Page 37 of Ruthless

Before I could respond, he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him.

I stretched out on the couch, too wound up to sleep but too exhausted to do anything else. Vincent's words ricocheted through my skull. He thought I was a good man.

He couldn't be more wrong. I existed as the antithesis of good, a weapon crafted specifically to destroy lives. But still...

It meant something, no, everything, that he thought otherwise. A warmth bloomed behind my sternum where nothing but ice had lived for decades.

Vincent left the doorcracked open in a silent invitation I had no intention of accepting.

I padded silently to the threshold anyway. The dim light caught on Vincent's sleeping face, illuminating the bruises darkening on his throat. My stomach twisted.

Vincent stirred, something troubled crossing his features. A nightmare? He murmured something unintelligible, body tensing beneath the sheets. Before I realized what I was doing, I'd crossed to the edge of the bed, my hand hovering over his shoulder.

"Shhh," I whispered. "You're safe."

He relaxed at my voice, tension melting from his shoulders. His eyelids fluttered but didn't open. I allowed myself five seconds to memorize him this way—vulnerable, trusting despite everything he knew about me. Five seconds of weakness.

One. The way his dark lashes fanned against his cheeks. Two. The slight part of his lips as he breathed. Three. The stubble darkening his jaw that would feel like sandpaper against my skin. Four. The steadypulse at his throat, directly beneath my fingerprints. Five. The heat radiating from his body, a siren call to slip beneath those sheets.

Time's up.

I backed away, careful not to wake him. This wasn't about what I wanted. It was about keeping him alive, regardless of the hunger gnawing at my insides whenever I looked at him.

The couch cushions swallowed me like quicksand when I returned to the living room. My hands itched for motion, for purpose. Without thought, I reached beneath the couch where I'd stashed a small Ruger .380. Vincent didn't know about it. Better that way.

I ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber in one practiced motion, the metallic slide of the action grounding me in the familiar. Muscle memory took over as I began field stripping the weapon, my fingers finding each pin and spring mindlessly. This, at least, made sense. This, I understood.

"Excellent disassembly, Luka. Your fingers are talented. So precise."

My hand froze on the recoil spring. Prometheus's voice, so vivid it might have been whispered directly into my ear. My pulse pounded in my throat and sweat beaded at my temples despite the carefully regulated climate of our sanctuary.

"Fuck off," I muttered to the empty room, forcing my fingers to continue their mechanical dance. Trigger assembly out. Guide rod separated. Barrel extracted from the slide.

I arranged each piece in perfect alignment on the coffee table, creating a grid of deadly components that mirrored the mental compartmentalization I desperately needed. Ordered. Controlled. Contained.

"Your mind is a weapon I've been honing for decades."

The ghost of his hand settled on the back of my neck, the phantom pressure so real my muscles contracted in rememberedresponse. The air in the room suddenly felt too thin, oxygen molecules scattering before I could pull them into my lungs.

I took a deep breath and held it, letting it out slowly. My heart rate began to slow, each controlled breath loosening the vice around my chest.

The components on the table swam back into focus. I reached for the slide, my fingertips connecting with cold metal. Real. Present. Here. Not in Milan. Not with him.

I began reassembling the Ruger, each piece clicking home. This was the one thing I could always count on. Machines didn't lie. They didn't manipulate. They simply performed as designed when treated correctly.

"Just like you, Luka. My most perfect creation."

My jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. The magazine slid home with a solid click. I chambered a round, metal gliding against metal smooth as silk, then engaged the safety and returned the weapon to its hiding place. The entire process took less than four minutes.

What now? Sleep was out of the question. I needed something, anything, to occupy my mind until daylight arrived with its blessed distractions.

I remembered the emergency stash of gummy worms I'd hidden in the kitchen. Pathetic? Maybe. But when your world was falling apart, you grabbed what comfort you could.

I retrieved one bag, the crinkle of plastic absurdly loud in the silence. Red, green, yellow, orange… A rainbow of artificial flavors that had become my bizarre form of self-soothing. I spread them out on the coffee table where gun parts had just been, arranging them by color out of habit.

"Okay," I muttered, picking up a green one. "You're Ferny."

I placed it carefully on the table, then selected a red one. "And you're Jeremy, you judgmental prick."

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