Page 107 of Beautiful Ruins
They flew with frightening accuracy, embedding into two men before they could even raise their weapons properly.One clutched his throat.Another collapsed mid-step.
A third tried to pivot, but he was too slow.Archie had already drawn a handgun.The shots were precise.Clean.Focussed.
He fired into the fallen men as they attempted to recover, eliminating movement before it could become a threat.There was no hesitation and no wasted motion.Just calculated follow-through.
I stared at the screen, frozen.
Outside the panic room, chaos was unfolding.
Inside, we watched it happen in silence.
Tone leaned forward so sharply her knuckles turned white against the console.
“He’s not limping,” she remarked.
I blinked.She was right.
He surged forward across the foyer with complete balance, no drag in his step, no visible weakness in his gait.The cane was no longer a support.It was a weapon.An extension of him.
Another man lunged from the side corridor.
Archie pivoted smoothly and closed the distance in seconds, grabbing the attacker’s collar and driving a single bullet into his head at point-blank range.
The man dropped instantly.
Archie didn’t celebrate.He scanned the foyer once, methodically, confirming every body, every angle, every potential movement.Until he was satisfied that was the last of them.
Then he straightened fully.And only then did he resume the limp.
Tone made a strangled noise somewhere between a gasp and a shriek.
“Dumb fucker forgot to limp!”she screeched, slapping a hand over her mouth a second later like she couldn’t believe she’d verbalized her observations.
I couldn’t speak.Couldn’t process what was happening.
The harmless man who had arrived at the door with a cane and polite greetings was gone, no longer harmless.In his place stood someone precise, ruthless, and terrifyingly efficient.And for the first time since the gunfire started, a new fear settled in my chest.Not just of the men outside.
But of how much danger Raze had clearly anticipated if this was the man he trusted to stand between us and the rest of the world.
32
Raze
The smell of gunpowder lingered in the air as I reached the gates, which were already open.
A terrifying weight dropped to the pit of my stomach, suffocating me.
The driveway flood lights were on, brighter than usual, illuminating a scene that was far from contained.Two bodies lay near the outer perimeter, already zip-tied and disarmed.Another was being dragged toward the security wing by one of my men.Blood stained the gravel in uneven patches, dark and spreading.
I stepped out of the car before it fully stopped, gun already lowered but ready at my side as I moved through the front doors.
The foyer was chaos.
My sister stood in the middle of it, one Balenciaga heel firmly planted on a Russian’s face as he groaned weakly beneath her.
She pressed down harder.
“You picked,” she spat out, grinding the heel with clinical irritation, “the wrong house.On the wrong day.In the wrong shoes.”
