Page 98 of Ruined By a Devil

I type back immediately.

Not yet. Lock the doors.

Her reply is there in just a few seconds.

Always.

I stare at the screen for a moment longer than necessary.

I mean it, Jade.

The three dots appear almost immediately.

I know. I’m literally surrounded by armed men. I couldn’t leave the house even if I wanted to.

Good.

You’re impossible.

Eat something.

You first.

I shake my head and slide the phone away.

Cain glances at me from the driver’s seat, one eyebrow lifting.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m trying to understand what happened to my brother,” Cain says. “The man I grew up with would rather cut off his own hand than send someone a fucking heart emoji.”

“I didn’t send her a heart emoji.”

“Yet.”

I look at him and Cain immediately returns his attention to the restaurant.

Smart decision.

I slide the phone away, trying to focus back on the job, but Jade’s message stays somewhere in the back of my mind. Jade’s wound is now completely healed. The stitches came out weeks ago, leaving a thin, silver scar just above her hip. She walks without pain and commands the city house staff like she was born to do it. Well, technically, she was born to do it.

She has also somehow convinced half the staff that I need to eat three meals a day and sleep for more than four hours a night. And those fucking traitors follow her orders along blindly.

But I know that none of this is easy for her either. Especially the first few weeks after Nolan disappeared. I expected Jade to feel safer once he was gone from the city, but I underestimated how deeply fear can settle into someone after a gun has been pressed against their head. Even though she never says she’s scared, I notice things. Jade would rather swallow broken glass than admit it, though.

The way she checks the locks twice before going to bed. The way her hand instinctively reaches for the gun I made sure she carries whenever an unfamiliar car slows down outside the house. The way she occasionally wakes in the middle of the night and reaches for me before she’s even fully conscious.

I never say anything, but I make sure to pull her closer.

She is safe.

For the first time in my life, I have something waiting for me when the job is done that isn't another meeting, another shipment, another war waiting to be handled.

I have Jade.