Page 5 of Beautiful Ruins
He was the most terrifyingly beautiful man I had ever seen.
Dark hair.Sharp, cut-from-stone cheekbones.Eyes the color of cold steel, flat and assessing.His face was calm in a way that made my pulse spike harder than if he’d been screaming.Like violence wasn’t something he worked himself up to—it was something he owned.Something he decided.
He was lethal.I felt it deep in my bones, an instinctive understanding that this man ended things for a living.
And my traitorous heart stuttered anyway.
I should have been screaming.Thrashing.Begging for my life.
Instead, I stared.
God help me, I stared.
Someone behind him swore under their breath.Another man let out a short, humorless laugh.
“What the hell is that?”one of them demanded.
“A problem,” someone else spoke up.“Jesus.Where did she come from?”
A gun slid into my peripheral vision, dark and steady, pointed at my head.
Cold washed through me, instant and paralyzing.
My breath hitched—and only then did I realize his hand was locked around my neck.Not crushing.Not gentle.Measured.Like he knew exactly how much pressure it took to keep me still without snapping anything vital.
I hated the part of my brain that noticed how steady his grip was.
“Put the gun down,” he ground out harshly.
The words were brittle.Absolute.
They cut through the space in a way that told me he was the authority here.
“She saw the deal,” the man with the gun hissed.
And the hand on my throat tightened just enough to remind everyone in the room who decided whether I lived or died.
“Relax.She saw concrete and crates,” the man holding me said without looking at me.His voice was calm, almost bored.His gaze never left my face.
I tried.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry and tight, like it might close on me if I breathed wrong.His eyes dropped to my mouth—just for a second—and something ugly and confusing twisted low in my stomach.
Heat.
Shame followed instantly, hot and choking.
What is wrong with you?
“Who sent you?”he demanded.
My voice barely made it past my teeth.“I—I?—”
He tilted his head, studying me like I was something alien he was seeing for the first time—something he had no idea what to make of.
The big man with the gun pointed at my head stepped forward, looking my captor in the eye.
“You’re soft tonight, Cavalho,” he ground out.“This is sloppy.”
