Page 53 of Ruin
Cassius Wolfe killed my parents, and I just told him I love him.
8
Cassius
Iwake to empty sheets and the ghost of her perfume on my pillow.
The note she left is brief, written in her precise handwriting.
Couldn't sleep. Gone home to review Michelle's files. See you tomorrow.
No endearment. No signature. Just information delivered like a business memo.
Something about it sits wrong.
After the way she melted in my arms last night, after whispering that she loves me with tears in her eyes, she should have stayed. Curled against me until dawn. Lazy kisses. Quiet plans about how we’ll dismantle the people trying to destroy us.
Instead, she left.
I reach for my phone and send a quick message.
Everything okay?
The text shows as delivered.
No reply.
Selene usually answers within minutes.
Her silence settles in my chest like a stone.
The shower runs cold while I think, letting the water punish me for whatever I've done wrong.
But I can't identify the mistake.
Last night was perfect—her confession of love, my own admission that she's everything to me, the tender way we moved together like we were sealing some unspoken vow.
Unless that's exactly the problem.
I call building security while getting dressed. "Ms. Deveraux—when did she arrive this morning?"
"Ms. Deveraux left a little after one last night, then returned this morning at seven-thirty. Seemed distracted when she came back—didn't return my greeting, which isn't like her. She went upstairs, then changed and Lionel escorted her to your office building."
Seven-thirty.
After staying up all night reading files.
Something in those documents spooked her, sent her running from my bed to her old apartment like she needed distance from me.
She could have reviewed them here, but went to her place instead.
The realization makes my jaw clench.
Distance from me means she's thinking clearly instead of being clouded by desire and devotion.
Clear thinking is dangerous when you're sleeping with your parents' killer.
I finish dressing in record time—charcoal suit, silver tie, the armor of respectability that lets me move through the legitimate world without suspicion.
