Page 89 of Ruins
I hesitate, not wanting to break whatever fragile thread has formed between us. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I say softly.
He nods once, his gaze distant. “She lived here for her last few years. I visited during summers.”
Something about the way he says it, careful, measured, makes me tread lightly. He’s letting me in, but only just enough.
Still, I can’t help but ask. “Were your parents divorced?”
The shift is immediate.
Santo releases my hand and steps away.
The absence of his touch is instant, jarring.
I curse myself for saying the wrong thing, for asking something that wasn’t mine to ask.
“No.”
His tone is clipped, sharper than before. He turns his back to me, his broad shoulders tense, his posture stiff.
“She lived here because my father thought she would be safer.” A bitter pause. “He was wrong.”
A chill runs through me.
“We have many enemies in this life.” He exhales, slow, controlled. “They look for weaknesses, and they attack.”
Finally, he turns to me again.
His stormy gaze locks onto mine, filled with something raw, something restless. “You are a weakness.”
The words knock the breath from my lungs.
A weakness.
I part my lips, but no words come. I don’t know how to respond to that.
His voice remains steady, detached, but the weight of his meaning is suffocating. “Being my wife makes you a target.”
I swallow thickly.
He’s not saying it to be cruel. He’s stating a fact.
A brutal, irrevocable truth.
I am a liability to him.
Santo steps closer, his expression unreadable once more. “I will ask that you take guards with you when you leave the house and that you make those ventures out brief and seldom.”
I deflate, sinking on to the bench.
The walls are closing in already.
But I nod. I understand.
His piercing gaze holds mine, searching. Seconds stretch, dragging between us like something unspoken, something unbreakable.
I reach out hesitantly, expecting him to pull away.
He doesn’t.
