He stared down at me, gun held up, pointed at me . . . then something moved across his face. Recognition? He grinned, wide. “Well, look who we have here? Nice of you to make things easy on us.”
The last time I was attacked, I froze, all my training forgotten. Not this time. This time I was prepared. The guy was big, but not bigger than Zeke. I knew I could take him, or at least get away from him. I moved quickly, lifting both arms, one hand going behind his wrist, the other grabbing the gun. I wrenched it out to the side, twisting his wrist back hard. He grunted in pain and the gun clattered to the ground.
He lunged at me, yanking me into him and I dropped to my knees instantly. He wasn’t expecting it and lost his hold on me. I spun low, kicking his legs out from under him, and he hit the ground hard, head cracking against the asphalt. In my peripheral, I saw Harry struggling to get up as I sprang to my feet and brought the heel of my foot down hard on the asshole’s balls. He screamed.
The sound of pounding feet penetrated my brain next and I jerked my head up, pulling my own gun from the back of my jeans as I stood over Harry and aimed into the darkness. “Come any closer and I’ll shoot.”
“It’s us.”
Van.
Then the guys from the agency were suddenly there, surrounding us. I lowered my weapon.
A bang, like a door slamming, echoed through the night. It sounded like it came from the rear of the building. Jude sprinted past me, tearing down the side of the building toward the noise.
I crouched down. Blood oozed from Harry’s shoulder. “Jesus, are you okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
I helped him to his feet, and he rested against the car as I yanked off my jacket and applied pressure to the wound.
Zeke looked up at me from his position on the ground. He had my attacker on his stomach, securing a set of cuffs.
“Jesus, Ruby,” he muttered, that Southern drawl stronger than I’d ever heard it. He shook his head. “You did good.”
Pride filled me, even as my nerves increased. I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do, and I knew no one was going to like what I had to say. They were working this case and I withheld information from them.
“How did you know we were here?” I asked.
“Didn’t,” he said. “Had a tip-off about the meeting tonight. I’m guessing we weren’t the only ones.”
Jude appeared from around the side of the building and shook his head. “Nothing. They got away. We’ll do a sweep of the building. I’ll call Connor.”
Connor was Jude’s contact in the police force. Thank God. Relief washed through me. That’s exactly what I wanted, to protect Neco from himself. If I hadn’t been here, if Neco had been the one to find these guys, things would have ended differently. The guy on the ground wouldn’t be wearing cuffs; he’d be wearing a body bag. I refused to let Neco carry that around.
Van dipped his head in agreement. “They need to be in on this. And we need to get Harry to the hospital.”
I stood there, not sure what to do as Jude called it in.
That’s when a tingle started up at the back of my neck. Shit.
I turned around.
Neco was standing a few feet behind me. My breath caught in my throat. He didn’t move, just stared at me. Well, I assumed he was staring at me; his face was mostly in shadow. His arms were down at his sides, fingers curled in tight fists, chest rising and falling rapidly. A car turned onto the street.
“That’ll be Hunter,” Van said as the SUV pulled up. Van climbed in with Harry and they drove off.
Zeke dragged the guy on the ground to his feet and glanced at Jude. “We’ll wait for the cops.”
Jude tilted his head to me. “They’ll wanna talk to you.”
“Yes. Of course.”
Neco stepped forward, so I could finally see his eyes. I expected to see rage. What I saw instead terrified me. His eyes were blank, emotionless.
He looked right though me and answered Jude. “I’ll take her to the station in the morning. She can make her statement then.”
Jude dipped his chin. “I’ll sort it with Connor.”
Neco jerked his chin up by way of reply then looked at me. “Let’s go.”
Fuck.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and followed him down the street to his SUV. He opened the passenger door for me and I climbed up. Then he got in behind the wheel, started it up, and we headed out.
“Neco . . .”
“You’ve been investigating this case behind my back.”
Not a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”
“You promised me you’d leave this to me.” His voice was low, scarily calm.
“I couldn’t.”
His fingers flexed around the steering wheel. “How did you know to come here, Ruby?”
“I found a note on Scott’s body. It had a date, time, and the name of the hotel. The rest came from one of Harry’s contacts.”
“And what did you discover about Edwards?”
“How long have you known about Edwards?” I asked instead of answering.
His head shot around to me, eyes boring into me, then he turned back, muscle in his jaw jumping. “Tomas came through tonight. Now answer the fucking question,” he gritted out.
The truth was out; there was no reason to keep anything from him now. “That he owns the hotel the meeting was being held at, and since Scott had the details about tonight on him, we assumed this meeting had something to do with the website I was being streamed to. He also has a . . . an . . . um . . .”
“A what?” he barked out.
“That he has a thing for brunettes, that he’s had complaints filed against him, but nothing’s stuck.”
“That everything?”
“Yes.”
His breathing was rough and I could see he was barely keeping it together. “You could have been hurt tonight . . . worse. Fuck,” he roared, hands slamming down on the steering wheel.
“If I hadn’t done something Harry would be dead by now. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. How could I? Could you?”
“What I would or wouldn’t do isn’t the issue here,” he gritted out.
I stared at his profile. “I assume you saw me?”
“I saw,” he rumbled.
“So you know I can take care of myself.”
He cursed under his breath. “That’s not the fucking point! You lied to me, you fucking lied right to my face. Jesus, Ruby. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”
“Neco . . .”
“So why did you do it? To prove something to me?”
I sucked in an unsteady breath. “To prove something to myself,” I admitted. “Partly at least . . .”
“I fucking backed off, I gave you what I thought you needed.” He shook his head. “Of all the selfish, stupid fucking reckless things you could do . . .”
His words were like a knife being plunged into my chest. “That’s not fair,” I whispered.
“What’s not fair is my woman lying to me. Going behind my back . . .”
“Neco . . .”
“Save it.”
“We need to talk about this . . .”
“Don’t, Ruby. Not another fucking word.”
I snapped my mouth shut, glancing over at him. He had a point. I knew keeping this from him was a bad idea, but I’d done it anyway. He wouldn’t look at me and stayed quiet the rest of the drive. I didn’t know what to say to fix this. All I could do was hope he’d be willing to talk once he’d had time to cool down.
We arrived at his apartment a little while later, and he went straight to the bathroom and shut himself in. The shower came on. I followed him, and stared at the door. I didn’t want walls between us and, despite thinking he needed time, I couldn’t bear being parted from him. What if time to think just made things worse? I reached for the door handle and twisted.
He’d locked it.
I bit my lip.
He never locked it. Never
locked me out. The knife in my chest twisted.
I went to the bedroom and hung around, blindly picking up laundry, and tidying . . . waiting for him. He ignored me when he walked into the bedroom, dried off, and got dressed. I wanted to talk this out, but he wasn’t going to give me that, so I had a shower as well, taking my time. I left the door unlocked.
He never came.
I towel dried my hair, slid on my glasses, and pulled on one of Neco’s shirts, then I headed to the living room. Neco was on the couch. He sat back, a beer in his hand, legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. His eyes didn’t leave the TV, and stayed there when I walked in. If he wanted to lock me out, fine, but we were going to talk first. I walked in front of the flat screen and planted my hands on my hips.
His eyes slid up to mine.
“We need to talk about this.”
He shrugged. “What’s the point? You’ll do whatever the fuck you want anyway, right?”
Another twist of the knife. “I know I shouldn’t have lied to you . . . but I needed to do this . . . I needed to do it for myself.”
“Yeah, and what about me, what about what I needed?”
I stared across at him. “You can’t see me as anything but helpless, can you?” I let out a rough breath. “You won’t even try . . .”
“What was the other part?” he asked, cutting me off.
“Other part?”
“You said in the car, you’ve been doing this case partly to prove to yourself that you could. What was the other part?”
My pulse picked up speed. “It’s what I want to do . . .”
He shook his head. “No more lying.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I was . . . I didn’t want you to . . .” I held that emotionless gaze that was starting to scare the hell out of me. “I don’t ever want to see you like you were the other night, like you were after you did that job for Tomas. You don’t need any more blood on your hands.”
A flash of something shot through his eyes, then it was gone. “That was different. That man, the one I hurt, in front of his wife, his kid, he didn’t deserve it.”
Oh God.
“The people that planned to hurt you, sell you, I wouldn’t lose sleep over, Ruby. You saw me in a weak moment, but I’m not weak. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of shit in my life, stuff I’m not proud of, to keep my mom safe, to get her off the streets . . . but I did what I had to. She sold herself to put a roof over my head, food in my belly. That was her way of protecting me.”
He stood abruptly.
I tried to take a step toward him, but he shook his head, telling me without words to stay back.
That hurt like hell.
“You’re telling me . . . you put your life on the line, went into an unknown situation, attempted a rescue mission, fought off that fucking guy . . . to protect me?” he asked.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “Yes,” I choked out.
He drew back his arm and flung the bottle in his hand across the room. It shattered against the brick wall by the kitchen, beer and glass going everywhere.
He was breathing heavily, and his eyes slashed to me. “So what happens now, Ruby? What happens next?”
I held my ground, even as I ached for him, even when I knew he was struggling with so much, with all the stuff he hadn’t dealt with from his childhood, from his time working for Tomas. I knew because he was projecting that onto me. His fear. And I’d given him reason to be afraid tonight. I’d lied and he’d found out in the worst way possible, especially for Neco. Watching me fight, fearing for my life. Now was not a good time to talk about this, but lately there never was a good time.
“Neco . . .”
“I want you to quit,” he growled.
I blinked over at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“I can’t deal with this anymore.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Deadly.”
“I’m not quitting my job.”
He stared at me and I watched him try to get himself under control. When that obviously didn’t work, he turned away, scooped up his keys, and stormed out, slamming the door behind him hard enough to shake the windows.
I stared after him.
I couldn’t go back to ignoring who I really was, what I wanted, for someone else. And even though I knew the cause of his behavior, knew why he acted the way he did, it made no difference. He wouldn’t bend in this, not now, not after tonight, not even a little bit. I was sick of trying to prove myself, of fighting him for what I wanted. My decisions were hurting him and now his were hurting me.
He’d spent his entire childhood worried for his mom, terrified for her. I couldn’t do that to him now. I couldn’t be the cause of that kind of fear all over again.
I loved him too much for that.
And I loved myself too much stay here while I slowly suffocated, until I resented him for it. I wouldn’t allow the damage my stepmother had caused to creep back. I refused to revert to the insecure little girl I’d been. I’d worked too long and hard to find the real Ruby Styles, the woman inside me that was strong, that knew what she wanted and went after it.
The irony was, Neco was the one who helped me find her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Neco
I lay on my back, breath hissing through my teeth, and lifted barbell again, eyes focused on the ceiling, mind focused inward. All I could see was Ruby. The way she’d run headlong into danger to save Harry. The way she’s fought off that asshole before I could get to her. The way she’d looked at me before I walked out the door. I’d tried so hard to keep my shit together, because I knew if I let my control snap, like I had in that stairwell, there would be no coming back from it. I’d sat there while she looked at me, hair still damp from her shower, glasses slipping down her nose, one of my shirts swamping her small frame, and I just wanted to pull her into my lap and hang on tight, never let her go. Instead, I’d ignored the gale-force impact of my emotions and worked at keeping it together—I’d failed, and then I stormed out.
It had been either that, or tear the fucking apartment down around our ears.
I was systematically fucking things up between us and I didn’t know how to stop it. She had her own mind, her own needs and desires, and the more I tried to squash them, the farther I pushed her away from me. I lifted the barbell, resting it back on the rack, and rubbed my hands over my face.
Ruby could fight.
The way she’d taken down that guy. Fuck. She was good, too. Had exceptional instincts. Was quick, smart. Hell, I knew she’d be an asset to any agency.
Unfortunately, that changed nothing for me. I couldn’t just switch it off. I’d been protecting Ruby, worrying about her for nineteen years. Realizing that she might not need that from me anymore was hard to swallow. I didn’t know why that was; I just knew it to be fact. I needed to be that for her.
Her Superman.
Turned out Ruby had her own red cape.
Didn’t stop the crippling fear of losing her. The fear of seeing her get hurt, of not doing anything to stop it, of not protecting her—of failing her like I had my mom.
I sat up from the bench, rubbed my towel over my face, and stood. Shit, the look on her face when I told her to quit her job, the disbelief, the sadness, it finally hit me that I had zero say in what she did. We were supposed to be partners. As it was now, I was barking orders at her and she’d all but told me to go fuck myself.
Neither of us was willing to bend or compromise, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“We’ve been looking for you,” Van said from the door, Zeke right behind him.
I lifted an eyebrow, not in the mood to talk.
Van leaned against the wall, arms crossed, studying me. He was quiet for several seconds more, and then straightened from the door. “I called Ruby when you didn’t answer your phone, she sounded upset.”
“I’m not too fucking happy myself,” I growled.
“She’s good, Nec. She
could be an asset here.”
I shook my head. “I know she would. That’s not why I’m pissed off. She promised she’d leave this case alone. She lied to me.”
“She handled herself like a pro tonight.”
“You telling me you’d be good watching your woman put herself in that kind of danger? When you know someone could still be after her?”
Van shrugged. “She knows you put yourself at risk every time you go to work. How is that different?”
“You ever loved a woman so fucking much the thought of anything happening to her makes you fucking insane?” I said.
The guy was clueless, hard as hell and cold as ice. Yeah, he would fight to the death for his family, his friends, but when it came to women, he was like I’d been before Ruby. He never allowed his emotions to get involved.
His mouth flattened into a grim line, and something I’d never seen before on his face rearranged his features. He was uncomfortable. Huh.
“Anyway, that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” Van said. “The guy Ruby took down, we got him to talk before the cops picked him up.”
We needed a break with this case badly. “Anything useful?”
“Tomas was right, a woman’s heading the operation, at least the recruitment side of things. Goes by Mom, like you said, which creeps me the fuck out, by the way. He said his boss wants Ruby and isn’t the kind of guy to give up.”
None of it would stand up in court. The guy was coerced. His word against ours. Once Edwards’s lawyers got hold of him, there was no way in hell he’d talk. None of us had actually seen Edwards at the scene. Ruby had, but not a close up look him, and neither had Harry. “So basically, we still have nothing.”
“We’ll get him . . .”
“No.” I stood. “I’m done fucking around. I’m not sitting by while that fucker plots his next move. No way am I leaving Ruby exposed like that.”
“What are you going to do?”
I held Van’s stare. “Don’t ask any questions you don’t want the answers for.”
“I’m in,” Zeke said.
Van cursed.
“I’ve made my mind up on this.” I turned to Zeke. “You sure you want in on this? I won’t be walking away from this clean, brother.”
Broken Rebel: A Lawless Kings Novel Page 24