Page 142 of Beautiful Ruins
Archie had enemies.A price on his head.And a lifelong habit of walking straight into chaos without looking down first.
Tone, on the other hand, had a talent for finding complicated problems and deciding they were worth solving.Which meant this was either the beginning of something interesting… Or the beginning of something catastrophic.
Probably both.
39
Epilogue - Izzy
The studio had become my sanctuary.
Not because it was beautiful—though it was.Raze had made sure of that.Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched along one wall, letting the afternoon light spill across the space in slow, golden sheets.Outside, the trees shifted with the breeze, leaves catching the sun like broken glass.
But it was more than that.
This room was proof that my life had changed.
For years, I had lived in borrowed spaces.Temporary rooms.Places that never quite felt like mine.I had learned to measure safety by exits and distance.By how quickly I could disappear if I needed to.
Now I had this.
A studio.A home.A man who had burned down everything that threatened me… and then built me something stronger in its place.
I reached for one of the brushes on the table, running my fingers along the worn handle like I needed to remind myself it was real.
Everything here was real.
The easel.The paints lined in careful rows.
The long wooden table Raze had insisted on buying, even though it probably cost more than my first car.
My things.
A slow breath left me.
Peace still felt unfamiliar.Like something fragile I wasn’t supposed to hold for too long.Sometimes I caught myself waiting for it to shatter.A phone call.A knock.Something coming to take it all back.
But nothing ever came.
Just birds.Wind in the trees.The faint hum of the pool filter outside.
And me—standing here, not surviving.Living.
My gaze drifted to the shelf beside the easel.
To the small pair of shoes resting there.
They were ridiculously tiny.
Soft leather.Pale cream.No bigger than the length of my palm.
I hadn’t meant to buy them.
I hadn’t even meant to stop in that shop in Florence.But something had pulled me in, and once I’d seen them—once that thought had taken hold—it hadn’t let go.
The world had shifted in that moment.
Wordlessly.Permanently.
