I wouldn't even call her more ruthless. Fury is plenty ruthless, he just always has so many options that ruthless is usually near the bottom of his list.
For example, when he was running the Secret Warriors, Hellfire skimmed some of that 1.2 billion dollars they stole from Hydra. They flipped him as a double agent when they tracked the money.
When Fury found out he threw him off a cliff. No hesitation, no care that he was grooming Quake to be a leader and her boyfriends death would affect her. He straight up pulled a "Long live the King" moment and threw him off instead of helping him.