Page 122 of Beautiful Ruins
I cut slowly.Precise.Deliberate.Just enough to make him understand that his body was no longer his own.
He sobbed.Begged.Promised money.Property.Information.None of it mattered.
When I was done, I stepped back.
Nathan’s hand was a mess of blood and ruined tendons.He’d never grip anything the same way again.But that wasn’t the point.The point was fear.I grabbed a jerry can from beneath the table.
Nathan’s eyes widened.
“Oh no,” Archie murmured.“He sees it now.”
I poured fuel across the floor around Nathan’s feet.Let it soak into his expensive loafers.
He began to shake violently.
“You wanted to rule Tuscany?”I bit out.
I struck a match.
The flare of orange reflected in his wet eyes.
“You can rule what’s left.”
I tossed the match.
The fire caught instantly — a ring of flame erupting around him.
He shrieked, terrified, as heat licked upward, igniting the gasoline-soaked fabric.Archie stepped back, unfazed.
Nathan tried to run — but the zip ties and his ruined hand made him clumsy.He tripped, hit the ground.
The fire spread fast.
I watched.Not with glee, but with finality.
Archie exhaled slowly beside me.“You’re going to smell like this for days.”
“Suits me,” I told him.
Nathan’s screams dissolved into something wet and broken as I walked back through the wreckage, letting the firelight paint my hands red.
Archie fell into step beside me.
“You feel better?”
“Better than I have in a long time,” I replied.
Outside, the night air hit my lungs sharp and cold.Smoke spiralled upward into the Tuscan sky.
The Russians were gone.Nathan Azzopardi was gone.And I had blood drying beneath my nails.
35
Izzy
The house had a rhythm when Raze was home — subtle, steady.A tranquil hum that settled under my skin without me realizing it.Even when he wasn’t in the same room, I felt him.Solid.Contained.Disciplined.
Tonight, that rhythm was wrong.
