Ruination Novels & Stories

My eyes widened in panic, and I stared down at the broken tray, too concerned to even look at the person I had collided with. Weird, I know. But the second rule given to me was to never break anything, and now that I have, I didn’t need anyone to inform me that I have lost my job. With a very devastated heart, I crouched down gently, ready to pick the broken glasses, but a hand shot forward, grabbing my wrist before I could touch the fragmented pieces. “Don’t, Noria. They are going to hurt you.” The familiar voice echoed in my ear, and when my breath hitched, only then did I take in the cologne.

Mama turns to me, smiles and I do too. But inside, I sense a rupture beneath the glitter. A crack humming through the crowd and cheers. As if the walls remember something the rest of us forgot. That beauty this perfect always precedes ruin. I don’t know what I’ll say to Judas, or how would I explain myself. He’ll bring hell, and if Papochka or any of my fathers know, I’ll be bringing war to our doorsteps. The alliances will break, the immunity will be compromised, and the Romanovski name will be tarnished.

This was something that could have been entirely avoided. My life might not be more valuable than anyone else's. But the knowledge I possessed, along with my surgical skills that could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of cancer patients, made my hands especially important and irreplaceable. As I looked at Shaun, I felt like I was meeting him for the first time—everything about him felt so unfamiliar. "Let's break up," I muttered with finality. Shaun's face darkened, and he stood up angrily. "You're breaking up with me, huh? Your hand is ruined now. The hospital won't want you anymore. Your career is done for! Who else would want you but me?"

Violet POV “ Stupid irish brut” I hissed walking to the closet to pick up my clothes for the night. “ I’m going to pay you back for humiliating me and making your stupid guards touch my skin, you arrogant, stupid, toxic dumb head” I screamed at the empty room, throwing a hanger across the room. I caught my reflection in the mirror and stopped dead, I have never looked this horrific, my hair was a mess and clothes were ruined stained with whatever disgusting filth on that warehouse floor.

Once again her soul had been betrayed, that was the pain of betrayal. There was no worse damage than unrequited love. It was a disappointment to have been betrayed like that. Brandon was always there, watching the way they humiliated her, or at least that was what Crystal thought because the reality was that Brandon had just come in from making a very important call and was faced with that, just at the moment when he wanted to defend her, he was stopped by his mother. At a bad moment she turned to look at him and think something else very different from reality.

Droplets of crimson pattered the parched soil in thick, viscous spatters as I visibly strained to remain in control of my precarious grasp on sanity. "You arrogant, deluded fool...can you truly not sense the shifting winds that presage our ultimate downfall?" I grated out in a low rasp laced with the most faint desperation. "Our way of life, everything we've sworn blood oaths to protect...it will all crumble under the sledgehammer of Ivory's vengeance if we do not cut this metastatic malignancy out with impunity!"

My muscles lock, the throbbing pain fading as I watch his finger dance over the trigger. “You’re wrong.” he looks at me. “Let’s say you did destroy all the rings, X. Let’s say you accomplished what you’ve set out to do. Do you honestly believe, for one second, it’ll stay that way? Ha! The second the dust settles, evil will already be rebuilding their empire, this time stronger and better than before.” he stares at me as if I'm delusional. “You'll never get rid of evil. Never.”

Barely. And he... Draven strolled away untouched, while we bled in the ashes of a place that was supposed to protect us. I hated that more than anything. The bruises would fade. The burns would scab and scar. But that laugh, his fucking laugh, would echo in my head for a long time. Victory wasn’t supposed to taste like copper and dirt and failure. But it did. It was silence, but not relief. It was the quiet you held before you screamed. It was absence. It was loss. It was ash in your lungs, smoke, and the smell of rotting magic.

His response was clipped. “Money rules the world,” I said and he looked out the window. He sat with his back too straight, his jaw tight and his eyes on the road. Did I scare him? I wanted to remind him of old times but instead I focused on the road. I kept on driving until we left the city behind us and what we could see now was graffiti, warehouses and the smell of rust and smoke. These were the kind of places Julian had probably only read about. I noticed how he moved uncomfortably on his seat.