Page 17 of Beautiful Ruin

I prefer this hour.

I’m halfway through the east corridor when I see the soft spill of light coming from the breakfast room and slow without meaning to. Sofia sits curled in one of the chairs by the tall window, bare feet tucked under the hem of that soft cream sweater she seems to favor the most out of her entire wardrobe. Her hair is still mussed from sleep, tangled in loose waves around her shoulders and catching the weak light. One hand is wrapped around a coffee mug balanced on her knee, thin fingers curled against the porcelain to soak in the warmth.

From the doorway, it looks like nothing more than a quiet woman staring out at the frozen gardens. The scene is almost domestic in a way.

Then I realize she isn’t actually looking at the gardens. She’s looking beyond them, past the frost-stiff hedges and the empty stone path to the high wall enclosing the property. To the watchtower at the southeast corner where several guards are posted.

They move slowly against the morning chill, one pair stepping off while another climbs the stairs to relieve them. Her head tracks the change without moving much else. Her eyes follow the outgoing men to the eastern path, then shift to the replacements, silently marking where they stop.

I almost laugh.

Not because it’s funny.

It’s just so unexpected, I don’t know what else to do.

I knew the first time I saw her at the estate that she wasn’t going to be easy to deal with. That much was obvious from the way she looked at me under the portico, furious and frightened and too proud to let any of it show. But I didn’t realize then how much trouble she would actually be to handle.

Her eyes latch onto my reflection in the glass, then she turns in the chair to face me fully, one bare foot slipping down to the floor while the other stays tucked beneath her. There isn’t an ounce of guilt in her expression to suggest she feels bad about being caught studying the perimeter. Just that same infuriatingly direct stare with far too much calculation moving beneath the surface of it.

“I want to see my uncle,” she says.

Straight to the point. If she were anyone else, I would respect it. Unfortunately, all it does is irritate me.

“No.” The answer comes out flat.

Her brows draw together. “Why not?”

I exhale through my nose. “Because getting you there safely would draw too much attention. You were pulled out of Italy for a reason.”

Already this conversation is starting to feel like dragging barbed wire across bare skin. Every question she asks hooks somewhere deep under my patience and tears all the way through it, leaving me raw in places I don’t care to examine too closely.

Being forced into this babysitting job by Ivan has already left me with an unbelievably short amount of patience. More so than usual. Every hour I spend keeping Sofia exactly where she’s supposed to be feels like a badly set bone grinding against every nerve ending in me.

All I wanted was to remain at Ivan’s side while he recovered. That should have been my place—at his door, handling who comes in and out, filtering information, and watching for traitors bold enough to smell blood in the water and circle closer. Instead, I’m here shadowing his niece through breakfast rooms and hallways making sure she doesn’t slip out a side door or talk a kitchen assistant into giving her a backroom key.

I am not a guardian. I am not built for comfort, reassurance, or soft handling. People do not look to me when they want protection that feels kind. They turn to me when they want their problems ended.

Permanently.

I know how to break bones, cut throats, make steel traps talk. I know how to watch a room and identify who’ll pull first, who’ll run, who’ll beg for their lives while offering up someone else’s. I know how to stand beside Ivan and make everyone else around us remember exactly what kind of king they’re sitting across from.

What I do not know how to do is explain to a furious woman why she can’t see the only family she has left.

The worst part, above all else, is that I know exactly why he gave her to me. I am the one man in his circle ruthless enough to hold the line no matter how much she pushes against it. The one least likely to be charmed, manipulated, or guilted into giving her what she wants. He chose me because I am supposed to be immune to all of that.

Yet somewhere underneath the irritation, deeper than the orders and the exhaustion and the resentment still curdling in me over being sent away from Ivan’s bedside, I feel myself understanding her desperation. This assignment was supposed to be punishment enough without making it personal.

It would be easier if she were a spoiled brat I could lock inside a room all day and refuse to let out. Instead, she gets under my skin, and that pisses me off more than anything else.

She is supposed to be a living piece of leverage that someone out there was brazen enough to place inside an assassin’s file. That should be enough to strip all complication from this mess entirely. She should be no different from guarding an important package because Ivan says that’s exactly what she is.

Nothing more.

But then she looks at me with those clear blue eyes and suddenly, the whole arrangement becomes more complicated than I know what to do with. Now I cannot even comfort myself with the idea that this is beneath me, guarding some princess and waiting for the days to pass until Ivan is strong enough to take her off my hands.

Sofia’s lips slowly begin to part. I don’t know exactly which angle she means to take this argument, but I can take an educated guess. She’ll tell me it’s one drive across the city, that she can wear something inconspicuous. That if my men are as competent as they seem, then moving one woman from the estate to a private hospital wing shouldn’t be impossible.

I don’t give her the chance.