Page 23 of Made For Ruin

She pushes off the couch and starts pacing, her hands gesturing wildly as she speaks.

“But what choice do I have? Derrick is all I have left. Our parents are gone, and I promised them I would always look out for him. I can’t lose him too.”

“Axel’s right, Lainey,” I say. “You can’t keep putting yourself in danger for Derrick’s mistakes.”

She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “He’s my brother, Marcus. I can’t just abandon him.”

“There’s a difference between abandoning him and enabling him,” I counter, pushing off the mantle to close the distance between us. “Paying off his debts, risking your safety, your livelihood—it’s not helping him in the long run. It’s just delaying the inevitable.”

Lainey’s eyes narrow. “Is that why you brought me here? So you could lecture me about my life choices?”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. Is that what she thinks this is? Some kind of intervention?

“Because if that’s the case,” she continues, her voice rising with each word, “then I want to go home. Now.”

I take a step closer, invading her space until I can feel the heat radiating off her body.

“No, that’s not why I brought you here,” I tell her. “I didn’t take you so I could lecture you or tell you how to live your life. And you know it.”

Lainey tilts her head back to meet my gaze, her blue eyes searching mine for answers.

“Then why? Why do you care what happens to me?”

Why?

Because she hums under her breath when she thinks no one’s listening, and the songs get stuck in my head for days.

Because she treats every person who walks into that diner like they matter, from the rich bastards who barely acknowledge her to the elderly couples who can barely afford their meals.

Because she’s strong enough to carry the world on her shoulders but soft enough to make me want to murder anyone who makes her cry.

Because she’s everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I shouldn’t have.

The question hangs between us, the air heavy with tension. I know the answer, but admitting it out loud feels like jumping off a cliff without a parachute.

But I’m done running from this. From her.

“Because you’re mine,” I growl, the words tearing out of me like a confession. “You have been since the moment I first saw you.”

She blinks up at me, her chest rising and falling faster now. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” I lean in closer, and my breath stirs the hair at her temple. “Mine.”

I used to hear stories when I first moved to Cooper Heights about people on the other side of the mountain in Cooper Hills falling in love at first sight. The kind of tales old-timers would spin over whiskey, their eyes glazing over like they were seeing something the rest of us couldn’t.

To be honest, I never put much stock in it before tonight. Most folks on this side of the mountain are too jaded to admit to believing in fairy tales.

But now, standing here with Lainey, her blue eyes wide and her lips parted like she’s waiting for me to prove it, I get it.

I don’t know why, but she’s mine. Not because I said so, but because something deep in my gut—something primal and unshakable—knows it’s true.

Her lips part, then close again, and I can see the struggle in her eyes—the fight between what she thinks she should say and what she’s feeling. I can feel it too, that tension in the air, thick and electric, like a storm about to break.

“Marcus, you can’t just say I’m yours,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

“Why not?”

“Because you barely even know me.”

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