Page 59 of Ruin
"Then you'll know where you stand."
My phone buzzes with a text from Lionel:
She's heading back to her apartment. Looked upset when she left. Like she'd been crying.
Crying.
The words hit me straight in my heart.
She's in pain, and I'm the cause of it.
Nine years ago, I destroyed her family.
Now I'm destroying her heart.
The irony would be amusing if it weren't so fucking tragic.
"She's pulling away," Vincent observes, refilling his glass. "Creating distance between you. That's either self-preservation or preparation for attack."
"Which do you think?"
"With her? Both."
I think about the woman she's become over the past year—brilliant, ruthless, capable of anything when properly motivated.
Nine years of trauma and transformation have forged her into something magnificent and dangerous.
If she decides I need to die for what I've done, she'll find a way to make it happen.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it makes me proud of what she's become.
"I'm going to her apartment," I decide, standing up and reaching for my jacket.
"Bad idea," Vincent warns, rising as well. "If she's planning something—if she's called someone for help?—"
"Then I'll deal with it." I check my gun, holster it beneath my jacket, grab the keys to my most anonymous car. "But I won't let her suffer alone with this knowledge."
"What if she's not alone? What if she's called that ADA friend? Or the FBI? Hell, what if she's contacted the media?"
The thought stops me cold.
Michelle. Law enforcement. Reporters who would love nothing more than to bring down Cassius Wolfe with his own lover's testimony.
She has options, connections, people who would help her destroy me if she asked.
"Contact Lionel and tell him to have our people watch the building," I tell Vincent. "Anyone approaches her apartment—law enforcement, media, even a fucking pizza delivery—I want to know immediately."
Vincent refills his glass, settles back in his chair like a man preparing for a long vigil or a funeral.
"You know this ends badly," he says quietly.
"Everything ends badly. The only question is how much damage we do on the way there."
"And if she chooses revenge over love?"
I pause at the door, thinking about her tears tonight, her silence today, the way she pulled away from me after the most intimate night we've ever shared.
Thinking about the footage of her staring at my photograph with heartbreak in her eyes.
