by Avery Flynn
The smart-ass slid off Jasper’s face, replaced by a softer, more concerned look. “Rubes, how many times have I told you that I don’t need your protection anymore? You, however, are in way over your head. You can’t be here for what’s about to go down.”
She crossed her arms, yanking his connected wrist over so it lay against the knot of her robe. “What exactly is that?”
“The less you know the better,” Jasper said.
Her brother may have known Ruby for his entire life, but even after only a few days, Lucas knew she wasn’t going to let go that easily.
She jerked her chin up. “I already know about the gun sale.”
“Jesus. Are you trying to get her killed?” Jasper glared at Lucas, his gaze dropping to Lucas’s arm held out at an awkward angle. “Or just get some entertainment while you search for the date and location of the exchange? She’s not one of us. She doesn’t know the rules. She could get hurt—or worse.”
It took everything Lucas had not to look over at the twisted sheets on the bed. What happened to Ruby after the operation was finished wasn’t his concern. He had to focus on keeping Elskov safe. The mission didn’t have room for anything else. Still, he moved over so not even a fraction of light could get between them.
“That’s not going to happen.” He wasn’t fooled by the bored look on Jasper’s face as he looked between them and then the rumpled bed.
“Oh really?” Jasper asked when his attention landed square on Lucas.
“Dammit, Jasper,” Ruby hissed. “I’m not an idiot.”
“No,” Jasper said, his voice low and tight. “You’re just a cover.”
Ruby stiffened. “Something I agreed to so I could clean up after one of your messes again.”
“Me getting caught wasn’t an accident.” Jasper shoved his fingers through his hair. “I needed to make contact with the Silver Knights, and I figured with the arms exchange coming up, they’d fall for the cocaine in the trunk hook, line, and sinker. Which they did.”
The only thing in life Lucas hated more than being taken for a fool was the watery split-pea soup he’d survived on when his mother was still alive. A setup. He’d built his entire carefully considered plan based on a setup.
“He kept his mouth shut about all of this until we left for Fare Island. At that point, I couldn’t get him to shut up,” Clausen said from her spot by the door, her hands clasped behind her back, and her back straight in the Silver Knights version of at ease.
Brain spinning, he ran through the possibilities. They were still there. He’d have to figure out how to mix the interfering Americans in on this operation, but he’d find a way to keep it minimal.
“What’s the CIA’s interest in this?” he asked.
“Same as yours,” Jasper responded. “We have to stop the exchange.”
“There is no ‘we.’” No. There was Elskov and then there was everyone else.
Jasper shrugged. “You’ll have to take that up with the U.S. government because that’s who I take my orders from.”
Since killing him and dumping the body out the window wasn’t an option, Lucas ground his teeth together as he enjoyed the mental picture of Jasper sailing through the midnight sky without a parachute.
“How long?” Ruby asked, her voice shaking just enough to yank Lucas back to the here and now.
Jasper’s mouth formed a tight line, and for a second it didn’t seem like he would answer, but he did. “They recruited me when I was on my post-university trip to New York.”
“That was years ago.” Ruby’s gray eyes widened with shock. “You never told me.”
“I couldn’t. Anyway, if you’d known what I’d been doing for the past five years, you would have worried more. I know you.”
“At least one of us can say that,” she snapped.
“Rubes.” He reached out for his sister, but she rebuffed the attempt. “Don’t be that way. I didn’t have a choice about telling you.”
The benefit of growing up as a foster kid meant his family drama was of a different shade than what he was seeing between sister and brother. For him, hate was just hate and neglect only neglect. But the animosity and hurt building between Ruby and Jasper had a different feel to it, the kind that would sink this operation if he didn’t get them to stop now.
Lucas spoke up. “We only have a few days to find the location of the exchange. Do you have leads?”
“Nothing beyond that it’s supposed to happen this weekend. The betting money is on Sunday. Rolf doesn’t trust me enough to give me details, so it’s a good thing I’m such an amazing snoop.” Jasper said. “As much as I hate this marriage ruse, at least it got me back on the island so I could track that information down—even if I had to bring along my latest flavor of the week.”
“Just what I always dreamed about being called.” Clausen rolled her eyes in disgust. “Finally, after working my ass off in the academy and then Silver Knights training, my dream has come true.”
“Then we start tomorrow,” Lucas said, already sorting out a plan that took the new factors of Jasper and Clausen being on Fare Island into account. “We have to get the location of the exchange.”
“It’s gotta be on his phone,” Jasper muttered.
Rolf had the phone fisted in his tight grip when he’d greeted Ruby and Lucas after they’d arrived on the island. At the dinner table, the crime boss had only briefly looked up from the glowing screen during the meal as the phone lay between him and his right-hand man. Even the recon photos of Rolf the Silver Knights had on file showed the phone.
“He does seem attached to it,” Lucas said. Too bad the simplicity of the answer didn’t make the solution any less complex.
“His life’s on that fucking thing,” Jasper said, rubbing the spot on his neck where Clausen had zapped him. “It’s encrypted, secured six ways to Sunday, and you’d need your own personal army to peel it out of his grasp.”
Lucas shrugged. “Sounds simple enough.”
Jasper looked at him as if he were delusional. He wasn’t. He was just determined not to let anything stand in his way. This arms deal could not happen. He had to figure out how to do that without outing Jasper, blowing his cover, endangering Ruby, or violating the queen’s edict not to harm Rolf Macintosh. A child’s game for a guy who’d figured out how to navigate the foster system by the time he was seven, survive on the street by the time he was thirteen, and play for the good guys when he joined the Elskovian army at eighteen.
“Just remember that—” Jasper pointed at the chain at connecting Lucas’s and Ruby’s wrists. “is just pretend. Don’t fuck with her because you think you can. I know the truth about you.”
“No one is fucking with me,” Ruby said, getting right in Jasper’s face. “But you sure are pissing me off.”
“Rubes, you don’t know him. He’s not who you think he is.”
Lucas couldn’t argue with that. It was, after all, exactly how he liked it.
“Oh, stuff it.” Ruby jammed a finger into her brother’s chest. “I’m a big girl and can take care of myself.”
She whirled on the ball of her foot and turned to face Lucas. The glint in her eye screamed out trouble, but before he could do anything, she’d raised herself up on her tiptoes, cupped his face in her hands, and planted her lips on his. The kiss was like a triple shot of akvavit on the first day of winter. It burned in the best way and blasted the rest of the world to smithereens. It was total madness—the kind he’d always sworn off—but ignoring her sweet tongue as it begged for entrance into his hungry mouth wasn’t an option. The moment he opened his mouth and invited her in, the tone of the kiss changed. Shock and awe melted away in the face of such heated need on both their parts. Then, as fast as it began, it ended with her hand moving down to his chest and pushing him away and turning back toward her brother.
“Now get out of here before the Sparrow realizes you’re wandering around after-hours,” she said, her chin high and gray eyes gleaming.
“Too
late,” her brother snipped. “I already told him I was giving Talia the grand tour.”
“At three in the morning?” Lucas asked, still trying to get his bearings back.
Jasper shrugged. “I sold it.”
“He pretended to be drunk,” Clausen said, her hand on the bedroom doorknob.
“Then be sure to sell it on the way back to your wing,” Ruby said.
Jasper stalked over to the door, stopping right as Clausen opened it. He turned back to stare down Lucas. “Remember what I said.”
Hating that her brother was right to warn Ruby off him, Lucas fell back on the best defense mechanism any kid from a fucked-up background had: exaggerated sarcasm. “Don’t worry, if I was wearing shoes right now I’d be shaking in them.”
Taking the initiative, Clausen stepped outside the door and let out a simpering, tipsy giggle. “Nighty night then, lovebirds,” she said in a singsong voice and then tugged Jasper out into the hall with her before closing the door behind them.
The silence after all of the noise of the last twenty minutes bore down on him. Ruby’s shoulders slumped, and she lifted a palm to the back of her neck and rubbed. The urge to replace her touch with his own and comfort her was as overwhelming as it was misplaced. He couldn’t give in, but he wasn’t a total monster. What had happened between them before her brother barged in hadn’t been just for their cover, but it couldn’t happen again.
“Ruby—”
She held up a hand and shook her head. “Just don’t, okay? Let’s chalk it up to strange circumstances and forget about it so we can concentrate on getting the information you need, so I can get the hell off this island and away from every lying, manipulating one of you.”
That should be all he wanted. It was all he wanted. So why did her dismissal sting so much? After doing an awkward shuffle scoot to get back onto the bed and under the covers, he laid his head down on the pillow that still smelled of her lust, knowing that would be the one question he really didn’t trust himself to find the answer to.
Chapter Eight
Ruby refused to open her eyes. The sunlight stabbed at her closed eyelids, making its presence known no matter how desperately she tried to cling to the last echo of her dream—one that involved Lucas and his big cock. There hadn’t been even a hint of her brother going all battering ram on the door in the hazy non-reality of her subconscious. It had been a very good dream.
For at least a little bit longer she could deny the sun warming her cheeks, but there was no ignoring the sinewy arm curled around her waist or the hard, thick length of her dreams pressing against her ass. She was tucked firmly against Lucas, both of them on their sides. Judging by the cool morning air against her skin, the silk robe she’d tied toga style because of her chained arm had shifted up. The material had inched its way up to her hips, and the tie had loosened so the front hung open. Torn between adjusting the material and the lure of this peaceful moment, she inhaled a shallow breath to keep from waking up Lucas.
“I know you’re awake,” he said, his voice low and rough with sleep.
Keeping her eyes closed, she snuggled down deeper into her pillow. “No, I’m not.”
“Okay, then you go ahead and keep making that little moan sound you were doing a little while ago.” He tightened his hold, pulling her more firmly against him. “Good dream?”
Her cheeks burned with a prickly heat. She didn’t need a mirror to know how red she’d flushed. “Nightmare. All of the men in the world had teeny, tiny dicks.”
He chuckled, blowing a few strands of her hair forward so they landed across her cheek. “That must have been horrible.”
Blocking out the tickling of her hair, Ruby kept her eyes closed. Opening them would mean she’d have to acknowledge his closeness. She’d have to roll out from underneath his arm and relinquish that unnamable something keeping her warm that had nothing to do with the heat his strong body generated under the covers. Jasper was an ass, but he was right about Lucas. He wasn’t the man for her, no matter how good he felt curled around her. She was the crime boss’s daughter that he was blackmailing for access to Fare Island. He was the leader of the Silver Knights, devoted only to Elskov, who lied, cheated, manipulated, and killed to protect it. Growing up surrounded by thieves and murders, she’d had enough of that whatever-it-takes-to-win mindset to last a billion lifetimes. All she wanted was a little slice of truth, somewhere peaceful to lay her head, and the knowledge that the people she loved were safe from Rolf’s vindictive reach.
Of course, knowing that didn’t lessen her reluctance to crack open her lids and let reality come streaming through.
“Someone delivered the special hand-binding shirts half an hour ago,” he said.
Her heartbeat picked up. “Who?”
“The Sparrow.”
Of course. She should have known. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t.” Lucas drew the loose strands of her hair back and tucked them behind her ear, setting off an electric current of want that had her biting her bottom lip. “He just glared at me and dropped off the shirts.”
She could picture that. The Sparrow was short, thin, and ever vigilant. The only things he seemed to hate more than strangers was a dull knife or an enemy who died too soon.
“Don’t take it personally,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips. “He looks at everyone that way.”
“Except you.”
True. She’d always been the exception that proved the rule. Well, her and her mother. Jasper had always been up to too much trouble, talked too much, and played too many tricks for a man like the Sparrow to put up with.
“He was practically my governess growing up.”
“You had a governess?” Lucas asked, a teasing disbelief lingering in his words.
“I had something better. I had the Sparrow.” She’d learned early on that there was more to her father’s number one enforcer than appeared. He’d had a soft spot for kids, never met a stray animal he didn’t want to adopt, and was a fabulous teacher, even if the skills he was imparting weren’t exactly age appropriate. “I could pick a lock by four, hit a distance target with a throwing knife at eight, and by ten, I could get to every cave and hideout on the island undetected.”
“And you decided to be a jewelry designer instead of a ninja warrior?”
“The Sparrow is the one who gave me my first sketchbook.”
All those blank pages just waiting for her to make her mark. The memory of her first taste of creative freedom blocked her throat with a lump of bittersweet hope. Until then, she’d never imagined being able to make her own reality away from her stepfather’s watch. It was the best gift she’d ever gotten.
“You sound like you care a lot about a man who would do this to you.” He pulled down one of her hands tucked under her chin, turned it palm up, and traced his thumb over the raised scar of the M and I carved into it.
Glad again for the protection of her closed eyes, she clenched her jaw tight and willed back the tears so quick to come. The sharp, slashing pain in her hand had been nothing compared to the agony on the Sparrow’s narrow face as he’d pulled out his favorite blade and drew first blood.
“My father wanted to do much worse. The Sparrow came to my defense. It was touch and go, but my father agreed. Forcing him to be the one to actually mete out the punishment served a dual-purpose. Rolf isn’t a man who forgives opinions other than his own.”
“Why did he defy your father?”
Were his questions a way to interrogate an asset? Probably. Still, the words came pouring out.
“The Sparrow has loved my mother for as long as I’ve known him. I think at least some of that transferred down to Jasper and me.”
For a man like Lucas who only saw in black and white, the stream of grays that made up life growing up on Fare Island must be an anathema.
“Does Rolf know?”
She nodded. “He doesn’t care. My mother isn’t well. She’s…” She paused, trying to think of a way to sum up
her mother’s fragility. The days she’d spend in bed. The constant dark circles. The listlessness. The air of hopelessness she’d always tried to cover with false cheer. “A little bit broken. Rolf considers her as his owned property. She’d never dare to cheat or leave him. Anyway, I think he enjoys watching the Sparrow’s misery.”
Her stepfather had found so many opportunities to throw the Sparrow and her mother together. Special guard duties on her shopping trips to Paris. Keeping her company on the days when she couldn’t get out of bed. All of it with the unspoken threat hanging over both of their heads if they gave in to temptation. The man was a conniving tyrant, and he ruled Fare Island with an unbreakable fist. That was why she and Jasper had to break free for good. Her mother, she knew, would never go. Whatever bond held her tight to Rolf’s side was beyond severing, but she and Jasper could do it. His connections in the U.S. could help them disappear. Even as pissed as she was at him for lying to her, she wouldn’t walk away from her brother. Not now. Not ever.
For a while, she and Lucas lay quiet together. Maybe he was denying the reality outside this bed as much as she was. But, finally, he spoke.
“Why do you call him your father to his face if he’s not? Jasper calls him Rolf.”
Lucas’s question yanked her out of their protective, pretend cocoon. She opened her eyes, the sun temporarily blinding her to her surroundings. Then, she blinked and the world fell into place around her. Fare Island. An arms deal. Blackmail. Her best chance at freedom.
“For the same reason he always finds a reason to keep the Sparrow near my mother,” she said as she threw off Lucas’s arm and sat up. “To remind him of what he does not, and never will, have.”
…
Half an hour later, Lucas found himself struck dumb in the dining room.
Quick wits were his most prized skill. It was what had gotten him from being the neglected child of an addict to being at the point of the spear when it came to keeping Elskov safe. He’d always depended on them, used them, exploited them. Looking at the twenty-five pictures of floral arrangements spread out before him, his wits fled him like a rat jumping off a sinking ship. Lives on the line? He could come up with a workable plan in heartbeats. But this? He had nothing.