The Precious Ruby (The Precious Trilogy Book 1)

by C Renee

  “Nah, I think this chick is different from the rest. I just can’t shake it. I get this feeling she’s in some kind of trouble.” I climb inside the vehicle, and rearrange the Obstetric kit to make sure we have everything.

  “Well, go give that girl a call and ask her out on a date and dude, don’t take no for an answer. If she doesn’t answer, go to her.” He pats me on the back and goes to the locker room to change into his uniform.

  I’m about to head the same way when I feel my phone is vibrating in my pocket, I pull it out and see that it’s an unknown caller on the screen, it can’t be Louise because I already have her number.

  “Hello, Alex Knight here.” I wait for the other person to say something.

  “Alex? Thank god I got a hold of you. I called your dads office, but they wouldn’t give me your number. Then the woman, from the bar the other night, came into my office for some legal advice, which I’m not a lawyer but anyway… she didn’t even have your number. So, then I had to rush down to your dad’s office and demand, in person, for your number because it’s a life or death situation. God, I’m going off track, but the reason I called is Louise is missing and I wanted to know if she’s with you or if she contacted you in the last 24 hours.” She takes a deep breath, after rambling.

  I can’t think, I’m frozen and the only thing that keeps circling around in my mind is… Louise is missing!?

  “Hello? Alex? Are you there?” I hear Steph call me but I’m too stunned to answer her, but after a long pause I reply.

  “Yeah, I’m here. No I haven’t seen her but I did call the other day to apologize for my behavior from the night at the bar.”

  “Oh okay, did she seem a little off by any chance?”

  “Ah, no, she just brushed me off like usual. Why what’s wrong?”

  “Well she left a note saying she was leaving to keep us safe and I have a bad feeling that she has gone back to her ex. I don’t know where he is living or if she’s alive. Can we meet for lunch? I need to tell you about Matt.” She says is name with such repulsion and anger I think I’m ready to puke.

  “Yeah, let me get my shift changed and I’ll meet you at the ‘Blooming Blues’.”

  “Alright see you in an hour.”

  I hang up from her and march straight to the head office to speak to Big Bill.

  Big Bill gets his name because he is six foot four, bald and has a body of a weightlifter that hasn’t stopped even at the age of 58. He scares the fuck out of me and to be frank I don’t even like speaking to him. He always talks down to everyone except his golden child, who is my boss, but in this situation of quickly changing shifts, I need to speak to the big boss and that’s why I’ve got my hand on the door handle to his office, bracing myself for his reign of terror.

  “Come in,” Bill yells from across the room. I walk in and he’s sitting behind the desk with his feet up and he’s leaning back in the chair.

  “What has brought you to me young man?” He raises his eyebrow at me. I’m nervous so I scan his office. I have only been in here twice and those two times were to change my shift for family emergencies I don’t want to remember but they come flooding back. The first time was when my mother was in a horrid car accident. I wasn’t on call that night but I came to Bill to change that.

  I just got the phone call from my father saying mother was in a car accident and he was still stuck two states over after a business meeting and I was the only family member in town close enough to get to her and being a paramedic I could use that to my advantage.

  I walked straight into Bill’s office. I screamed and threw my hands in the air. I demanded to go to the crash site.

  “Bill, you don’t understand. She doesn’t have any family here besides me. Put me on the God damn call and we can move on, let me be with her and treat her! Fuck, she needs me!”

  His tone never changed. He was always calm and collected. I suppose in that line of work you have to be, “Look son, you know the protocol when it comes to treating your own family, if by chance you were already on call then I couldn’t stop you but since you are requesting to be on call. I can’t go around the by-laws.”

  “No Bill, you don’t fucking understand! She needs me, not some freshman paramedic treating her! I’ve been doing this for nearly five years and I’ve seen worse things than even you can imagine!”

  I was huffing and puffing around the office, I paced back and forth until he finally let me go to her, I didn’t need this time to piss fart around. That was precious time my mother didn’t have.

  “Alright, Alex, this is the only time I will bend the rules for you. Go and save your mother and don’t mention that I’ve bent the rules for you because you’ll be putting my ass out to the wolves.”

  I walked over the desk and gave him a heartfelt hand shake. He didn’t understand how much that meant to me.

  I ran out to the ambulance that was waiting and got in with the other officer whose name I couldn’t remember. He transferred here the other week and I was too up myself and focused to talk to him.

  We arrived at the crash site and it was a mess.

  I headed around the back and grabbed a medical bag. I spotted the black Mercedes with the dream catcher bumper sticker. Mother was always obsessed with them, even got a tattoo of one on her back.

  I opened the car door and saw that she was unconscious.

  I called over the other officers to help get the gurney, they helped me get her on it, and back to the vehicle. Time was precious, those few minutes when the patient was unconscious.

  We lowered her on the gurney and wheeled her over to the First Aid tent be looked at by a doctor, while we waited on another ambulance. I went over to the other two cars that seemed to have hit head on and there were crushed bodies that have flown from the opposite car. I walked over and checked the pulse of a little boy who looked to be about five. He was not breathing so I pulled the black tarp over his body and walked around to the other car. I inspected the other bodies. They were all unresponsive.

  I noticed one woman chanting. ‘Is he okay, is he okay?’ She had gone into shock. I radioed for back up to get another gurney to my location. I checked the others while I waited until I could go back and check up on my mother.

  I jumped into the front seat of the ambulance and made a radio report to the hospital that we were en route.

  “Black Forrest Hospital, Tony speaking.”

  “Yeah Tony, it’s Alex. I have a 53-year-old woman, unconscious following a three vehicle collision. We are approximately 20 minutes away and she is showing good vitals.”

  “Thanks for reporting Alex, see you soon.”

  “Bill, I need to swap my shifts. Something has come up with the family and it seems it’s life or death. I need to go.”

  I look him in the eye and pray that he will cover for me. I suppose he looks at me like a son he wishes he could replace with the one he already has, but his son has let him down on several occasions, years ago. Not that I’m complaining.

  “No can do son. You know the rules and I’ve already bent them twice for you. A third time would become a habit and I’m not sure I can afford to do that.”

  “You don’t understand Bill. I need to go. I can’t waste anymore time.”

  “If, and that’s a big if, I let you change shifts you will have to file a report and take double shifts next week. I can’t pull any more favors for you, unless it was your parents, and I know by the look on your face now that this time it isn’t one of them. It’s in fact a woman. I’ve seen that look multiple times when I was your age.”

  “Yes, you are right, she is missing and has been for 24 hours and I’m to meet her friend so she can clue me in on her ex boyfriend. This girl’s friend seems to think she is in danger or worse, killed.”

  “Well hell kid, why didn’t you say something in the first place, I would have changed your shifts immediately, and I will, but those double shifts and the report still stands. Now go and find that woman of yours.”

&nbs
p; I walk out of big Bills office astounded. What have I just witnessed, Bill being the nice and good guy for once?

  I arrive at the Blooming Blues restaurant just in time to see Steph seated inside at the corner booth ordering what looks like a loaded alcoholic drink. I hope she orders one for me.

  “Hey Steph, how are you going?” I slide over into the booth opposite her.

  “I’ve been better.” She looks up from her phone and I take in her blood shot, puffy eyes and streak marks in her make-up from crying. It looks like she’s tried to fix it, and her lips are red from nibbling them in worry. She looks a mess.

  “So tell me what happened, from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out please,” I ask while I reach over the table to give her hand a squeeze, to encourage her to go on.

  “Well it all started four or so years ago. Lou and I were roommates in college and we were taking the same classes, Finance 101. She was a bright, funny and outgoing girl, and I knew from the moment I saw her, she was going to be my best friend. Well, one night we went out to the bar to celebrate our final exams, and she came across this dark haired biker guy. I knew she was smitten when he caught her attention. I didn’t like him, at all, but I was being the good friend and letting her go and be free. So they started going on dates and he seemed lovely, from what she was telling me anyway. Then after about six months of dating, he asked her to move in with him across the state and I begged her to not go. That she really didn’t know him enough and that he seems like a rotten egg. But Lou is stubborn and wouldn’t listen to me. So she went and I got to visit her a couple of times in San Diego, but Matt started to act weird, she wasn’t allowed to speak to me or see her family anymore until she secretly called me and cried to me for hours. She told me that Matt had changed, that he would beat her at least four times a day because she stepped out of line. She was admitted to hospital a few times in a few short months and Matt made her lie about how she was injured or he would kill her.”

  Steph squeezed my hand back and took another deep breath.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t think.

  No wonder Lou found it hard to trust me after what she had been through. I urged Steph to continue because I can sense she wasn’t finished and that she has more to tell me.

  “By the time I told her to leave, it was too late. Matt’s father who was the leader of the Bloody Eagle biker club died. If you heard what they have been involved in over the news, you know it’s bad news. Out of the blue she called me again and told me to move and change my phone number because Matt went off the deep end. He came home bloodied and she told me that he killed his father and was now president of that club. She was stuck and afraid for her life. I told her to come up with a plan to leave and to come back home, but the last two years went by and I hadn’t heard anything from her, not until six months ago when she called me from the hospital in LA. She told me that she left Matt, and they had found her and ran her off the road. She nearly died that night if it wasn’t for the paramedics on the scene when it happened. To this day I would love to thank them for saving my best friend, and just yesterday morning I found a note saying she had to leave to save the people she loved. I know she went back to him because he found out she is alive. I just need help to find him and bring her back home.” She takes a huge drink from her martini and orders another two.

  I can’t believe it. I can remember that night so clearly, it was a beautiful woman who looked similar to Lou but I never connected the dots. She was upside down in her crushed up car and her gray eyes haunted my dreams for weeks after that. It was me who saved her life and I hope I get the chance to tell her that.

  “Steph, it was me who saved Lou that night. I should have been honest with you and Lou about who I really am. Yes, my father owns a huge company worth billions of dollars, and yeah I am the playboy billionaire and I have my reasons for earning that title, but after a tragic event that happened in my life years ago, which I won’t explain now, I had to change my life around and that’s when I changed my major and became a paramedic. The night of her accident, I was on the scene. It was me, who saved her, and I promise you I will save her again and tell her about that night myself.”

  I breathe a huge sigh of relief; I’ve wanted to tell someone about that night for a while now.

  “Steph let me call my father and see if he can help with this. I know he has certain connections and I’ll give you a call later.”

  I walk out into the fresh air and I call my father. I send a silent prayer up towards the sky even though I’m not a religious man. I need to know that no matter what happens after today that Lou will be alive and safe.

  “Hey father, I need to come into the office today and discuss a really urgent matter with you,” I say as I leave him a message and get back into my car and head towards his office.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Louise

  I WAKE UP TO the dim sunlight behind the curtains, I roll over in the bed and pull the pillow over my head… I’m not ready to face the world today. My ass is still on fire from last night. That reminds me that I need to put more cream on it. I don’t understand how Matt can be so vicious now, not after everything we have been through together. I can still remember one night we were wrapped up in each other and talking about the future we saw together.

  I looked over at Matt who is laying flat on his back with both of his arms behind his head, his eyes were closed but the light from the lamp was casting a shadow under his eyes. He looked tired or content, probably both. After all those intense orgasm he gave me, he made it a total of four.

  “Matt, do you see a future for us?” I asked while I held my breath, we had only been officially dating for a year and I was living with him.

  “Yeah babe, why do you say that?” Matt opened his eyes and looked over at me.

  “Oh, I just thought since I moved in with you last weekend that we could have a serious talk about our future and the fact that I moved in with you so soon wasn’t a mistake.” I looked away to gather my bearings just in case he really didn’t want to be with me for the long haul.

  “Lou… sweetness, of course there is a future for us or I wouldn’t have asked you to move in with me. Come here Sweetness. Let me pleasure your insecurities away.” He quickly rolled on top of me and started stroking my inner thigh; he worked his way towards my center. Once he felt that I was soaked again, he looked up at me and smiled. He then crawled his way down my body to my knees and looked back up at me. “Lou, I will show you how much you mean to me, how much I truly love you and will do anything to protect you and our future. Will you let me love you?”

  Matt was back to kissing his way up my legs before I could give him my response. “Oh… Matt…” I moaned when I felt the pressure building up in my center.

  He worked his tongue through my wet folds but he knew he hadn’t reached my pleasure point so he started massaging my clit between his thumb and finger, giving it a little squeeze every now and again.

  I was so close that I began to claw at his shoulders and pulling at his hair. I needed relief, I couldn’t take that anymore. Just before I was about to give up my patience, Matt stuck another finger inside. He gave my clit a harder massage and that sent me over the edge.

  I was pulling his hair and cursing so loud that people in China would be able to hear me. I had a feeling that the neighbors heard me.

  Matt looked up at me with his devilish grin, like he won the lottery. God how did I get so lucky to have him?

  “Now Lou, do you believe me that when I say I want a future for us that I truly mean it? Now can we please make some babies now?”

  The horror expression on my face must have told him that I wasn’t sure if he was joking or being serious. I wasn’t sure which answer I wanted more…

  “I’m only joking Lou, I think I want to change my life before I consider bringing children into it. Not with these dangerous motorcycles on the front lawn and random men showing up at the house, but yes, maybe in the near f
uture I would like to create a baby with you.”

  Matt reached up towards my stomach and started rubbing it. Yeah, I could see how Matt would be a great father some day.

  I sure didn’t know back then I would be childless, emotionally and physically abused, and it had only been two months after that conversation we had, that he promised me we would have children and a future together.

  Two months had passed and I was sitting in the kitchen drinking my morning coffee, just like always while Matt read the newspaper. Since he killed his father, I had to keep a better eye on him. His temper was getting out of hand, but I could handle it. He would then have these terrible mood swings where he would start crying out of nowhere. He would sink to the floor and sob for hours, he would yell at me to go away and I would leave him alone, but I never went far because as soon as he stopped crying he would always want to either cuddle me or fuck me into oblivion. I wasn’t complaining about either.

  I woke up startled with a cramp in my stomach, but I thought it was just my period coming, so I went back to sleep.

  Several hours later I woke up again with the same pain. I crawled out of bed and went straight towards the toilet. Once I reached the toilet bowl, I started throwing up last night’s dinner. That wasn’t one of my period symptoms. Normally I would get cramps and then I would have my period, sometimes I get a bad headache but only when I was stressed.

  The last few months had been calm compared to that throbbing pain in my stomach and the cold sweats that started to creep up my skin.