Page 14 of Ruthless (The Ferrymen #1)

My life had spiraled into tabloid absurdity: "Respected Therapist Kidnapped by Assassin Discovers Underground Murder Cult."

The man in the mirror was a stranger. My hair was disheveled, eyes dilated with lingering shock, borrowed clothes hanging loose on my frame.

Less than twelve hours ago, I'd been Dr. Vincent Matthews, respected therapist with a carefully ordered life and a reputation built on professional distance.

Now I was a fugitive with a price on my head and a copper token heavy in my pocket, marking me as Luka's "asset" after a concierge had arrived with a mobile scanner.

The cool metal pressed against my thigh through the fabric of my borrowed pants, a constant reminder of my new status in this underground world.

"This can't be real," I whispered to my reflection, watching as color bloomed high on my cheekbones. But the heat coiling low in my belly suggested part of me was thrilled by the danger, drawn to it even.

I retrieved the first aid kit from under the sink. The thought of getting to put my hands on Luka again sent a dangerous electric warmth racing through me. I seriously needed to develop better taste in men. Less dangerous tastes, anyway.

I found him leaning against the kitchen counter, posture deceptively casual despite the dried blood and the pain evident in the tight lines around his eyes.

"Sit," I commanded.

He raised an eyebrow but complied, a slow smirk spreading across his face despite the obvious pain. The movement pulled at the gash along his cheekbone, fresh blood beading along its angry edge. "Planning to play doctor, doc?"

He hissed in pain when I pressed the antiseptic-soaked gauze against his wound without warning.

I took perverse pleasure in the way the sound traveled down my spine like fingers trailing over piano keys, each vertebra responding in sequence. "If you don't stop moving, I'll have to restrain you. And unlike you, I don't make that offer to just anyone."

His eyebrows shot up, a grin spreading across his face despite the pain I knew I was causing. Blood and antiseptic mingled in the air between us, clinical and intimate at once.

"Well, well. There you are. I was wondering when the man I glimpsed behind that desk yesterday would come out to play."

My eyes locked with his, the challenge humming between us like a live wire. "Don't mistake professional control for weakness, Luka. That's a rookie error."

I pulled on latex gloves, the snap against my wrists punctuating the silence. His eyes tracked the movement, lingering on my fingers. I tilted his face toward the light, palm firm against his jaw.

The damage was impressive, even ignoring the broken nose I’d already set.

Split lip, cuts and gashes, bruises blooming in watercolor shades of purple and midnight blue.

Battle wounds from fighting for my life.

The thought sent a complicated mix of gratitude and something else through me, something darker.

"This looks bad," I said, tracing the edge of the angry wound. "It might be infected. Too soon to know for sure.”

"I've had worse."

"Hold still," I instructed, deliberately gentler with the next swipe. The contrast between kindness and clinical detachment was a game I'd perfected with difficult patients over years of practice. The back-and-forth kept him off-balance, his pupils dilating slightly with each shift in pressure.

"You're good at this," he observed, voice rougher than usual, scraping pleasantly against my nerves. "The control thing."

"Medical school before psychology," I replied, surprised at myself for sharing even this small truth. "I was headed for surgery before I switched tracks."

"Why the change?" His question seemed genuinely curious, not just deflection from pain.

I concentrated on cleaning the gash, buying time to decide how honest to be.

The antiseptic turned pink with his blood as I worked, methodical strokes revealing the true extent of the wound beneath the dried mess.

"I was better at fixing minds than bodies.

Less blood, more satisfaction." The truth, if not the whole truth.

"Why do I get the sense there’s more to that story?”

I paused. Most people accepted the polished narrative I'd crafted over years of repetition. Luka had known me less than a day and already saw the cracks in my professional veneer.

"Maybe someday I'll tell you," I said, resuming my work. “After I forgive you for kidnapping me.”

He shrugged. “Better than killing you.”

"How considerate," I replied dryly .

I applied another antiseptic swab, harder than necessary.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“You watched me,” I said, voice sharp. "For weeks. In my home. My private moments. When I thought I was alone."

His expression shifted from playful to serious in an instant. "Yes."

No excuses. No deflection. Just a simple acknowledgment that dropped between us like a stone. I hadn't expected such straightforward honesty, and it knocked me off-balance more effectively than any defense could have.

"Did you watch me shower?" I pressed, needing to know the extent of the violation. "Change? Sleep?"

"Yes." His eyes held mine, unflinching. “I saw everything.”

I should have been disgusted. Should have walked away and left him to his infection and fever. But the absence of either apology or pleasure in the confession kept me rooted in place, hands steady on his wounds.

"Did you see me cry after my mother's birthday?" I asked, voice lower now. "When I couldn't call her because she's been dead for five years?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Yes."

I pressed the antiseptic harder against his wound, savoring his sharp intake of breath. "And did you enjoy that part of the show?"

"No," he said, the single syllable carrying unexpected weight. "That was the night I first questioned the contract."

The admission hung between us, raw and unexpected. I resumed cleaning his wounds, hands steadier now. This bizarre intimacy of him having seen me at my most vulnerable while I now tended his injuries created a strange power dynamic neither of us fully controlled.

"I've never watched a target for this long before," he croaked out, eyes closed. "Three weeks instead of hours. You were... different."

"Different how?" I asked, despite myself .

"You saw people," he said simply. "Really saw them. The homeless woman, your patients. Your fucking plants. You remembered details, noticed things. It was..."

"Unsettling?" I supplied.

"Fascinating," he corrected. His fever-bright eyes locked onto mine with unsettling intensity. "You were the first target I ever saw as a person. Not just an assignment."

"That doesn't help," I said, though something in me responded to his words. "Not when I'm cleaning blood from the hands meant to end me."

"I never decided to kill you. That’s how we got here, remember?”

I froze, caught by the raw vulnerability in his voice. Something electric passed between us, dangerous and magnetic. For a heartbeat, I wanted to press my mouth against his split lip, taste the copper of his blood, feel the fire burning through him.

The urge terrified me. What the hell was wrong with me?

"Hold still," I said instead, applying butterfly bandages to the gash. My hands betrayed a slight tremor, not from fear but from restraining the impulse to touch him beyond what was medically necessary. "This needs stitches, but this will have to do."

"The asclepiad has better equipment," he suggested, watching me too closely. "We could head there tomorrow."

"Which reminds me. The man at the entrance mentioned someone named Rhadamanthys. Who is he?" I moved on to tend to his knuckles.

"One of the Judges. Think Supreme Court Justice meets mob enforcer with a Greek mythology fetish." His attempt at lightness couldn't mask the gravity in his eyes. "He only comes for serious problems."

"Like us," I said quietly.

"Like us," Luka agreed, with a nod.

"How many people have you killed?" The question escaped before I could stop it and I immediately regretted asking.

"Forty-seven," he answered without hesitation. "Forty-eight if you count Hector."

Forty-eight lives ended by the hands I was bandaging. It should have repulsed me. Should have sent me running for the door and as far from this beautiful killer as I could get. Instead, I finished wrapping his knuckles in silence, hyperaware of each brush of skin against skin, even through latex.

"Does it bother you?" he asked, voice uncharacteristically quiet. "What I am?"

I looked up and caught something unexpected in his expression. Not the arrogance or flirtation I'd come to expect, but genuine vulnerability. My answer mattered to him.

"Yes," I said honestly. "But not enough to stop me from helping you. Not enough to make me wish you'd completed your contract." The truth surprised even me as it left my lips.

"Why?" The question hung between us, deceptively simple yet impossibly complex.

The answer twisted uncomfortably in my chest. I'd always been drawn to dangerous men, had spent years in therapy trying to break the pattern.

There was Bobby, the amateur boxer whose violent outbursts I'd excused as passion until he'd put his fist through my wall.

Max, whose coldness I'd mistaken for strength until he'd choked me during sex without warning.

Devon, whose criminal connections I'd ignored until the police questioned me during a homicide investigation .

Todd had been my attempt at safe, predictable, and boring. And yet here I was, heart racing from the proximity of the most dangerous man I'd ever encountered.

"Because you saved my life," I finally said, the words true but incomplete. I met his gaze squarely, refusing to hide behind psychological jargon. "And because apparently I have a death wish when it comes to men. You're just the most literal manifestation of that pattern."

Honesty hung in the air between us, sharp and dangerous. Luka's gaze dropped to my mouth for a heartbeat too long before snapping back up.