Page 25 of Beautiful Ruins
For one sick second, the room went very still.Even the guards standing by the door seemed to hold their breath.
Raze’s gaze darkened.“By that lowlife bum Salvio?”he fired back, matching her anger.“Isthatyour gold standard for decency?”
Tone’s mouth opened.Then she smiled, slow and feral.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” she breezed, like Salvio was a stain she’d scrubbed out of a dress.“I dumped his sorry ass.”
Raze’s brows rose.“You?—”
“That’s why,” Tone continued, cutting him off with the ease of someone who had been interrupting him since childhood, “I’ll be staying here with you for a while.”
Raze stared at her.
“You’re what?”
Tone shrugged, as if she hadn’t just detonated a bomb in the foyer.“Staying.Here.With you.”She leaned closer, voice dropping.“Because I’m not going back to my apartment, and I’m definitely not staying with Nonna, unless you want me to end up married to a priest by Tuesday.”
Raze’s face did something strange—an expression that looked like pain disguised as annoyance.
“You can stay at one of the properties,” he said.“I’ll put guards there.”
“I don’t want guards,” Tone shot back.“I want to stay with my big brother.”
Raze went still.My throat tightened—because the words were blunt and true in a way that made my stomach twist.
She wanted safety in the only language she trusted.She meant: I don’t feel safe unless I’m under your roof.
Raze’s gaze flicked to the guards.A silent command.They repositioned themselves subtly, giving the siblings space.
He turned back to Tone.“You can’t just decide to move into my house like it’s a hotel.”
Tone arched a brow.“Says the man who apparently has a prisoner.”
I felt heat hit my cheeks.Prisoner.The word wasn’t wrong, but hearing it said out loud made it real in a way I didn’t like.
Raze’s gaze cut briefly to me.He was not apologetic.
Tone turned toward me then, fully.Her expression softened like a switch flipped.She took me in properly—my bare legs, the sleeves swallowing my hands, the way I kept my weight balanced like I might need to bolt in a different direction.
“Well,” her voice brightened again, “that’s settled then.”
Raze made a sound that was half a scoff, half a warning.“Tone.”
She ignored him again.“Do you have a room?”she turned to me.“Or are you sleeping in a literal dungeon?Because the outside of this place definitely gives ‘wealthy vampire’ vibes.”
Raze’s eyes narrowed.“Don’t encourage her.”
Tone glanced back at him.“You mean the human being?”
He looked like he wanted to throttle someone.The fact he didn’t told me everything.
I chose my words carefully.“I have a room.”
Tone clapped her hands once.“Great.Which one?”
Raze moved like he might block me again.
Tone saw it and stepped forward, palms out, like she was physically corralling him.“No.You don’t get to play bouncer now.If you don’t want her ‘socialising,’ then you shouldn’t have brought her here.”
