Page 26 of Beautiful Ruins
I bit the inside of my cheek.I shouldn’t have found this funny.I shouldn’t have felt anything other than fear.
But watching someone talk to him like he was just… a brother, not a threat?It made something in my chest loosen.Just slightly.Like my body had been waiting for proof that he wasn’t a monsterall the time.
Tone caught me watching and smiled, as if she could read that thought.
“Come on.”She stepped closer.“Show me where you’ve been hiding.”
9
Raze
Iknew the second she walked in that my night was about to get worse.
Not because of the woman standing beside her—Izzy barely had time to register in my mind before my sister’s voice started ricocheting off the walls of my house like a thrown knife.
Tone.
Of course it was Tone.
She had the uncanny ability to step into any situation and immediately start rearranging it like the world had been waiting for her to arrive and fix the furniture.
My voice dropped low when I growled her name.
“Tone—”
I didn’t even get the chance to finish the sentence.
She kept walking like she hadn’t heard me at all, heels clicking confidently across the marble floor.
“Raze, if you say ‘Tone’ one more time like it’s a command,” she shot back over her shoulder, not slowing down in the slightest, “I’m going to start calling you by your government name in front of your men.”
That stopped me cold.My eyes flashed toward her.
“Don’t.”
It came out sharper than I intended, but the warning was real.
There were very few people on earth stupid—or brave—enough to threaten that particular piece of ammunition.
Tone, apparently, was both.
Her grin widened.Not amused.Predatory.
“Try me.”
Christ.
I breathed slowly through my nose, the way you do when you’re trying very hard not to commit a felony in your own foyer.In my head I started counting to ten, but the numbers were less mathematics and more a list of ways I could remove my sister from the premises without technically killing her.
It didn’t help.
Instead, I turned away from her before I said something regrettable and directed my attention at the guards stationed near the entrance.
“Keep eyes on the perimeter.”My voice was clipped.“Put extra men on rotation.No one comes in without my word.”
One of them straightened immediately.
“Yes, sir.”
