Page 77 of Beautiful Ruins
“Get him out of my sight,” I told Matteo.
They dragged him toward the gate.
Izzy released a slow breath.
I turned to her.
Rage still burned hot under my skin.
She stepped closer, pressing her palm to my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her then, pulling her into me with a force that bordered on feral.
My hands slid into her hair, gripping, anchoring.
“You saved his life,” I murmured into her temple.
“No,” she breathed.“I saved your soul.”
I pulled back slightly.
“He’s not worth you becoming that,” she warned me.
My jaw flexed.
“For you…,” my voice was rough, “I would become anything.”
She rose onto her toes and kissed me.
It wasn’t soft or fragile.It felt very much like she was laying claim to me as the gates closed behind us with a thunderous clang, shutting Nathan Azzopardi out.
I wasn’t finished with him yet.I knew he’d be back, because leeches didn’t just stop leeching.
He’d learn that Izzy wasn’t his.
She was my line in the sand.
24
Izzy
Raze didn’t speak as we walked back toward the house.
He kept one hand at the small of my back, firm and steady, guiding rather than pushing.Possessive without being rough.Protective without asking permission to be.I was acutely aware of the weight of that hand the entire time, of the way it never once left me until we stepped into the foyer.
Only then did he let go.
I realized I’d been holding my breath since the confrontation ended.
My body was calm.Unusually calm.
I wasn’t particularly upset that Nathan had turned up.That, more than anything, should have bothered me.But it didn’t.
If anything, tonight gave me something I hadn’t realized I was still waiting for.When he vanished from my life, it had left things feeling incomplete.Abrupt.Like a conversation cut off mid-sentence.There had been no confrontation, no explanation, no moment where I could look him in the eye and see him clearly for what he was.
Just silence.And confusion.
But standing there tonight, listening to him speak, watching the desperation in his face and the entitlement in his tone, something inside me settled in a way it hadn’t before.
