Page 85 of Beautiful Ruins
A beat passed.
“What are you going to do?”
I stood slowly.
My chair slid back with a soft scrape that sounded far louder in the quiet room than it should have.
“What I should have done the moment that fucker turned up at my gate,” I seethed.
Archie’s expression hardened slightly.
“Raze.”
I buttoned my cuffs with measured precision.
“In merely saying her name,” I went on calmly, “Azzopardi and his associates have signed their own death warrants.”
My gaze returned to him.Cold.Clear.Certain.
“A man who attempts to sell what is under my protection does not get the privilege of continued existence as a variable.”
Archie exhaled slowly as I stepped past him, already reaching for my jacket.
Behind me, he spoke one last time.
“He is unpredictable,” he warned.“Cornered.Facing a death penalty from Chernov.Men like that do reckless things.”
I paused at the door and waited for him to catch up to me.
“Yes,” I agreed.
My hand closed around the handle.
“Desperate men do reckless things.And I am one fucking desperate man.”
26
Izzy
Tone blew on her nails like she was diffusing a bomb.
“I still cannot believe,” she commented, inspecting the glossy coat under the light, “that my brooding warlord of a brother has effectively placed me under house arrest.”
I dipped the brush back into the bottle, careful not to overload it, and reached for her other hand.
“He didn’t say house arrest,” I reminded her.
“He locked the gates,” she shot back.“There are dozens of men at the perimeter.I had to inform three separate security checkpoints that I was walking to the kitchen for tea.That is not security.That is madness.”
I suppressed a smile.
“I don’t know.”I gave a small shrug.“I guess he knows best what threats are out there.He did say it was only for a little while.Then things would go back to normal.”
Tone stared at me like I had just defended a dictator.
“Normal?”she repeated flatly.“Define normal, Izzy.Because if normal involves me being trapped inside a fortress with armed men and restricted movement, I would have packed differently.”
She leaned back in her chair with a dramatic sigh, carefully keeping her hands suspended in the air like a surgeon preserving sterile conditions.
