Page 17 of Her Ruin

Rye stayed quiet, his eyes flicking between me and the screens.

I glanced at the monitors showing the private club again, this time focusing on the back room. A private party was in full swing. Piles of money, stacked carelessly, sat on tables that gleamed under the dim light. Girls danced for old men in ill-fitted suits with fat wallets. Some of the men slumped in their chairs, their eyes glazed from too much whiskey or too little restraint.

The corners of my mouth twitched into a smirk as I watched the carefully controlled chaos. Every laugh, every dollar thrown, and every whispered word was a piece of a larger picture.

In the corner of the room, a man in a crisp tailored suit stood out like a shark in a tank full of bloated fish. His eyes weren’t on the money or the girls; they were locked on the guy in front of him. I knew what they were discussing, and it wasn’t the kind of deal that ended with a handshake and signed contract.

This was the real heart of Elixir. The place where the stakes were high and the rules didn’t exist. It all unfolded in front of me like a conductor overseeing a symphony. Every movement, every transaction, every indulgence—it all fed back into the machine I’d built.

Isla could fight to find her footing in her little corner of the world, thinking she could beat me, but she’d never touch this. She wouldn’t know how.

Let Isla do her best. She could throw all of her energy into making herself a “threat,” but this game wasn’t hers to win.

She didn’t even know the rules.

CHAPTER6

ISLA

Mornings used to be predictable.At six a.m., I’d wake up, shower, drink coffee, check emails, get dressed, go to work, and plan the day ahead.

But now?Now? Chaos. Controlled, scheduled chaos—but still chaos.

By seven a.m., I was already running late. I hadn’t even left my apartment yet, and my phone was blowing up with messages, email notifications, and missed calls.

Who called people before seven in the morning? Monsters. That’s who.

It was fair to say the renovations and redesign of The Grand had become my life.

I was wedged between my usual workload of managing high-end events, handling clients, and making sure my client list didn’t fall apart while Elixir pulled everyone to it. Event planning was a full-time job, and then I took on thismassiveproject. I thought it was a great idea at the time—and itwas—but I realized very quickly it was harder than I thought.

The demands on my time were constant.

Gerard Fitzsimmons’demands were constant.

I glanced at the clock and saw it was already ten past seven.Shit.But I also knew that if I didn’t have at least one more mug of coffee someone was going to suffer. Okay,Iwas going to suffer if I was caffeine deprived, but that didn’t mean anyone else was safe either. I grabbed a travel mug and filled it to the very brink of what was permissible before screwing the lid on tight. I checked my phone again.

Another text from Gerard. I flipped the lid on the travel mug and took a huge gulp, hissing at the burn. I’d need to get a refill on the way to work, I reasoned as I shoved my phone into my blazer pocket, grabbed my keys, and left my apartment.

I made my first call of the day in the car. Pete was the hotel’s project foreman, and I had already anticipated why he called me before seven.

“Isla?”

“Hey, Pete,” I greeted, trying to be bright and cheery even if it was seven fifteen. “I have a missed call from you?” I had four, but let’s not be aggressive. Reaching over, I picked up my travel mug and took a drink of the black nectar that would soothe me.

“Did I wake you?”

That was how my Aunt Veronica sounded when she would ask me at Thanksgiving if I definitely liked men.

Every. Single. Thanksgiving.

Since I was twenty.

“You’re sure you like men, Isla? I don’t know why you would be single when you’re so pretty. It’s okay to like girls now,you know. Do you? Do you like girls? Is that why you don’t have a man? Or a girl?”

“If you were worried you woke me, Pete, at six forty in the morning, maybe you don’t ring someone anotherthreetimes before seven.”

“Um…”

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