Semua Bab His To Ruin: Bab 91 - Bab 100

I drove home with the windows down, letting the night air cut through the stench of gunpowder and the faint copper of blood that still clung to me. My knuckles ached from the fight. My jaw was tight, teeth grinding with every mile. Silas’s voice still echoed in my head, the way he’d said Robert’s name, the way he’d talked about my father like he was nothing but dirt in the ground.I wanted to punch the steering wheel. I wanted to turn the car around and make him die all over again.By the time I reached my building, the world felt quieter. Not calm, never calm, but muted, like everything was underwater. I parked, took the service elevator straight up, and keyed in the security codes without thinking.Inside, I stripped down before the door had even shut behind me. My clothes went into a black trash bag. Not the laundry. Not ever again.The shower was hot enough to scald, but I needed it. Steam swallowed the bathroom, and I stood there with my head bowed, water pounding down over my sh

The rain had not stopped since dawn, a slow, deliberate drizzle that blurred the city skyline into gray smudges. Robert stood by his office window, one hand resting on the glass, the other cradling a tumbler of whiskey that he had not touched in over an hour. The fire in the hearth crackled behind him, but it did nothing to chase away the chill threading through his veins.The knock came softly,,too soft for anyone but Smoke.Robert turned his head slightly, his eyes catching the faint reflection of the man in the window. Smoke entered without waiting for permission, a shadow among shadows, his coat still damp from the rain. He shut the door behind him with a muted click.Robert studied him in the glass.“Your face tells me I’m not going to like what you’re about to say.”Smoke didn’t answer right away. He stepped further into the room, his boots soundless against the carpet, his hands buried in the pockets of his coat. The silence stretched, a careful thing, until Robert finally turne

I stayed where I was, hands in my pockets, watching cartoons flicker across the muted TV. The playroom door down the hall had opened and closed again. Her voice floated back, soft, warm in a way I’d never heard from her. Not the Marisol I’d dug into, the one who could slit a man’s throat with a smile and wipe the blade clean before you hit the floor.When she came back, she didn’t sit. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, eyes locked on me like I was a fire she couldn’t decide would burn her house down or keep it warm.“Why’d you kill Silas?” she asked.I turned my head toward her, slow. “Because he was a loud mouth.”Her mouth tightened. She didn’t question it, she didn’t have to. She’d always known what men like Silas were.“Yeah,” she said quietly. “He was. He was… a lot to handle.”“But you liked him,” I said.Silence.The hum of the refrigerator filled the pause, and somewhere down the hall a child laughed. Her gaze dropped for a moment, as if that sound alone was the only thing

The phone buzzed against the leather console, a sharp vibration that cut through the silence. Ezra’s name lit up the screen.Killian answered on the first ring.“Talk.”“I dug him up,” Ezra said without preamble. His tone was brisk, efficient , but there was a quiet thread under it, like something about this didn’t sit right even with him. “Daniel Mercer. On paper, nothing special. He owns a small hardware store in Ridgefield. Divorced a few years back, no kids. No priors, no arrests, no debts. Pays taxes on time, utilities steady. Looks like a man who goes home after closing shop and eats frozen dinners in front of the TV.”Killian’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. Ordinary. Too ordinary.“Address.”Ezra rattled it off. Then, after a pause: “killian… he doesn’t look like someone who belongs in this world. I’ve seen ghosts with heavier footprints.”Killian cut the line without answering. He didn’t need Ezra’s doubts circling his head.The car purred beneath his grip as he shi

The day bled into itself in a blur of fabric swatches, flower arrangements, and endless chatter I could barely hear. Every surface around me seemed dressed in ivory and gold, as though the house itself were being married, not me. My name floated in the air...“Ivy, what do you think of this lace?”...“Miss Lancaster, would you prefer cream roses or blush?" but none of it touched me.I sat there like a ghost draped in silk, nodding absently while women bustled with pins between their lips and tape measures snapping against my waist. It was supposed to be the happiest week of my life. In exactly six days, I was meant to walk down an aisle, veiled and obedient, toward a man whose touch made my skin crawl. A dressmaker’s assistant chattered about the gown’s arrival in two days’ time, her words punctuated with excitement, as though she were delivering a fairytale ending.I hadn’t chosen the dress. I hadn’t chosen a single thing. The flowers, the menu, the vows, all of it had been planned by V