Page 38 of Beautiful Ruins
I swallowed hard, nausea curling low in my stomach.
I wasn’t built for that world.I didn’t want to be hardened by it.I didn’t want to learn how to survive it the way Raze clearly had.The idea of it pressing in around me—of violence and money and power bleeding into my life—made my skin prickle with dread.
I wasn’t meant to be here.
And yet, here I was.
Safe.For now.Because a man I barely knew had decided I didn’t belong in the mess my boyfriend had created.
That was the part I didn’t know how to reconcile.
I’d been reckless with my heart—but not malicious.I’d loved badly, not addictively.And the difference mattered.
Whatever Nathan had done, whatever Raze planned to do about it—I knew one thing with aching clarity.
I had been standing on the edge of something dark and hadn’t even known it.
And the fact that I’d walked away—barely—left me shaken in a way I couldn’t yet name.
I had been naïve.And that knowledge settled into me like a heavy coat I couldn’t take off—uncomfortable, unavoidable, and suddenly very, very real.
And then—like something sharp turning in my chest—the thought shifted.
Because every single thing I could lay at Nathan’s feet also applied to Raze.
It was worse, actually, because Raze didn’t pretend.He didn’t hide behind half-truths or soft edges.There was no illusion with him.No safe version I could cling to.
I knew exactly what he was.What he did.What he was capable of.
A quiet, sick understanding settled over me, heavier than before.
I hadn’t walked away from danger.I had walked right into it.With my eyes open and convinced myself it was something else entirely.
My chest tightened as the final piece clicked into place.
Nathan had never been the war.
He had just been standing too close to it.
And now he was standing in the path of something far worse.
Because I knew what would happen if Raze found him.
There would be no conversation.No negotiation.No moment of mercy.Raze wasn’t the type of man to operate like that.
He would erase Nathan.Quick.Efficient.Final.Like he had never existed in the first place.
My stomach turned, the weight of it settling low and heavy.
This wasn’t a love triangle.This wasn’t confusion or lingering feelings or unfinished business.This was a collision course.And I was standing right in the middle of it.Still pretending I had a choice.
13
Raze
Tone found me in my office and entered like she always did—without asking, without knocking, like the rules were for everyone else, and she was the exemption.
She shut the door behind her and stood there for a moment, arms folded, expression unusually tight.I could feel her displeasure coming on, and it was aimed directly at me.Which meant something had happened.
