Ruby

Harry stared across his desk at me while I paced his office.

“Sit down before you wear a hole in the carpet,” he said in that deep, calm voice of his.

“I’m fine standing.” I stopped and turned to face him. “So, did your contact come through?”

He tapped his pen on the desk. I’d given him the note as soon as I got to work this morning and he’d taken it to a guy he knew, an ex-con who’d been involved with a lot of the heavy hitters in this city before he was locked up. Harry paid him well for the information he gave us, and the guy usually had a lot to give.

“Falcon is a meeting place. The Falcon is an old hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s run down, been empty for years. The owner of this place, one Colin Edwards, uses it to conduct business, the kind he doesn’t want the authorities getting wind of. Edwards has links to drug and arms dealers, but enough legitimate businesses, highly successful businesses, to hide behind, and a good way to clean that dirty money. Besides being loaded, and powerful, he’s known to have a . . . thing for brunettes.”

I stopped and stared at Harry across his desk, an unsettling feeling in my belly. “Define thing.”

“He’s known by police, not for his dodgy business practices, but for the complaints filed against him, restraining orders, harassment, that kind of thing. Nothing has come of it, he’s never been charged. My guess, money was exchanged to keep this shit quiet, to keep these women quiet. No one would want to go up against this guy. Men like Edwards get away with whatever the fuck they want. When I say this guy is rich, I mean this guy is fucking loaded.”

“What does he have to do with Scott?”

Harry sat back in his chair. “You think Scott was trying to warn you, protect you from something . . . someone?”

“I’m sure of it.”

Harry stared at me, an expression on his face that sent chills down my spine.

“You think this Edwards was watching me on that fucking site?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know; at this point we’re only speculating. But yeah, my guess, this guy saw you, took an unhealthy interest in you. This meeting, the info Scott had, what it all means, I have no idea, but it can’t be anything good. If this guy is trying to track you down, that tweaked out piece of shit was right, you are in danger.”

“But how did Scott know about this meeting? Whoever he was working for before he ran isn’t going to hand him fresh information. And if it was Scott that set this meeting up, why would he try and protect me, if he planned to sell me out to this guy? It doesn’t add up.”

“Agreed, which means we don’t really know shit and we need to be careful. You need to be careful.”

Shit.

This was getting complicated, but I wasn’t prepared to give this to Neco and get shut out of my own case. If this guy wanted something from me, I wanted to know what, and I wanted to be the one to take him down. I wasn’t going to sit back and let Neco play hero, while I played the victim. I wasn’t going to do that anymore.

I was capable, I knew my stuff, and I had excellent, highly skilled backup. Neco wouldn’t see it that way, though. There was nothing I could do about that, he had to find a way to deal with his fears and let me live my own life—and occasionally, that would mean separate from him.

I got that he was scared for me, but I needed him to give me that freedom, to stay sane.

We’d both been shaped by our childhoods. Neco clung tighter as a result of his, and I . . . I needed to be given the room to be me. The Ruby I’d worked so hard to find, the broken girl I’d pulled from the rubble, who’d been buried under layers of insults and harsh words, of fear and sadness. I’d worked so damn hard to find her.

We were like magnets, two negative sides pushing against each other.

Somehow, we had to make that work.

“I think we need to go check this place out.”

He tilted his head to the side, studying me. “You planning on telling the boys at the King Agency about this?”

“Not yet. Not unless we need them.”

Harry was in his early forties, solid, ex-military, and from what I’d seen, not afraid of anyone or anything. He knew his stuff, had contacts everywhere, and I liked him. He was a good guy.

He chuckled in a way that didn’t really hold any humor, then muttered, “Okay then, let’s do this.”

“I thought you’d give me more resistance on this.” Honestly, I thought he’d want someone who had been in this business longer than me taking his back.

The guy was obviously a mind reader because he said, “You’re smart, quick, and know how to handle a weapon.” He shrugged. “I trust you, Ruby. You’ve proved yourself to me on more than one occasion. If I didn’t think you could handle this job, I wouldn’t have hired you.”

I was dumbfounded. Flattered. And also feeling a little vindicated. Harry, a professional, a tough SOB, thought I had what it took. I stood. “Right, let’s get to work.”

His mouth straightened into a flat line and he stood as well, sliding on his sports coat. “Think you can handle a visit to your old apartment first?”

I slung my bag over my shoulder. “I can handle it, but the cops have been through it, I doubt there’ll be anything there.”

He opened the door for me. “Probably not, but I want to check it out anyway. Things get missed, overlooked all the time.”

We headed out, taking Harry’s car, and arrived at my old place a short time later. I had a weird feeling; not fear exactly, just a ghost, a shadow hanging around me, filling my head with Scott’s face, the way he’d been when he came after me that night, like he was a completely different person. And I guess that was true. I’d never known him at all.

But I was okay; more than okay, as I tore away the police cordon tape and unlocked the door.

Harry stepped past me and took in the living room. Furniture was still knocked over, the bills I’d had on the table scattered across the floor.

“Looks like you put up one hell of a fight.” Harry’s words shook me back the present.

I glanced over at him. “Would you expect anything less?”

“Nope.” He turned away and started searching the bookshelf.

I headed down the hall, walking into my room. I wasn’t sure how I expected to feel walking back in there, nervous, tense, maybe even a little fear—what I hadn’t expected to feel was . . . anger. No, white-hot rage. Scott had done this to me. He’d come into my life, invaded my privacy, treated me like an object to be exploited. It fueled me, drove me, made me more determined to find out who was behind that sick website, what this Colin Edwards had to do with any of it—to bring them down in a crashing heap.

“I’m going to check out Scott’s room,” I called to Harry.

I heard a grunt over the shuffling of papers and thump of books as I strode to the room at the end of the hall and pushed the door open. I hadn’t been in his room for a long time, not since the night I’d slept with him and he’d videoed it for posterity.

I stood in the doorway and took in the room. It was sparse, nothing on the walls. He had a double bed and a dresser. A small TV sat on top with his porn collection stacked up beside it. We’d lived together for two years and it was like he hadn’t fully moved in, like this wasn’t his home, but just somewhere he crashed now and again.

I opened the top drawer. Boxers and socks. I grabbed a pen, sitting on top of the dresser, and used it to moved things around. No way I was putting my hand on this asshole’s underwear. Nothing. I checked the other drawers, coming up empty as well.

The only other piece of furniture was the bed. I dropped to my knees and checked underneath. Nothing but dust bunnies and a couple suspicious-looking socks. I stood and looked around, this niggling feeling in my gut that I was missing something. I thought about all the conversations between the guys at the agency I’d overheard, what they said about the jobs they’d been on, the places they always searched first. Floorboards?

I took my time feeling for loose ones, going as far as dragging the dresser out from the wall to check the ones under it, as well as behind it. I turned back to the bed. One time Jude told Hunter he’d found what he’d been looking for inside someone’s mattress. A long shot, and yeah, touching that thing was not an appealing thought whatsoever, but I wasn’t leaving here until I turned over every damn piece of furniture. Going by the thumps and bumps coming from the living room, neither was Harry.

Dragging off the covers, I stripped off the bottom sheet and threw it all aside. The top was in good condition, no cuts—and thankfully, no weird stains either. I shoved it up onto its side. Underneath looked okay as well, so I felt around the sides, working my way around the whole thing. I was working my fingers along the top . . .

The stitching had been unpicked. It was small, easy to miss. Hoping like hell there wasn’t anything sharp or disgusting in there, I poked my finger inside. Something cold and hard touched the tip of my pinky. I grabbed it between my fingers and pulled it out.

A pen drive.

Yes!

“I found something,” I called.

Harry’s boots thumped down the hall then he poked his head around the door. I held the pen drive up. “Nice. Good work. Any idea what it is?”

“Not a clue.” I looked down at it. “I’ve never seen it before. He used to use his laptop in the living room all the time, but I’ve never seen him with this.”

“The guy wouldn’t hide it if it didn’t have something he didn’t want anyone else to see.”

I slid it in my pocket and we carried on searching, my determination growing stronger by the second.

The pen drive was good, but it wasn’t enough, not to get Neco to change his mind about my chosen career path. I had to show him I could do this, that I was more than capable, that he could trust me to be careful.

To do that, I needed something big, something he couldn’t brush off as dumb luck.

It was just a matter of time before I found it.

* * *

Neco

My relationship with Tomas Mendoza, the man sitting across from me, was complicated to say the least. He may consider me family after growing up in the same shitty neighborhood, but he was also a businessman, ruthless as they came. A crime boss that would take his pound of flesh if the opportunity arose, no matter who you were.

The smile on his face as the guy beside him murmured to him in a rushed, low voice sent a damn chill down my spine. I knew that smile. It meant whatever fucked-up, sick thing he’d had that poor bastard do was done, and done to his satisfaction. I knew this because I had been that guy once. I’d been the man doing Tomas’s dirty work.

The only reason I’d been allowed to leave his services when I had were our ties to this hood, family ties, not in the DNA sense, but forged side by side, fighting, drinking, just trying to survive. The kinds of home lives that shaped us into the fucked-up criminals we were. That shit tied us. That was important to Tomas. We grew up together, and that meant something to this man, when nothing much else did.

Tomas finally dismissed the other guy and we were left on our own, which was proof of the level of trust he had in me. Usually, he would have a couple henchmen standing by ready to blow a hole in my skull if I looked at him the wrong way, if he didn’t do it himself.

Coming here had been a last resort. I’d exhausted every contact I had trying to get something, fucking anything, on the players behind Imperious Inc., but I kept coming up against one brick wall after another. Honestly, I had no idea what to do, who else to turn to. And after what happened last night, Ruby going to meet Scott without telling me, I knew my time was up. I needed to know she was safe. I needed these fuckers out of commission, now, and Tomas was the only person who could get that kind of information. It’d been preying on my mind, knowing it would more than likely come to this, and Ruby had picked up on it. But no way could she find out, she’d only try and stop me. No one could stop me. I’d pay any price to keep her safe.

I’d had a meeting late this afternoon and told the other guys what I planned to do. None of them liked it, but right now, Tomas was our best bet, and we all knew it.

I held the other man’s eyes when they slid to me. The guy was a fucking predator. Any sign of weakness and he’d find a way to exploit it, family or not.

“What do you need?” Tomas said, not wasting any time.

“Information.” I knew walking in here this would cost me. What it would cost me, I was about to find out.

Interest flickered through his eyes. He’d wanted me back on his payroll for a long time. And I was about to give him the chance to drag me back. “Go on.”

“You heard of Imperious Incorporated?”

He sat back in his seat, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Is this business or personal for you?” he said, not answering my question.

“Personal,” I said, voice rough as hell. I hated giving him that, but Tomas demanded complete honesty. Either you told the truth or you paid the price for lying.

“I’m gonna need a little more, Nec.”

“My woman . . . Ruby.” There was recognition in his eyes as I said her name. Everyone knew she meant something to me, even back when we were kids. “Someone hurt her. These people could still be a threat, a threat that I plan to neutralize.”

“Our Ruby?”

There it was. Family. And she was my fucking Ruby, but I kept that to myself. “Yeah.”

He nodded. “Nice girl. Visits your mom often.”

My muscles bunched tight. I knew he had eyes and ears everywhere in our old neighborhood. He was a scary motherfucker, but he looked out for his own. Didn’t change the fact I didn’t like him keeping tabs on my girl.

“That’s right.” I didn’t let my gaze falter from his. “You have anything for me, Tomas?”

His dark eyes stayed locked on mine. “I’m afraid I can’t give you what you want.”

I stiffened, fingers curling into fists, my anger rising hard and fast. I knew exactly what that meant.

“The power behind that company are . . .” He tilted his head to the side. “Associates of mine. You neutralize them . . . I won’t be very happy.”

The weight of my gun resting against my back suddenly felt heavier. “She’s one of ours, Tomas. These fuckers had cameras in her room, let assholes pay to watch her. You’re okay with that? Family only matters if business isn’t involved, is that it?”

“Watch yourself,” he muttered. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

It took everything in me not to pull my gun and blow the fucker’s head off.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I can give you something that I think will appease your bloodthirsty soul. The names you want, behind Imperious, they just fund the operation you’re talking about. They fund a lot of operations. And as long as they’re getting a return, and there’s no blowback on them, these guys don’t give a fuck about the details.” He tapped his fingers together. “I have no stake in this particular enterprise. You know how I feel about shit like that.”

Tomas may have a large stable of prostitutes, but he’d never forced one of his girls into a damned thing.

“Let me do some digging, I’ll get you whoever was behind recruiting your woman,” he finally said. “I’m going out on a limb here for you, Neco. I hope you understand just how much? If my associates ever found out I gave you these names, it would create . . . problems for me.”

“I understand.” I also knew it meant I owed him big.

“I’m sure I don’t need to say it, but I will anyway. My name stays out of this. And no cops.”

I was fine with that. Whoever he gave me would be taking a ride in the back of the agency van and they wouldn’t be coming back. “Recruited?”

“They have recruiters, people that pick the targets, infiltrate, set up cameras and get out. That’s how they earn their cut.”

Scott hadn’t gotten out. He’d stuck around for some reason like a rotting carcass stinking up the place. It had become more to Scott, personal. He may have put the cameras in Ruby’s room, but my gut told me he hadn’t been acting alone.

“When will you have the names?” I said.

“You’re not going to ask what I want in return first?”

I didn’t bother answering. We both knew I’d do whatever it was he asked. I just hoped since this was a request for “family,” whatever he wanted would be something I could live with.

Turned out I was wrong.