Page 14 of Beautiful Ruins
I turned back to the wall of screens, my gaze finding her without effort.I’d given her permission to wander around the house, hoping that might give me insight to who she was; what she wanted.She was in the kitchen now, barefoot on cold stone, moving about with careless confidence.She opened cabinets, closed them again, frowning like the space had failed her somehow.
She stopped in front of the espresso machine, studied it for a long moment, then scowled.
Actually scowled.As if it had personally offended her.
A smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.Small.Unwanted.Gone as quickly as it came.
She moved wrong for this world.
Too open.Too loud in ways that had nothing to do with volume.She touched things without asking.Leaned into doorframes.Looked out windows like she expected the view to give something back to her.Demanded of one of my men—dead serious—to know if the house was haunted.
Haunted.
Idiots didn’t last long around me.Curiosity got people killed.So did comfort.So did the assumption that you were safe just because no one had hurt you yet.
And yet, there she was.
Alive.
Breathing.
Unbroken.
I watched her pace the kitchen, fingers trailing across the counter, eyes sharp, taking in details she shouldn’t have been noticing.That was the problem.That was the thing that scratched at the back of my skull.She wasn’t stupid.She wasn’t naïve.She was… misplaced.Like someone had dropped her into the wrong story and she was trying to read the rules off the walls.
Magnetic.That was the word for it.Annoyingly so.
She drew attention without trying.Pulled focus just by existing.I hated that kind of person.People like that disrupted systems.Bent rooms around themselves.Made other people careless.
She opened the knife drawer.
I leaned forward without realizing it.
She lifted one, testing its weight, her grip sure, evaluating the piece.Her head tilted slightly, expression thoughtful, like she was filing the sensation away for later.
Something warm and unfamiliar twisted low in my chest.Interest, sharp and unwelcome.
A knock came at the door.
“Nothing.”I waved my man into the room.“She’s clean.Frustratingly so.No digital footprint worth mentioning.No known associations.No money trails.No ghosts.”
I nodded once.A clean history meant nothing in my world.
“Keep digging.”
He hesitated.I could hear it in the way his breath caught, the way he didn’t move right away.“You think she’s worth the trouble?”
I looked back at the screen.
She’d put the knife back—precisely where it belonged—and was now leaning against the counter, arms folded, eyes narrowed at nothing at all.Thinking.Like she could feel the house watching her and didn’t care.
Worth the trouble.Trouble was my business.
“Yes.”I was more certain than ever.“I do.”
Because bait or not, accident or threat, she had already done the one thing no one had ever managed to do.
She’d made me curious.
