Resisting Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) (20 page)

“Right,” I said, trying to gather my wit and resolve. It was difficult, though—my body responded to him in a way it never had to Liam’s more respectful touch.

The door of the motel room opened again. Silver this time. I wasn’t ready to face him, still undone by Quinn’s proximity.

“Time to move out.”

CHAPTER 26

Once we got to East L.A., to the industrial buildings where Martinez had supposedly posted his manifesto, we broke off into teams: Liam and Eva, Quinn and Rosie, Silver and me. The poorly lit perimeter of the thirty-foot-high square concrete buildings reminded me too much of the night I foolishly drove into the LeMarq trap. Just like I had then, I felt manipulated and suspicious, yet energized in a way I secretly craved.

I focused on the way Silver and I were an easy team, the way he knew exactly what he was doing. I wanted to learn from him—just like I used to from Jack Rose. Except this was no harmless exercise at the SWAT training center; this was dangerous and real. I concentrated on Silver’s swift and graceful movements through the night. His rifle had a flashlight attachment, which scanned every step he took to ensure no explosives or trip wires stopped us before we started. We were here to gather intel, not to get ourselves blown up.

But we were also counting on the fact that since Martinez knew we had his daughter, h
e’d
have removed any devices like that. If he was going to kill us, he was going to have to do it on our terms now. Not his.

Liam and Eva moved in from the north entrance, Quinn and Rosie from the south, and Silver and I were going to enter from the roof. I wondered how Rosie was holding up now that things were getting tactical. She had to be getting more apprehensive, but I was sure Quinn would have all the right words to keep her walking.

“Ruby, stay in formation,” Silver whispered through the night. “You walk where I walk.”

“I know,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You don’t have to tell me that.” I also wanted to tell him he wasn’t the boss of me, but I held back my kindergarten-level comeback.

He looked over his shoulder at me and gave me the
stop it
glare. I moved the six inches back to where he thought I should be.

As we were about to scale the metal rungs attached to the wall leading to the roof, I heard a pattering of footsteps at three o’clock to my right. I raised my weapon in the direction of the large air-conditioning units next to the building. A slight movement caught my eye, and I turned my aim to catch a man in all black carrying a weapon. I took three shots without hesitation.

The bullets hit their target—I knew immediately. And despite the silencer, the shots rang out. Silver swung around and pulled me to the ground, shielding me with his body.

His head swiveled at the sound of more footsteps moving toward us. He raised himself on a knee and took one shot at eleven o’clock and two at three o’clock. Two bodies hit the ground with the thuds
I’d
become all too familiar with.

“Why’d you take those first shots?” he seethed.

“I saw someone,” I responded, angry and shaken that
I’d
done it again.
I’d
killed again—a faceless, nameless stranger. “I killed someone.”

“And you also drew the rest of them to us. Stay here,” Silver ordered, as he sprinted toward the A/C units, where h
e’d
surely find a body. I lost sight of him as he rounded the corner. Holding my position, I kept my gun raised in case I needed to cover him.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I waited, heightening all my senses. Silver returned after a few moments, a simple nod of the head indicating
I’d
made the right call.

“Scale fast,” Silver said, indicating for me to go first while he ensured no more surprises. “Tap the ladder three times if it’s clear.”

I clambered up the rungs as quickly as possible. When I got to the top of the building, I took a sweeping scan of the roof. No apparent targets, so I tapped the metal rungs as instructed.

He scaled the ladder faster than I expected for a man of his age. Then again, the silver fox thing was misleading—he couldn’t have been more than forty.

“Stay directly behind me. Take the
exact
steps that I take. Understood?” He whispered over his shoulder, weapon high, knees bent. With his back to me, he could almost have been someone else: the only father
I’d
ever known. The man who taught me everything I knew. The brave officer who was dead and gone because of a situation like this. Jack Rose.

My feet followed his footsteps. My gait fell in time with his tempo. My every move mirrored his elegant stride. If he never turned to face me, I could’ve pretended he was Jack and lived in this adrenaline-filled fantasy world forever.

Seeking targets, gauging threats, fulfilling my purpose. This is who I trained to be, what I always wanted—a capable defender of the weak, the innocent, the threatened. If I never had to face Silver’s eyes, I would never have to accept that I was just like him. I would never have to admit Martinez had it all right all those years ago.

So what if
I’d
just shot someone?
I’d
do it again. Without hesitation. I would give up all my petty desires for perfect grades, beautiful shoes, a loving home, a normal life. I would focus on the paramount task of saving the lives that Martinez would otherwise destroy. I would become exactly what I was meant to be—a killer.

Done.

Jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, heart steeled over, I became Resolved Ruby Rose. Stopping at nothing to take out the monster who’d been hiding under my bed for years.

Using the same sign language Jack Rose taught me long ago, Silver pointed toward a hatch in the roof and indicated that I should stay here and cover him while he made his move to it.

I nodded.

Swift as a night breeze, he flew across the roof. Two bullets narrowly missed him, ricocheting off the wall behind. I assessed the direction of the marksman and released a half-dozen of my own shots. It earned Silver enough time to take cover underneath the metal hatch, where he disappeared.

“What the hell?” I whispered to myself, though he probably heard me on my ear comm unit.

“Stay where you are,” Silver whispered through choppy breaths. “Tune in to the other units on station four, and we’ll see where we all stand.”

“Ten-four,” I said, feeling like a poser for knowing the lingo when the only time
I’d
ever used it was in paintball with the SWAT team. I did as I was told.

“All units, this is Commander Silver, what is your twenty?”

“This is Liam.” The gravel in his voice caught me in the gut in a way I wasn’t expecting. “Eva and I haven’t been able to enter anywhere alongsid
e . . .
uh, the northwest side of the building because of several explosive traps. So we’re, u
h . . .
we’re holding position.” Liam’s voice betrayed how uncomfortable he felt not only with his unsuccessful report, but also speaking to a full-on pro like Silver using radio-talk.

“Quinn here, coming to you live from the southwest.” His whispered eloquence highlighted just how different the two boys really were. Even if he didn’t have a young girl on his arm who he had to keep calm, he probably still would’ve sounded like he was enjoying himself. “Other than the
fireworks
going off on the west side of the building, there’s little to report. The building is empty on the inside, as far as I can tell. Martinez is a no-show.”

“Copy,” Silver said, a jostle in his voice indicating that he was moving quickly. “Three targets have been taken out, and there’s one more active on the roof that Ruby is watching.”

Watching?
That was hardly the correct term. Apart from the general direction of the shots, I had no more indicators of where the shooter actually was. The smog cover hung so thick in this industrial armpit of L.A. that no stars or moonlight were sneaking through to help my night vision.

“Roof is clear,” I said, trying to focus and refocus my eyes through the night.

A boom rocked the air. The entire building shook and vibrated beneath my boots. Without thinking through all my tactical options, I made a run for the side of the building in case the roof was about to collapse. Taking cover behind a candy cane–shaped vent, I panicked at what could have happened. Someone had tripped one of Martinez’s famous traps, no doubt. But who? I prayed it wasn’t Liam—the least skilled and the most brash of us all. I could only hope that Eva was as highly capable as Quinn was.

I peered over the edge of the building to assess the damage of the explosion. To the west, the glow of fire and the black plumes of smoke confirmed my fears: it was Liam’s section. “Liam, Eva, are you OK?” Silver’s voice cut in.

No answer.

“Liam, Eva, report, over,” Silver said.

“Liam, answer!” I begged, too much desperation in my voice for a professional. “Quinn, are you there?”

“Here,” Quinn answered like a good boy. Though his voice wasn’t nearly as unconcerned as before, and he was clearly no longer able to keep the situation calm for Rosie. I could hear her screaming through the comm until he muted it. Even then, I could hear her scream from a distance over a car alarm going off to the east.

Several more gunshots popped through the night. Who was shooting? I couldn’t take it anymore—I had to move, had to see whether Liam was OK. I wasn’t doing anything useful up here, anyway. I scaled down the ladder as if it were a timed exercise at the SWAT course, jumped to the ground, raised my weapon, and rounded the perimeter, keeping my eyes out for any movement. We didn’t have much time before some proximate neighbor reported the boom, the car alarm, or the shots. We had to assess the damage, gather any evidence Martinez might have left for us, and get the hell out of here.

As I approached the heat of the fire, the smell of burning rubber and metal knocked me back. The smoke obscured my vision and took me back to the night of the apartment fire, the Key Killer, Dr. T, Martinez’s bloody bod
y . . .
another one of Martinez’s elaborate schemes to torment me. How could this kind of bloodshed and destruction be entertainment? Did he not understand that his daughter was here and that he was risking her life? Or maybe the bait was in vain, and he couldn’t have cared less about his own flesh and blood.

“Silver.” Eva’s soft voice finally made its long overdue appearance. “I need backup on the west side.”

“Why?” I cut in, fear clouding my mind as much as the smoke clouded everything around me. “What happened to Liam?”

“Quiet, Ruby. Stay calm,” Silver chastised me. “Eva, I’ll be there in two. Everyone hold positions.”

If Liam and Eva were on the other side of the explosion, did I dare round it against orders without being able to see? Shooters could be anywhere. Hell, Eva could see my movement and put a bullet through me.

I covered my nose and retreated several feet away until fresh air relieved me. I crouched in a dark corner, as told, and listened. Rosie was no longer screaming.

After several minutes of silence, more gunshots cracked my forced calm.

“Everyone move out,” Silver said through labored breath. “Now!” He was either hurt or panicked, but I wasn’t going to stay and think about it. I bounded forward like the gunshots were the start of the Olympic hundred-meter dash. As I ran, I tried not to imagine what might have happened and who was hurt. I tried not to think about Liam’s voice being gone. I let the adrenaline and the sound of my own heartbeat push me forward.

When I reached Silver’s van, I climbed in and waited. It was a half mile out from the targeted building, so if Silver was hurt, it would take him a few more minutes to get here. And unless Rosie was a good runner, which I didn’t imagine was the case, Quinn would take several more minutes to reach our rendezvous point also.

I grabbed the night-vision binos from the supply area in the back and scanned the area. My stomach tightened when I saw two figures running toward me. Instead of reaching for my weapon, I reached for the door—both figures had bodies over their shoulders.

This wasn’t good.

CHAPTER 27

Silver drove us to another rundown motel on the coast and got two more rooms. He and Quinn were fine. Liam and Rosie were alive but unconscious.

According to Silver, Liam’s head injury wasn’t uncommon in this line of business. Time would tell what kind of damage had been done.
I’d
heard that before—about my mother, after Martinez’s last terrorist attack.

A “medical professional” was supposed to be on the way to the motel, but I couldn’t help imagining the worst. That my biggest fear about Liam had been realized: his involvement with me had finally damaged him beyond recovery, and not only in an emotional way.

And Rosie—she was fine. Quinn had to sedate her at the scene to calm her down and carry her out, but that was all.

Alone in my room until Silver decided to grace me with his presence, I clicked on the TV to find out if anything more had happened with Bill Brandon, my mother, or “The Hunt for Ruby Rose.”

A statement had been issued by my mother’s staff. The split screen on the TV allowed me to read the few sentences in full while the talking heads dissected it.

While the death of Bill Brandon is an immeasurable tragedy, I maintain my daughter’s innocence. It was a setup and part of a greater conspiracy to destroy me and my family. Starting with the murder of my husband, the framing of my daughter, and the attack on me personally. This is all the work of one man whose evil knows no bounds. While I am not at liberty to discuss the details of the investigations, both state and federal, I can assure the public of one thing: this terrorist will be brought to justice.

I wanted to call her, to see her, to tell her what had happened. To thank her for believing in me. She knew I would never have killed Bill Brandon. But the question remained: who did?

I knew Skryker benefitted from his death with the leverage he got with me, and Quinn and Silver seemed convinced h
e’d
orchestrated it, but was he really capable of ordering a hit just for that purpose? It could have been another setup by Martinez, as my mom suggested in her statement, but something about that didn’t feel right either. He would have left his signature somewhere on it—that’s what he always did. Could there have been someone else who wanted Brandon dead? And what was on that thumb drive I delivered to him that night?

A swoosh of night air gusted in with Silver.

“Where have you been? Is everything OK?” I asked, standing to confront him.

“It’s fine, Ruby,” he said, rubbing his weary eyes. “Relax, everything is fine.”

He walked across the room, dumped his black satchel on the table, and washed his hands and face under the bathroom faucet. I muted the TV and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to come back and explain everything.

“So we accomplished nothing, other than being shot at and blown up?” I asked when he came in. A nice icebreaker. Or more like
ballbreaker
.

“Enough, Ruby.” Silver cut me off and sat at the desk, where he opened his bag and pulled out his laptop. “It was hardly all for nothing.”

It took a few minutes for him to press the buttons he needed before he turned the screen to face me. Not able to see the small text from the bed, I joined him at the table.

It was a message from Martinez via email or IM:

You will regret involving my daughter in this. Unlike your offspring, she is truly innocent and should have no part in this. Once again, the hypocrisy prevails. You hold yourself out as a moral man who honors his word and duty to country. Congratulations on proving yourself no different than I. Unless you return Rosie to her grandmother, Ruby will be only the first of many to die.

“I debated on showing you this,” Silver said, taking the computer away from me. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you. The good news is that we now have the upper hand.”

“How so?” I asked, trying to shake off the chill Martinez’s words brought. I knew that taking Rosie risked incensing Martinez, and that putting his blameless daughter in the middle was immoral. But his wrath jarred me. Thus far, he had delivered on every single one of his threats.

“We have the one thing that matters most to him,” Silver said, his expression pained—probably because he knew all too well what it felt like to have his daughter in harm’s way. “Now he knows that where we go, she goes.”

“Right,” I said, dipping my head. A rush of fatigue overwhelmed me. Rubbing my eyes, I struggled for clear thought.

“It’s almost midnight,” Silver said, his voice softer. “Nothing is going to happen in the next few hours. You need to get some rest.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I could barely keep my eyes open, they hurt so much. Smoke, tears, and strain still lingered.

“I got you some things.” Silver pulled some more items out of his black bag. “A change of clothes, toiletries, and an untraceable prepaid cell.”

I eyed the items with surprise. “All you need to do is grow out your beard and put on a padded red suit,” I joked. “What’s the cell for, though?”

Silver got up and walked over the bed nearest the door. He ripped the comforter off, sat down, and punched his pillow a few times to position it just right. “One text to your mother to let her know you’re safe should be OK. Mathews is still with her, and he deserves to know as well. Good night.”

For a cold-hearted assassin and an estranged sperm donor, the move was thoughtful. It was clear that he didn’t exactly like my adoptive mother and what she had done to prevent us from meeting, yet he was willing to take a calculated risk to ensure she and Mathews knew I was safe.

Either this man was as ruthless, sly, and snaky as the best operatives in the world at gaining trust and working their way into people’s hearts (like Quinn), or he was as thoughtful, kind, and honorable as a true father should be. Like Jack Rose had been.

Not for the first or last time, I watched Silver with his back to me and thought of the father I missed with every part of my soul. As Silver’s body relaxed and his breathing steadied, I remembered how Jack was the master of passing out on cue. On campouts, vacations, afternoons after a surfing session, wherever—five seconds after a wink or a good-night salute, and h
e’d
be snoring. I never understood it and always longed for the same ability. My thoughts were too wild, my dreams too terrifying, for sleep to come quickly or easily.

But a sense of comfort settled over me as I felt the presence of my father—both my fathers. I closed my eyes and relished the rare moment of peace. I let myself enjoy the thought that I was loved, that I was capable of victory because I had the help of two powerful men, that everything would be OK. My shoulders slumped as my relaxation turned to exhaustion.

Grabbing the toiletries, I headed to the bathroom and made a half-assed effort to brush my teeth. Tired as I was, a good rinse was mandatory. Liam’s blood on my skin wouldn’t make for a good night’s rest. I turned the shower on to near scorching steam and hung up my smoky clothes to air out before I jumped in.

As I tried to empty my mind, two very clear images came to me against my will. The way Liam pushed me up against the shower wall at the cabin and ran his lips all over my steaming body. Then a second version of the same scene, only with Quinn.

Instead of Liam’s tall, muscular build, tan skin, and calloused hands, I saw Quinn’s lean build, light skin, and sure hands. Instead of Liam’s intense but always respectful touch, Quinn’s disregard for personal space consumed me. Instead of the gentle love blossoming between Liam and me, an all-consuming passion raged between Quinn’s body and mine.

I tried not to admit or acknowledge which fantasy I preferred. Which image was safer. Which boy made me feel more like myself.

I leaned against the side of the shower and let my forehead rest on the tile. Honestly, what was the point? Liam had changed, there was no denying it. And Quinn was not to be trusted, even if he was in the unofficial running for best teen lover of all time. The steam had finally melted me. I watched any growing love or buried feelings I had for the two boys go down the drain before I shut it off and got into bed.

Morning would be here soon; rest had to come right away.

Except I could feel the dreams of steam and smoke approaching.