Page 7 of Beautiful Ruins
My office was where I did my business.
Which meant, for now, so was she.
She was slumped in the chair like sleep had taken her apart and forgotten to put her back together properly.Her head tipped forward, chin near her chest, hair falling loose around her face.She wore jeans that had seen better days and a jacket a size too thin for the night she’d wandered into.Civilian clothes.Cheap.Practical.Wrong for basements and guns and men like me.
Nothing about her announced that she was anasset.Which made the question itch.
I studied her the way I studied devices before detonation—looking for tells, flaws, strengths.Her breathing was uneven but steady.No tension in her shoulders.No fight coiled in her muscles, waiting.A faint crease sat between her brows, like worry had lived there a long time.
What the hell had she been doing in that warehouse?
I’d run the footage again while she slept.Watched her get lost and then her hesitation as she pondered whether to go back or keep going.I watched the moment that fear finally found her.There was no training in it.No purpose.Just a woman following a bad instinct into the worst possible place.But it still didn’t tell me why she was there in the first place.
I leaned back against the desk and waited.
Eventually, she came back to herself slowly.She didn’t scream or thrash against her restraints.There was no sharp, panicked inhale the way most people woke when they realized they were tied down under unfamiliar ceilings.
Her eyes opened at a measured pace, fluttering.
Warm honey, catching the light as they focused on me—nothing wild or frantic about them.They moved around the room with intent, tracking corners, windows, the line of the ceiling.Cataloguing instead of begging.
Interesting.
Early morning sunlight filtered through the tall windows, breaking into pale shards as it spilled across the floor.Dust drifted through the light, slow and unhurried, each particle briefly illuminated before slipping back into shadow.
A hush had crept over the house.I didn’t speak.I just watched as wakefulness found her.
She blinked once.Then twice.Her gaze found me.
“Am I dead?”she rasped.
I answered without moving.“No.”
She frowned slightly.“How can you tell?”
“You’d know.”
Her mouth twitched, like the answer amused her despite herself.“That’s… comforting.Where am I?”
Definitely not trained.
Trained people weren’t so chatty when they woke.They masked fear.They tested restraints without letting you see them think.She moved openly in the chair, tugged once at the bindings, then let out a small sigh like she’d confirmed something mildly inconvenient.
I crossed the room slowly, letting my boots sound against the floor on purpose.
She followed me with her eyes.
But instead of fear, all I got was curiosity.
That earned her another mark in theinterestingcolumn.
I stopped an arm’s length away.Close enough to feel the heat coming off her.Close enough to see the freckles scattered across her nose, the faint pulse jumping at her throat.
When her gaze lifted fully to mine, it hit like fire and ice at the same time—warm, sharp, unsettling.Not defiant.Not submissive.But present, real.
Whatever had brought her into that abandoned warehouse, it had been something messy.
And I had a feeling she was about to complicate my life in ways I didn’t have time for—and absolutely didn’t need.
