Page 110 of His Ruthless Match

For a long moment, I simply held her, my chest tight with a mix of emotions I couldn’t quite identify. Fear, protectiveness, love—though that last one felt too big, too dangerous to fully acknowledge. She didn’t belong in this mess, this dangerous, chaotic world I lived in. But she was here, and I’d destroy anyone who tried to take her away.

My fingers trailed lightly down her back, tracing the curve of her spine. She was warm, soft, and heartbreakingly human. I’d never been good at love. Hell, I never thought I could have it. But with her, it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt inevitable.

She shifted again, her hand sliding up to rest fully over my heart, and I swore it stopped beating for a moment. I pressed my lips to the top of her head and breathed her in.

“I’ve got you, Delgado,” I whispered. “No one’s taking you from me. Not now. Not ever.”

My mind was already racing, planning the next steps. The bounty, the flyers, the threats… Mere obstacles. I’d faced worse.

But for now, I let myself hold her, let myself savor the feeling of her in my arms, and made a silent vow. She was mine. And I would fucking destroy anyone who tried to take her away.

31

EVA

Ipaced the kitchen restlessly while Jareth was in the shower. Grelth moved methodically around the kitchen and cleaned up the lunch things. He moved with such mechanical precision that I found myself oddly comforted by the rhythm of it.

I leaned against the counter. The words were there, pressing against my throat, but it took a moment to force them out. “You’re close with Jareth, right?” I asked tentatively.

Grelth’s ears twitched, but he continued wiping down the counter. “Master Grelth has known him long enough.”

I hesitated, then decided to hell with it and plunged ahead. “So, you know how... difficult he can be? He’s cocky, reckless, infuriating...” My voice trailed off as Grelth finally looked up, one eyebrow raised in his usual deadpan expression.

“And?” he prompted.

I huffed. “And maybe I’m starting to care about him. Which is ridiculous, right? He’s an assassin. I’m a lawyer. He lives in The Below, I live here. And my brother—” I stopped myself, shaking my head. The tangled mess of it all felt overwhelming, and saying it out loud wasn’t helping.

Resuming my pacing, I tried to untangle the knot of frustration in my chest. My voice grew sharper as I continued, as if reasoning it out could make it go away. “Raffaele would lose his mind if he found out. Jareth would probably lose his job. And let’s not forget, I’m being targeted. This is not the time to... to...”

“Catch feelings?” Grelth supplied dryly, his tone impossibly neutral.

I groaned, flopping into one of the chairs. “You’ve been watching too much reality TV. But yes. Exactly. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

Grelth set down the cloth he was using and folded his arms, studying me with that unnerving gaze. “Master Grelth wonders... if it is such a disaster, why do you linger on it so?”

I blinked at him, caught off guard. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Grelth said slowly, “that you do not strike Master Grelth as one who wastes time on impossibilities. Perhaps you should consider why this particular impossibility occupies your thoughts.”

The weight of his words landed harder than I expected, leaving me momentarily speechless. I stared at him, my mind racing in circles, but before I could respond, my phone buzzed. The sound cut through the tension like a knife, and I jumped to grab it.

Gabe:New videos of Genevieve. You need to see this.

“Shit,” I muttered as I clicked on the link. My stomach dropped as the first video loaded. The footage was grainy, clearly shot on someone’s phone in the middle of the night. It showed Genevieve stumbling through the streets of New York, slurring and laughing maniacally.

The next video was worse. She was yelling at a cab driver, her voice shrill and full of venom as she swung her pursearound wildly. Her movements were erratic, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

None of it made sense.

“She’s been holed up in that hotel with guards outside her door,” I murmured to myself. “How the fuck did she get out?”

Jareth walked into the kitchen, rubbing a towel over his hair as he walked in, looking far too relaxed for my current state of panic.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes flicking between me and Grelth.

I shoved my phone at him. “This.”

Jareth’s expression darkened with every second he watched. When he finally looked up, his jaw was tight, and his voice was low and dangerous. “Where the hell were the guards?”