“You need anything?” Lulu asked.
I shook my head and looked away, out the window. “Have they gone?”
Lulu sat beside me and squeezed my hand. “Yeah.”
“Good,” I whispered.
My throat felt raw, voice rough. I guess from all the screaming. I shivered. I couldn’t deal with Neco’s guilt right then, and that’s what I’d get from him. I didn’t want it. He had nothing to feel guilty about. I was careless, blind. I hadn’t taken notice of the signs. Scott had been acting strange long before he attacked me. I’d chosen not to see it to save face. The last thing I wanted was to admit Neco was right, that I should have kicked Scott out ages ago. I was humiliated. What an idiot they all must think I am. The girl who had been begging to be let out in the field just got her ass kicked by her druggie roommate. I’d trained so hard, I should have been able to defend myself, but I’d frozen up, so taken aback that I’d allowed Scott to get the better of me.
And the icing on the cake? There’d been hidden cameras in the apartment—in my bedroom—and I hadn’t even noticed.
All my life I’ve been trying to prove something to someone. First to my stepmother—I’d spent my childhood trying to convince her I was worth loving, that I wasn’t worthless. Then Neco had come along, and I hadn’t had to prove a damn thing. He cared for me, loved me in his way, for me. Exactly as I was. But then everything had changed and I’d been trying to get that back from him ever since. Trying to show him who I was, who I really was, and trying to prove that I was worthy of his love again, however it came. That this new me, this stronger version of myself, was just as lovable as the emotionally battered, sad little girl I’d once been.
Getting his approval back, his affection, had clouded my judgment, so much so I’d put my life at risk to prove a damn point.
So yeah, I was humiliated.
My stupidity now marked my body, and would leave the kinds of scars you could never forget.
“Go home to Josh,” I rasped to Lulu. “I’m fine, I promise.”
A tear streaked down her cheek. “You’re not fine. Jesus, Ruby. Let someone care about you for once.”
Tears started to well in my own eyes, so I closed them and shut out the room. Lulu was being amazing, the best friend I ever had, but I just wanted to be alone. Van was like a guard dog watching over me and I loved him for it. But I didn’t want him in here either. Unfortunately, he was the first one to get to the hospital. He’d barely left my side since. He felt responsible for me, like they all did. They’d been looking out for me since I was a kid and that hadn’t changed. I hated that I was putting them through this.
But I couldn’t take their pain-filled looks, the pity. I just couldn’t take it anymore. Shutting down my mind, I concentrated on the ticking of the wall clock.
“You rest,” Lulu said softly. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
She was. She and Van were with me all night and the next day. Lulu finally left late afternoon, when Hunter came and took her home. She looked exhausted and I felt like shit that she’d stayed for me. Van finally got called away, some work thing that needed his immediate attention, and for the first time in two days, I was on my own. Well, Zeke was here, but he was outside the door, and I knew he wasn’t likely to come in to make small talk. I was more than happy with Van’s choice of guard.
I was sore from lying in the same position for so long. Nothing was broken, but I was bruised and battered and recovering from a pretty bad concussion. I hurt like a bitch, and when I tried to wriggle to my side, a cry of pain burst free before I could bite it back. The door opened a second later.
Zeke stood there, looking down at me. “All right?”
God, I hated this so much. Feeling so damn weak. “I was just trying to roll to my side.”
Without a word, he closed in, lifted me carefully in his arms, repositioned me, and lay me back down.
“Good?” he asked, in that husky Texas drawl of his, eyes intense, always watchful, alert.
“Yeah, thanks.”
He gave me a subtle chin lift then left again, shutting the door quietly behind him. That’s what I liked about Zeke. He was a man of action. No reason to waste words when you could just do what needed doing. He was so different now than he used to be. Before he went overseas, he used to be social, liked to laugh. I remembered him and Van a few nights before they were deployed. All the guys had been sitting around a bonfire behind Van’s house. They’d had a few beers and they were singing along with the stereo, laughing and joking. I don’t think I’d seen him smile since.
One thing hadn’t changed from those days, though. I’d always felt safe when one of the guys was around. Having him just out that door, I knew I could relax, that Zeke had me covered.
I’d felt fear in my life, but not like this. Right now, I felt helpless. Pathetic.
Afraid.
And I hated that more than anything.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ruby
I woke to the sound of the door opening and closing. I froze, just for a split second, a spike of fear snapping through me. But only a second, because I knew, I knew instantly who had just walked into my room. Goddammit, Zeke. He’d obviously let Neco in; there was no other way he could have gotten past. Jamming my eyes closed, I faked sleep. I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to see the way he looked at me when he saw me like this for the first time.
I knew how bad I looked. I’d taken a shower on my own this morning. I was a mess. I looked as helpless and pathetic as I felt.
The sound of his boots moving toward the bed stopped. He was right beside me. My lips started to quiver.
“I know you’re awake, baby,” he rasped. “I’ve watched you sleep a thousand times, remember?”
I kept my eyes closed. My nose started to sting.
Something brushed over my trembling lips. I could smell his skin. He’d had a shower before he came.
“You gonna look at me?” His fingers lightly skimmed my cheek, his breathing getting rougher. He was checking out the bruises on my face. I shook my head.
He didn’t move from his spot by the bed, just kept on touching me in that gentle way. A way that was as possessive as it was comforting. My heart squeezed. I felt cherished, loved. It was a dangerous feeling, especially where Neco was concerned. I was a sister to him in every way but blood, that’s all he’d allow, and just like the guys at the agency were his brothers. His sister was hurt, and despite all our issues over the last few years, he cared about me. No, maybe not in the way I wanted him too, but he did. I tried to tell myself these things while he ran one of those big warm hands down my arm, taking my hand.
“I’m so fucking sorry, baby girl,” he said in a voice I barely recognized.
Neco sounded wrecked, tormented, and it killed me. I started to shake my head—he had nothing to be sorry for. I’d put myself in danger. I’d ignored my instincts. I’d . . .
He let go of my hand and I mourned the loss of his touch instantly. But it was for the best. I was holding it together, barely, but if he continued to touch me like that, talk to me in that gentle, tormented voice—I would crumble.
His retreating steps echoed through the room, and I bit back the sob building steadily in my chest. But then he didn’t go to the door. He rounded the end of the bed and moved up behind me.
I was on my side, curled in a ball. A thudding sound that could only be his boots hitting the floor came next, then the bed jiggled, and he was up behind me. The length of his body pressed against the entire length of mine. I screwed my eyes shut harder, swallowing over and over, trying to keep it together.
He was doing what he used to when we were kids, after I’d run to his house in the middle of the night, and he’d lift me through the window, feet like ice. Warming mine with his, wrapping his strong arms around me, chin tucked against my shoulder.
A shiver wracked through me so hard there was no way he hadn’t felt it.
I was transported back in time, when
Neco had been my everything, my family, the only person I truly trusted. Goddammit. Why was he doing this to me?
And then he destroyed me completely. He started to sing softly, voice deep and husky, about a girl he once knew. Singing Usher’s words to me. Oh God. A hot tear streaked down my cheek, and I crumbled. I fell apart. The tears kept coming. And I realized he was back there with me. In his room, us lying together sharing his headphones, comforting each other, and for that short time, we didn’t have to face the realities of our lives. For that short time, it was just him and me, and that’s all we’d needed.
He brushed my hair back from my forehead and kissed me just below my ear. The only place that wasn’t bruised.
“No one will ever hurt you again,” he rasped against my ear. “I promise you that.”
* * *
Neco
I was curled around Ruby, her smaller body wrapped in mine, shaking as she cried silently in my arms. I didn’t want to move, didn’t think I would even if the walls started to fall down around us. Her face was swollen, cheek cut, I’d barely recognized her beautiful face when I walked in. I was going to end Scott’s life for this. When I found him, and I would find him, I’d make him suffer like Ruby had suffered.
I held her tighter.
She’d been tense when I lay down with her, but she was relaxed into me now. Because I knew what she needed, what we both needed. Of course I did. Ruby was my girl. She’d been my girl since she was six years old. That relationship, and what it meant, had changed over the years. From big brother and protector to something else as we’d gotten older. A mix of the purest, most innocent kind of love, now all twisted and wrapped in a lust that’d had the ability to burn me alive, which had brought us to the fucked-up place we found ourselves in now.
I knew Ruby better than anyone on this planet. Which is why I knew she’d been trying to hold it together, to not show anyone how she was really feeling. I fucking knew she’d been lying in here afraid, and so damn alone. No one could ease that fear like me. No one. My intention when I climbed up here with her was to remind her of a time when she could count on me, how safe I’d made her feel, to drown out the noise in her head, the memories. She used to try and catch me singing all the time, but I always stopped as soon as she pulled off the headphones. So, I’d sung for her, used music to quiet her mind like my mom did.
But instead of just helping her, a lot of shit had become clear to me. Fucking crystal.
Ruby was mine.
And there was nothing I could do to change that. I didn’t want to change that. So, I needed to stop fighting it and finally claim what was mine. I tried, but keeping her at a distance wasn’t working. I wasn’t going to do it anymore. I needed to protect her, look after her, do what I should have been doing for a long time.
I’d pushed her away, twice, and both times had resulted in her getting hurt. That would never happen again. She needed me. No fucking way would I allow her to be in a situation like the one she’d been in with Scott ever again. I was done fucking around, literally and figuratively. I’d kept the ugly in my life, inside me and around me, away from her all these years. I could still do that.
I just had to keep a lid on my shit. Keep my relationship with her separate from the dark place inside me.
“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” I said against the smooth skin of her throat. “I won’t let you down again.” My voice cracked on the last word, the conviction I felt clear. I hoped like fuck she heard it too, believed it. I’d had her trust and I’d thrown it away, like some scared asshole. I wasn’t a slave to the emotions swirling—fuck, raging inside me—and I refused to let them swallow me whole. And I could do it; I could fight the devil on my back for Ruby.
She didn’t know it yet, but things between us had changed, in a way that was permanent. There was no gray anymore. What we had, it was black and white.
I was her man and she was my woman.
The way it was always meant to be.
She twisted toward me, giving me her eyes for the first time since I walked in here. They were bright, glistening in the moonlight streaming through the window. The sight knocked the wind from my lungs like a strike to the sternum.
A frown creased her brow. “What are you talking about? You didn’t let me down . . .” She blinked and a fresh wave of tears ran down her bruised cheeks, slicing right through me.
Ruby didn’t cry. The fact she was now, that she was doing it in front of me, just reaffirmed what needed to happen between us. She’d been faking it, locking it all down as long as I had. I was done, and so was Ruby.
“You’re in here because of me,” I told her.
Her eyelids drifted shut. “I knew you’d do this.” She shook her head, lids lifting again, bright blue eyes back on me. “You were right . . .” She swallowed hard, turning away from me, staring out the window. “I was playing stupid games with you . . . I just . . . I missed us . . .” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I went about everything the wrong way, and yeah, I kept Scott around because I knew you hated him. I knew it made you crazy that he was my roommate, so I kept him around. I ignored the signs, that he was getting deeper into drugs, the weird way he’d been acting.” She shook her head again. “This is not on you, Neco. This . . .” She motioned to her face, the damage, the bruises. “ . . . May as well be self-inflicted. God . . . what you must think of me . . .”
“Stop,” I growled. She thought she was coming clean, admitting that shit to me. What I heard was something else entirely. What she was really saying was she’d needed me, plain and simple, had needed me for a long fucking time. I’d fought it, shoved her away, denied it, so she’d gotten what she needed from me the only way she knew how, or tried to. “You called me, you needed me, and I’d turned my fucking phone off because . . . shit, I thought staying away from you was the right thing to do. I was wrong, Ruby, so fucking wrong, and you paid the price for that mistake.” I brushed her hair back from the side of her face. “That changes now, you understand? Everything changes.”
She twisted again, looking up at me, confusion clear in her eyes. She didn’t get it, and now wasn’t the time to fill her in. I wanted her to concentrate on getting better, nothing else. Not yet.
But fuck me, looking at her battered face, knowing what she went through? I wanted to get down on my knees and beg her to forgive me, to trust me like she used to, to promise me she’d never do anything crazy or reckless again.
“Neco . . .”
I shook my head. “Close your eyes, baby girl. Time to sleep. We’ll talk later.”
For once she didn’t argue and turned back to the window, eyes closing on a soft sigh. “Are you staying for a little while?”
“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
Ruby
I dreamed I was at the zoo, walking around, looking at the animals. I stopped by a lion exhibit and two lions stood face to face, growling at each other . . .
I startled awake.
Not lions.
I sat up quickly, and for once my head didn’t start pounding. Neco and Van were on the other side of the room. They were toe to toe, all but snarling at each other. Zeke had still been here in the morning. Looked like the afternoon guard hard arrived to take over and no one had told him I was already covered in that department.
“She said she didn’t want you here,” Van growled under his breath.
“Well, now she does,” Neco gritted out.
Van dragged a hand though his hair, a rough breath bursting past his lips. “You’re family, you know that, but Nec, you’re not good for her. You two aren’t good for each other. You need to back off.”
“I’m not discussing this with you. Where Ruby’s concerned, your opinion means nothing.”
Van stared at him for several long seconds, jaw working. “I think she should stay with me while she recovers . . .”
“Not happening,” Neco fired at him before he could even finish.
“That’s not yo
ur call.”
“It is now,” Neco bit out.
Van stilled, head tilting to the side. “That right?”
Neco stared Van down. “That’s right.”
“Shit.” Van put his hands on his hips. “She know about this? Or did you make that decision for her as well?” He laughed humorlessly. “This shit with her is getting old, seriously. The last big decision you made concerning Ruby, without her, put her in here. You don’t know what the fuck you want . . .”
Neco put his forearm to Van’s throat and shoved him against the wall. “Like I said, Ruby and me, that shit doesn’t concern you.”
Van held his hard gaze. “You’re not the only one that cares about her. We all do, and we won’t let anyone hurt her, not again. Not even you.”
“I would never hurt her.”
“You’ve got good intentions, Nec. But emotions are running high, you’re making decisions you should not be making right now.” Van didn’t try and shove him away, just held his friend’s gaze. “End of the day, you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us. You, me, Zeke—shit, even Jude . . . we can’t have that . . . that’s not for us. I won’t stand by and let Ruby be your crash test dummy.”
The door opened and Neco quickly stepped back, eyes sliding to me. He jerked back when he realized I was awake, that I’d witnessed whatever the hell that was.
A nurse walked in, and everyone stayed quiet while she chatted to me, doing her thing. I was being discharged tomorrow, and I had no idea where I was going. I wasn’t ready to go back to my apartment, and going by what I just heard, there were at least two growly, overprotective men who felt responsible for me. Well, I was done with that. I was responsible for me, and I would decide where I went.
“Okay, you guys need to go so I can check Ruby’s bruising.”
“I’ll stay,” Neco said instantly.
Oh hell no. He was already acting possessive. He hadn’t left my side once since last night, except for coffee breaks. If he saw the state of my stomach, he’d lose his shit. And honestly, I needed a minute. I was starting to feel smothered. “Nope. Both of you out,” I said.
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