Page 25 of Ruthless

Unfortunately, the bastard is healing fast, so I’ll only be able to flaunt his injuries for so long before I’ll have to come up with a new strategy. Maybe I’ll smash his kneecaps with a baseball bat. Not my first choice since I’m already short-staffed, but a worthy sacrifice on Gregor’s part if it even remotely upsets Sara.

Angela leaves a minute later, and Sara reaches for her food, pauses, then draws her hand away. Frowning, I hunch forward like I’m in a movie theatre and the dumbass on screen is about to act dumb. “What the hell are you up to now?”

Everything about Sara is familiar to me. Her heart-shaped face. The way she tucks her hair behind one ear when she’s concentrating. How she paces from one end of the room to the other, her gaze trained on the floor because she’s usually lost in her own head.

I recognize the little lily tattoo on her inner wrist that I convinced her to get one night when we were both drunk, and her muttering to herself while she plots her escape, like I can’t hear every damn word.

What I don’t recognize is the nervous way she picks at her skin. Her nails dig into the delicate bend of her elbow as she stares at the wall, her gaze vacant. I reach for the intercom button so fast that I knock over a stack of folders at the corner of my desk. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Sara screeches and kicks over her tray, scattering food everywhere. An apple rolls across the floor and bangs into the door while she clutches her chest, scrutinizing the ceiling as if she might find me hanging from the rafters like a bat. Clearly she didn’t know the camera in her cell had a speaker. “H-hello?”

My teeth grind together, and I try again, calmer this time. “What are you doing? Why are you picking at yourself like that?”

She scoffs, folding her arms across her chest. “Why do you care?”

Anger damn near chokes me. Sara ismine. Every part of her belongs to me.

When did she start doing this? How often does it happen?Whyis she doing it? She’s about to respond when a knock rattles my office door. I force-quit the screen moments before Luca steps in.

My second catches one glimpse of me and pauses, his gaze flicking between my computer screen and me. “Am I interrupting?”

I want nothing more than to reopen the feed and rewind to hear what she was about to say, but I don’t. I need to get myself under control before she weakens my resolve further. Luca provides a welcome reminder that Sara isn’t the only piece in this game.

“No.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. What do I care if she’s tearing at her skin? I’m not supposed to concern myself with anything except her pain. That’s the entire point.

Luca drops into a seat across from me without direction. He eyes the scattered papers on the ground but doesn’t comment. Instead, he slides a folder toward me.

When I open it, I’m greeted with several photographs of a man lying face-first in a ditch, nothing but a bloody, empty hole where his brain and skull should be.

“What am I looking at?”

“Our lead? The one you shot on the fire escape? Fucker didn’t even last the week.”

I close the folder, swiping the entire thing away from me. Another bust. “Shit.”

Luca snorts. “Tell me about it.”

The Ghost. The only one of my former captors who still haunts this earth. Despite me exhausting every resource at my disposal, the bastard continues to live up to his nickname by remaining elusive. The last lead Luca tracked was in the shower when I paid him a visit.

The Ghost’s men are loyal to a fault. Even the threat of a bullet and all the torture didn’t inspire him to talk.

The jackass made a run for it buck naked. He climbed out the window and down the fire escape before my bullet tunneled straight through his gut. Wailing sirens closed in not even thirty seconds later—way too quick for a normal 911 response—preventing me from chasing him to get answers.

I fled his shitty apartment before the first cop pulled up outside the slanted brick building. My men were tracking him the same day I followed Sara, and my last-minute abduction threw my Ghost-hunt off the rails. Now it’s time to get back on track.

Unfortunately, our most promising clue has died. The Ghost must have killed him when he realized I was closing in. I hate that I let that opportunity slip through my fingers…

Leaning back in my seat, I crack my knuckles, my mind racing. Luca doesn’t say as much, but he thinks I screwed up. Still, I couldn’t ignore the chance to get to Sara, so I’ll just have to live with the fallout.

“What’s our next move?”

As Luca rolls his neck, I note the shadows under his eyes. This mission to capture the Ghost has exacted a toll on all of us. Luca wants him almost as badly as I do, because he’s devoted like that, but I still can’t help the pang of guilt in my chest. “I might have something, but it’s flimsy. May not be worth the time. Of course, we could always ask the Council?—”

“We’re not asking the Council for shit.” I cut him off before he completes the thought. Going to the Council for assistance in finding the Ghost is out of the question. They might have the resources, but I refuse to indebt myself to them, and I damn sure don’t want them snatchingmykill out from under me. We’re so close. We just need to stay the course. “You say you have another lead? I don’t care how flimsy. Follow it.”

“Understood.” He rises to his feet. “You look like shit. Come out with us for a bit tonight. It’ll help distract your mind from other things.”

I exhale through my nose. “I’ll think about it.” I dismiss him with a curt wave of my hand, ending the meeting early. Even with so much left to discuss, all I can think about is the absent look in Sara’s eyes as she dug into her own skin. What other little habits has she picked up? How much of her is the woman I once knew? And why the fuck do I even care?