Page 38 of Ruthless God

She mutters something under her breath. The words are quiet, barely audible over the steady rumble of the engine. But I catch enough.

“Even if you had put up a fight, you’d still be here,” I say, my voice even and detached. “I was hired to do a job by your father, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

She lets out a dry, humorless laugh.

“Hired by a man I’ve never met.” There’s bitterness in her voice that’s sharp and cutting. “I’m assuming you don’t know why he’s bothering, do you? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to just let me die? It’s not like he’ll miss me when I’m gone.”

I don’t flinch. I don’t react. Because that’s not my role here.

“I don’t need to know information like that,” I say simply. “I do the job I’m hired to do. That’s it.”

Her gaze flicks to the mirror, locking onto mine. There’s something there. Anger, defiance, and maybe even a plea buried beneath all that steel. But I don’t give her anything back.

Then, something funny happens.

She makes the same expressionhedoes. Her father.

She doesn’t even know him, and yet here she is, mirroring his scowl, his narrowed gaze, the way his lips press into a thin line when he’s trying not to let his emotions show.

I guess that’s genetics or some shit.

She looks away first, her shoulders stiff, her face turned back toward the window.

And just like that, I finally have silence.

I focus on the road, gripping the wheel a little tighter than before. I’m not sure what it is about this woman that’s getting under my skin.

She means nothing to me. She’s just a job. One I’ll finish, like I always do with clean efficiency and no loose ends. That’s how I operate. That’s how I’ve always operated.

And yet, something about her lingers, settles in the back of my mind like an itch I can’t scratch.

Maybe it’s the way she hasn’t cried, not since we left. She stares out the window, her face unreadable, her body stiff, but I know better. She’s hurting. I can feel it, thick in the air between us. And for some goddamn reason, that bothers me.

A dry huff slips past my lips.

It’s not like I don’t know women like her. People who’ve learned to expect nothing from the world because they’ve been disappointed too many times to count. They’re the ones who build walls so high that even they forget what’s on the other side.

She’s like that. Guarded. Quiet. Bracing for the worst.

Maybe that’s why I can’t stop looking at her in the mirror, watching the way she grips her arms, the way her fingers press into her skin like she’s trying to hold herself together.

Or maybe it’s not that at all.

Maybe it’s the simple fact that she’s the only person to have direct contact with the man pretending to be my brother and lived to tell the tale.

And that? That makes her dangerous.

Not to me.

But to him.

Which means she’s valuable.

I grip the wheel tighter, jaw clenching.

And valuable things don’t get to disappear.

Unable to take the silence any longer, I reach for the radio and flip it on. A gritty rock song spills through the speakers, the heavy bass and raw vocals cutting through the thick quiet that’s been stretching between us like a loaded wire.

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