Neco

“All set?” Hunter said from my office door.

“Yeah, I’ll be up in a sec.”

Hunter gave me a chin lift and headed up to reception. He didn’t work in the field as much anymore, but tonight he was playing lookout for Van and me. The job we were doing required a little B&E and Hunter would make sure we didn’t get any unwelcome surprises.

I thought about Ruby, probably curled up in my bed by now, and an ache started low in my gut. Jesus, she’d been so beautiful tonight. I’d needed that. Time to play, to make her feel good, to just hold her, be with her, and not talk about the fucking case.

Or dwell on how shitty I felt for the way I’d behaved when I found her sparring with Zeke, the way I’d overreacted just thinking about her out in the field, having to use those same skills on some faceless asshole. Somehow, I had to get past my issues and figure out a way to trust her to take care of herself—like she trusted me.

My phone started ringing.

I pulled it from my pocket and checked the screen. Tomas.

I frowned. “Yeah?”

“I’ve got something,” he said, voice low.

“I’m listening.”

“Colin Edwards.”

“What does he have to do with this?” I knew of the guy, he was loaded, hid his criminal activities behind legitimate business, but he’d made a lot of enemies with the way he did business, Tomas being one of them.

“I hear he wants your girl, and he’s prepared to pay to get her.”

I froze. “Come again?”

“Edwards likes to watch, and he indulged that particular interest through the website Ruby’s images were being streamed to. He became her . . . biggest fan, you could say.”

Adrenaline started pumping though me hard and fast. “Go on.”

“He wanted her. Tried to buy her through the scum who put those cameras in her room.” He paused. “That isn’t the kind of business my associates at Imperious are interested in, but this guy is powerful enough that whoever he contacted about buying Ruby decided to make an exception. From what I hear, Edwards is getting impatient.”

“He’s dead,” I gritted down the line.

A pause. “My contact tells me there’s a meeting happening tonight, to renegotiate terms.”

“Does he know where Ruby is?”

“I doubt it, or why would he bother with a middle man?” Tomas was quiet a few seconds. “Then again, that would be too messy for Edwards. He doesn’t like doing his own dirty work. It would suit him to leave that part of the transaction to someone else.”

Which meant this middleman either knew where Ruby was or thought he could get to her when he needed to.

“That everything?” I forced out, anger, murderous rage, distorting my voice.

“Yes. I’ll text you the location.”

I hung up and pounded up the stars to Hunter’s office.

I walked in and Hunter lifted his head, eyes locking on me. “What’s going on?”

“Change of plans.” I held his stare. “I’m going to need the van.”

“Fuck,” Hunter muttered.

* * *

Ruby

I hunkered down beside the warehouse, across the street from the abandoned hotel building I’d scoped out with Harry earlier that day—only this time it wasn’t abandoned. I hadn’t seen anyone arrive or leave, but when I’d gotten there, there was light coming through the cracks in one of the boarded-up windows on the second floor.

The streetlights directly outside the building were out, smashed, and I guessed this was on purpose. There was some shady shit going on in that building, no doubt. And as much as I wanted to crack this case wide open, I wasn’t going to do something reckless. At this point, our aim was to ID the main players so we could nail these fuckers and close them down.

“I’m taking a closer look,” Harry said. “Keep a look out and text me if you see anyone.”

I nodded.

Ducking low, Harry sprinted across the street and down the side of the building.

There was so much that didn’t add up about this whole thing. All we had to go on was what Harry’s informant told us about the note I found on Scott’s body—that some creep with a thing for watching brunettes on porn sites was meeting with the fuckers that ordered Scott to put cameras in my room. All the hypothetical reasons we could come up for this meeting were more than a little terrifying.

A shiver arrowed down my spine . . .

A car turned onto the street, headlights lighting up the road.

Fuck.

They’d see me if I didn’t take cover. Keeping my back against the warehouse, using the shadows, I moved as quickly as I could to the rear of the building and waited for the car to pass. But it didn’t. I heard it pull to a stop, the engine cutting off. I peeked around the edge. A car was parked outside the building.

I slid my phone from my back pocket, ducked back, opened my contacts, and hit Harry’s number.

“Yeah?”

“Get the hell out of there. Someone’s here.”

The sound of doors opening and closing echoed from the other side of the street.

“Shit.” Harry disconnected.

If I stayed back here, I could be missing something vital, something that could lock these assholes up. I couldn’t risk missing something important. So I eased up the way I’d come, back to my spot, against the front, right side of the building, giving me a clear view of the building across the street but keeping me concealed in shadow.

I took a better look at the car. It was black, expensive looking, with dark tinted windows—yeah, nothing ominous about that at all.

The driver’s door opened and a man climbed out and opened the back for whomever he was driving. Another guy got out, average height, wearing a dark suit. There was nothing standout about him, but something about the way he held himself screamed money, self-importance.

Edwards.

Maybe.

They headed to the main doors and the suit pulled something out of his pocket as he walked. A key obviously, because he unlocked the large padlock holding the door closed a second later and they both disappeared inside.

Shit. Where the hell are you, Harry?

I was trying to decide what the hell to do when another car rolled up. This one nothing special. A blue sedan, a few years old.

Two people climbed out. I couldn’t get a clear view of them, but they were talking, their voices a low murmur. One deep, the other higher, a woman.

They went inside as well.

I cursed under my breath. Harry must be hunkered down somewhere out of sight. God, I hoped so anyway.

I stared across at the building, down the side, into the darkness, hoping like hell Harry would appear any minute and give me some indication that he was okay. Fifteen minutes ticked by and nothing. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Harry could be in danger, could be hurt, I need to call in backup . . .

The door opened and the driver of the black car walked out . . . Harry was with him. He was stumbling, his face was messed up, and there was blood dripping from his nose.

The other guy opened the trunk and shoved Harry in and slammed it shut. Then he straightened his jacket and walked back inside.

Holy fuck!

I had to do something, now. If they left with Harry, I knew I’d never see him again. It didn’t take genius to work out what happened next.

Panic surged inside me, but I fought it back down. Harry needed me; there was no time for anything or anyone else.

I stared at the building across the street. The light was still on, and I hoped like fuck that meant they were hanging around in there for a little longer.

With one last glance down either side of the street, I ducked low and sprinted over. “I’m gonna get you out, Harry.”

No one was coming yet. My adrenaline shot higher as I pulled the lock picks from my wallet and started working on the trunk, a skill Neco had taught me the second time Valery went away for a week and locked me out of the house. Blood was pumping so hard though my veins, it roared through my ears. It seemed to take forever before I heard the click and release of the lock. I yanked the trunk open and Harry squinted up at me, eyes already swelling shut.

“Thank fuck,” he muttered.

“Quick,” I whispered and grabbed his arm, helping him out. “We need to get the hell out of here . . .”

Someone grabbed me from behind, yanking me back roughly, and at the same time, raised their arm and fired off a shot. Harry went down, hitting the ground hard. I twisted, coming face to face with the driver of the black car.

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.