. He tilts his head. His voice drops—low, calm, like someone telling you a secret you’re not allowed to repeat. “You’ll like it.”

He says it like I’ve already agreed.

I don’t look away.

My eyes lock on his, gray on hazel. I don’t blink. I won’t. If I do, I give him something I don’t want to give.

Time slows.

The silence stretches.

“You don’t get to come in here and act like you run the place.”

My voice is steady, clear. I mean every word.

His smile twitches. It’s not wider, just sharper.

He steps closer—slow and deliberate. It’s not a threat; it’s a fact, the kind you can’t argue with. The candlelight hits his coat and deepens its darkness. He doesn’t fill the room; he bends it.

But I don’t move back.

He stops just short of reaching distance.

Close enough that I can feel how wrong he is.

Close enough that the cards on the table shiver like they’re reacting to him, too.

Outside, thunder rolls, low and long. The bar door creaks behind him again, as if the building itself is questioning whether it made a mistake letting him in.

Something is shifting. I can feel it. It’s as if everything around us is part of the same web, pulling tighter.

The cards were right.

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