Page 69 of Ruin
She's been crying—her eyes are red-rimmed, mascara smudged—but there's steel underneath the pain now.
The broken girl seeking darkness has become something sharper, more dangerous.
"Are you going to kill me?"
"I'm considering it." She tilts her head, the same gesture I've seen her make a thousand times, but now it looks predatory. "Do you think I should?"
The question hangs between us like a blade.
Honest answer? Part of me thinks she'd be justified.
Part of me has been waiting nine years for this reckoning.
Part of me is almost relieved it's finally here.
"That's your choice to make."
"Yes, it is." She moves closer, just outside arm's reach but still in perfect shooting range. "For the first time in my adult life, I get to make a choice that isn't influenced by your manipulation. Do you have any idea what that feels like?"
"Enlighten me."
"Terrifying. Liberating. Fucking devastating." Her voice cracks slightly. "I've spent nine years making decisions I thought were mine, only to discover they were all part of your grand design."
The pain in her voice cuts deeper than any blade could.
I did this to her. Created this moment, this choice, this impossible situation where the woman I love has to decide whether to kill me.
"Selene—"
"Don't." The word cracks like a whip. "Don't youdareuse that voice on me. The one that made me melt, made me submit, made me beg for more. I know what it is now—another tool in your arsenal of psychological bullshit."
She's right, and we both know it.
Every tone, every inflection, every carefully calculated moment of tenderness was designed to bind her to me.
The girl who should have been my enemy became my greatest weakness.
"Tell me about Judge Romano," she says, her anger radiating off her. Her voice becomes crisp, professional. "Tell me about Judge Kowalski."
"You already know."
"I know facts. Dates, times, methods. I want to hear it from you. I want your confession." She takes a single step closer. Not close enough to reach, but close enough that I can see the vein in her throat pulsing against the edge of the collar. She's not asking. She's demanding. "Start with Romano."
I look at the gun, at her steady hands, at the evidence surrounding us like an indictment.
She's going to get her answers one way or another.
The question is whether I die before or after giving them.
"Romano wouldn't cooperate," I begin, choosing my words carefully. "Wouldn't take money, wouldn't throw cases, wouldn't look the other way. He was going to sentence three of our biggest dealers to consecutive life sentences instead of the concurrent terms we'd negotiated."
"So, you killed him."
"I solved a business problem."
The words sound cold even to my own ears.
Clinical. Like I'm discussing quarterly reports instead of murder.
