Resisting Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) (21 page)

CHAPTER 28

A slamming door broke my restless sleep.

“Rise and shine,” Silver said. A sliver of pink morning light crept through the curtains onto his face. “It’s time to move out.”

“What time is it?” I rolled over to my back and massaged my eyes. Despite all of Silver’s care and attention to detail, h
e’d
somehow forgotten to bring me a contact case. Tranquilizers he had; contact solution he did not.

Maybe if I was going to embrace this life of long nights filled with smoke, tears, and murder, it was time to get laser-corrective eye surgery.

“6:52 a.m.,” Silver said.

“Where are we going?” I asked, sitting up and willing the moisture to return to my eyes so I could find my way to the bathroom.

“I’ll explain everything in the car.” Silver packed his things in ten seconds flat, as if h
e’d
been drilled on it in basic training. “You have one minute to get dressed. Don’t leave anything behind.” He turned his back, threw his duffel over his shoulder, and let the door slam shut once again.

“OK, Commander Stick-Up-the-Butt,” I said to myself. Though I didn’t like doing what he said, I accepted the challenge.

I was in the front seat of his van in forty-nine seconds.

“Eleven seconds to spare,” I said, gloating. “Where is everyone?”

Silver glared at me with what I could only interpret as a mixture of pride and disgust. “It’s true what Skryker said about you. Your calculation and execution skills are”—he shook his head and looked out the windshield sadly—“impressive.”

His words might have sounded like a compliment, but they didn’t feel like one. “You act like that’s a bad thing,” I said.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “But if there’s one thing I would’ve wanted for you, it would’ve have been that you took after her. Your true mother.”

Every time he spoke, he said something even more hurtful. “In what way? More pathetic? More willing to give up and roll over without a fight?”

I didn’t mean to speak ill of the dead, especially since I really didn’t know her. All I knew was that she abandoned me when things got tough.

“I understand why you’d say that,” Silver said, “and why you feel the need to challenge everything I say. But I will not let you disrespect your mother. She was a beautiful woman with a kind heart and a gentle soul. I let her down.”

Finally, moisture was making its way back to my eyeballs. It made no sense to me that my heart could long for someone I barely remembered. Someone I didn’t even know—consciously, at least—until several months ago. But there was no denying the hole she left behind.

“Just tell me where Quinn and Liam are, please,” I said, changing the subject.

Silver drew a deep breath and pulled out of the parking lot. “Quinn left in the night with Rosie. We’ll meet up with them later. Liam is still inside with Eva.”

“What? We’re leaving them?”

“Liam will be fine.” Silver picked up speed and made sure the doors were locked, probably in case I decided to jump out. “During the night, Skryker had Eva take him to a private facility for testing to make sure he’s OK. He hasn’t woken up yet. That might take a few more hours.”

Relief washed over me.

“What if he needs more help?” I said. “What if he needs—”

“Needs you?” Silver cut in.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” I argued, though that’s definitely what I was thinking.

“Eva won’t leave his side. She knows what to watch for, and if needed, she and Skryker will handle it.”

“Skryker?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “I thought you were firmly on the anti-Skryker task force.”

“Things change,” Silver said, heading south.

“When they suit you,” I countered.

“Well, look who’s the morning person.” Silver’s soft smile took me so off-guard that I rubbed my morning-person face so I wouldn’t reveal the smile forming all over it. I needed that. A break from the tension between us. “Your mom got your text message from last night, just so you know. And she’s OK. She’s doing great, actually.”

“How do you know?”

“I spoke to Sergeant Mathews,” Silver said, pulling his sunglasses over his eyes as we headed east toward the sun. “He’s a good man. Young and naïve sometimes, but loyal. He’s stayed with your mom because it’s what Jack would have wanted. He won’t let anything else happen to her.”

I couldn’t help but notice that he called Jane my mother but didn’t extend a parental term to Jack.

“So Martinez can’t get to her, then?” I asked.

“I don’t think Martinez will be trying.” Silver pursed his lips as if measuring his words. “If killing her is what he really wanted, it would have happened long ago.”

“That’s true,” I admitted.

“But regardless, Mathews and his men will protect her. And like I said, she’s doing great. Nothing like a murder controversy to get Jane Rose to rise to the challenge. The Bill Brandon situation is causing quite the national stir, and as long as I’ve known Jane, I’ve never seen her pass up a hot microphone.”

“She only issued a statement,” I said, coming to her defense, though there wasn’t much room there.

“Nope,” Silver assured me. “There was a press conference. She had her team rally around her. Hairstylist, makeup artist, bullshitting campaign director, all of ’em. She could barely talk much louder than a whisper, but she nailed it.”

A snicker left my mouth before I could stop it. He was right about her campaign director. I never liked that jittery fool with the man-purse on his hip and the Bluetooth earpiece stuck to the side of his head.

Silver handed me his cell phone. The screen showed Jane Rose behind a makeshift press conference table at the hospital. I pressed play to watch the clip.

While she appeared ten times better than when I last saw her, she still looked twenty times worse than normal. Her voice was quiet and raspy, her bandages excessive and disturbing. She sat in a wheelchair, proud and defiant. I watched her lips as she spoke of terror and loss, vindication and justice, faith and honor. While part of me rejoiced at her strength and courage to stand up to those who meant to tear her down, the other part of me shivered with shame. Her audience didn’t know the real Jane. The one who did awful things to get what she wanted. The one who kept the truth locked up when it suited her purposes. The one who loved but had a backward and ineffective way of showing it.

I felt sick when she promised the community safety, as if it were a promise she could possibly keep. I wanted to stop watching when she assured the nation that all those who had committed criminal acts would be caught and punished via the “best justice system in the world.” She was obviously placing the blame for Bill Brandon’s death on one unnamed individual—Martinez—but skirted around the specifics like a professional ballroom dancer.

The clip finally ended before any difficult questions could be posed, and not a moment too soon.
I’d
barely drawn a breath in the few minutes it took me to get through the video. Feeling lightheaded, I handed the phone back to Silver.

“I think we should get some breakfast in you,” he said, tipping my chin up.

I flinched at the awkward physical contact. Nice try, but I wasn’t ready.

“There’s a donut place up here.” He placed his hands back on the wheel at 10 and 2, where they belonged.

“Sure. Nothing like some fried, processed white flour to get your morning started off right.”

“Any better ideas?” he conceded.

“It’s fine,” I said, too tired to think of solutions to something as mundane as breakfast when the life and death of too many people to count were hanging in the balance. “Just don’t tell Jane Rose you got me donuts. Unless you want her calling a press conference to vaguely denounce all the evils of complex carbs.”

Silver released a belly laugh.

“Look at us,” he said. “Joking around like a normal family.”

“Family?” I gasped. Did he really just say that?

But before I could rip him a new one for even daring to go there, he pulled the car into the Donut Hut’s parking lot.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get back to killing people and stopping mass murderers after breakfast. We have a scheduled rendezvous in twenty minutes. Stay in the car—I’ll be right back,” he said, heading into the bright-yellow shop before I could react to the killing joke or ask about the “rendezvous.”

As Silver opened the door, a bell clanked and a memory washed over me. The sound took me back to the days when Jack Rose secretly brought me here. Did Silver know that? Had he brought me here to subliminally equate himself with my dad?

And would I someday stop doubting and mistrusting every single thing he did?

He returned a couple of minutes later. “I hope you like jelly-filled,” he said, handing me the box as he put his steaming coffee in the cup holder.

“Actually, I prefer double chocolate,” I said, disappointed. After a lifetime of stalking, he hadn’t picked up on my chocolate addiction. I was about to berate him for his totally harsh and uncalled-for jelly-filled assessment of me when I opened the box to find half a dozen double-chocolate doughnuts. I smiled.

“Better get moving,” he said, looking past me to reverse out of the lot. “Someone wants to see us.”

I wondered who that “someone” could be, but the more pressing matter was resisting the urge to open my heart to this man who clearly wanted in. Shoving the chocolate in my mouth did nothing to steel my nerves. All I could think of was the soft, sugary, melting sensation washing over me.

CHAPTER 29

The sugar rush kicked in, in all its skittish glory.

I would have done better pulling off a bank robbery than sitting still on this ocean-view balcony in Laguna Hills. The plush lounge chairs did nothing to comfort me. The soft surround sound, playing some kind of Celtic meditative crap, set me on edge. The fresh morning air being stirred by the loud outdoor ceiling fans spun my nerves into circular knots.

Silver told me to try to relax.
Ha!
As if.

Even after I threatened to leave or yell or throw a spectacular fit, all he would tell me is that this was our rendezvous point with the rest of the team. Why this sparsely furnished mansion on the coast?

Before he retreated into the room to talk on his phone he said that I was on a “need-to-know basis.” It was “safer,” “standard procedure,” and “security protocol.” I had another couple of words for him—they started with “f” and ended in “off”
—
but I held my tongue. It did no good to fight, threaten, or insult Silver. He was as cool as a summer breeze. Which made being stuck on this stupid balcony even more infuriating!

I wanted action. A plan. Martinez’s head on a medieval platter with an apple in his mouth.

Relaxing Ruby Rose wasn’t thriving under these calm-before-the-storm circumstances. My predisposed-to-dark-thoughts brain wasn’t thriving under Silver’s control. I no longer believed that I was capable of figuring this out on my own, but if he thought he could disinclude and distance me from the decision making, he was wrong.

Just as I was about to storm inside and demand answers, the keys to the car, or at least access to the burner phone, Silver walked onto the balcony with Mathews at his side.

“Mathews!” I said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help,” he said, closing the space between us and pulling me in for one of his forced hugs. His big hands and gangly arms drew me in to his chest—more like his stomach, he was so tall. “I’ve been worried out of my mind over you, you know that?”

I bit back my aversion to his claustrophobic embrace and hugged him back. “You know me, Resilient Ruby.”

A grumbling laugh filled his chest. “Ha, you’re right. Resilient Ruby. That’s always been true.”

“Come on,” Silver’s voice broke in. “Let’s talk.”

Mathews pulled away and motioned with his head for me to follow suit. “He’s right. We better get to work.”

“Finally,” I said, more than eager to get to it. “I’m done sitting around waiting for your lanky ass to get here.” I fell right back into the routine Mathews and I always had. It was my way of saying I was glad h
e’d
come, and he knew it.

As we passed through the French doors back into the boxy living room, I stopped in my tracks. Skryker and Quinn had made themselves comfortable on the couches. Had that stupid ceiling fan blocked out my hearing, or were they really so stealthy that they could basically appear out of thin air, like they possessed some kind of fictional black magic? Both in all-black tactical clothing, they looked ready for war.
I’d
only ever seen Skryker in his classic suit, white shirt, black tie.

“Good to see you, Miss Rose.” Skryker stood and bowed slightly. Quinn responded like a good dog and copied his master.

“Ruby,” Quinn said as a curt hello, dipping his head to avoid eye contact. What a douche!

“What’s going on?” I asked Silver and Mathews. “Is this joining of forces really necessary?”
I’d
been hoping that Silver’s inclusion of Mathews meant we would have the cooperation of SWAT and the police department. That we no longer needed Skryker and his shady missions or Quinn and his manipulative touch. Denial was my friend when it came to the fact that I had verbally agreed to work for Skryker a few short days ago. Remembering that Skryker could crush me with his leverage didn’t really help me focus.

“A lot is on the line,” Skryker said, seemingly reading my mind. “Many innocent lives at risk, a terrorist at large, and many secrets in need of protection.”

“Secrets? I’m sick to death of all your secrets!” I raised my voice, refusing to join their evil gang mentality. The conflict and hypocrisy in their union was overwhelming and clouding any rational thought.
I’d
never liked being ganged up on.

“
Our
secrets aren’t the only ones that lay in peril,” Skryker said, warning me with his tone, reminding me he was still the adult and I the child.

He was right. Maybe my secrets were just as great as anyone else’s, but I wasn’t going to concede it.

“You were right not to tell me
he
was coming,” I said to Silver, my rage coming to the surface. “You would’ve had to sedate me to accomplish what
you
think is right for me.” As I said the word
sedate
, I realized he had done just that, except with chocolate.

“Relax, Ruby,” Mathews said, placing his fingers on my shoulder. I shrugged him off and took a few steps away.

“I won’t
relax,
” I said, moving toward the door. “Stop telling me to do that! I won’t be manipulated and controlled by any of you anymore. If I end up dead or in prison, so be it, but I’m no longer in the mood to be your puppet.”

Silver took a few steps toward me, his arms outstretched in a taming gesture. “
We
need to keep our heads level. Please sit down and hear us out.”

Maybe it was the caffeine in the chocolate, or maybe it was the pressure building inside me over the past year, but all I wanted was to run. As far away, as fast as I could. I bolted out the door, onto the street, and didn’t look back. I didn’t care where I was going or what the consequences would be when I got there. Disregarding the low probability of getting away on foot from four highly trained men with unlimited power and resources, I let my lungs burn, my head clear, and my muscles strain. The scar tissue in my side sizzled in pain, but I didn’t care.

I wasn’t sure how many blocks
I’d
run in the mazelike residential community when Quinn’s voice called my name. Of course they’d send him. The irresistible one. Well, I was Resisting Ruby. I turned around but kept walking backward.

“Would you wait up?” he asked, stopping about twenty feet away to steady his breathing. “You should have run track. Stanford would taken you in a heartbeat. Athletes always get the special treatment—”

“Go away,” I said, out of breath myself. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“So what are you going to do?” Quinn put his hands behind his head to recover more quickly from the sprint. “Go hunt down Martinez on foot? By yourself?”

“And what are you going to do?” I mimicked back. “Use your unsubtle British charms to lure me back? Tell me I’m beautiful or exceptional? Bait me into fighting you so you can put your hands all over me and press the right buttons?”

When he looked sufficiently hurt, I continued, “Yes, I know your parlor tricks. Perhaps I didn’t see them so clearly before, but when you got around Rosie, I saw them in all their glory.”

“OK, so you see right through me, congratulations,” Quinn said, his breath already back to normal. His breathlessness a minute ago had probably been yet another ploy to seem weak and garner my sympathy. “I’m a world-class fraud. You nailed me.”

“Was anything you told me about yourself true? Are you even British?”

“Look, as much as I love standing here in the middle of suburbia defending myself against your string of insults and accusations, we really don’t have time for this melodrama.” His annoyance flared before he collected himself and tried another tactic. “Ruby, I understand that you’re upset with me, that you doubt me and my feelings toward you, that you don’t trust Skryker, etcetera. But we need you. You and Rosie are the key to stopping Martinez. And after all, isn’t that what this is all about?”

“Of course it is!” I seethed. “But with Mathews and Silver, I’m perfectly capable of—”

“No, you’re not,” Quinn said, walking toward me. “It’s too big a job. That’s why Silver came to Skryker in the first place, because even he admitted that Martinez had outfoxed him at every turn. Silver doesn’t work for the government anymore, Ruby. He works for Skryker.”

“Hang on,” I said. The ground was moving beneath my feet. “When
exactly
did Silver start working for Skryker?”

“Right after your Juliet moment,” he said, slowly extending his hand toward my side where my scar was. “You know, trying to get yourself killed may be heroic, but it’s not very smart.”

“You mean, right after Grissom Island?” I asked, deflecting his hand, his unhelpful Shakespearean references, and his cocky criticism.

“Yes, that’s what brought us here in the first place,” Quinn said. “Commander Silver didn’t get to be one of the world’s most heavily recruited private security agents by being stupid. He knew that h
e’d
need help to bring Martinez down. And that’s why we’re here. To help.”

“Son of a bitch,” I spouted, drawing the lines between the dots in my mind. “So he made a deal with the devil, and now the devil is dragging us all into his pit.”

“That’s a very dramatic and not altogether accurate way of looking at it.” Quinn drew his brows together in a crease. Was he now defending Skryker, when just yesterday we were talking of running away together and breaking Skryker’s hold on us?

“I’m confused,” I said. “What is accurate, then?”

In a moment where he could have been put off or frazzled by my aggression, he surprised me. Tilting his head slightly, he let a smile spread from his lips to his eyes. “No one, including Skryker, Silver, Mathews or me, could drag you anywhere, Ruby Rose. You’re too strong. You’re too good. We need your goodness.”

“That’s not true,” I replied, feeling warm from the compliment. “I’ve been dragged down, ripped apart, and stripped of any goodness. Mostly by the men in that house, who keep hiding things from me.” I pointed up the street.

“That’s not true,” Quinn said. “It’s Martinez who has done all of this, and all of the men in that house are ready to put their lives on the line to take him down for it. We are all on
your
side, Ruby.”

“Just because you all want Martinez taken out doesn’t mean you were ever on
my
side. If you were on my side, you wouldn’t feel the need to manipulate me, keep secrets, and continually set me up,” I argued. “Every single one of you has kept the truth from me. Betrayed me.”

“You can’t possibly be accusing me of betrayal, are you? Because of Rosie?”

“Don’t play that game, Quinn,” I said. “I saw the way you manipulated her.”

“Would you rather I treated her badly? Beat her to keep her our prisoner? Instilled fear in her, perhaps? Maybe threatened to kill her grandmother if she ran? That would have been better, right?”

“Of course not,” I said, feeling as stupid as he was trying to make me seem.

“So my deep and unforgivable betrayal consists of using my formidable personality to keep an innocent young girl calm during the most dangerous and traumatic experience of her life?”

“Quinn! I get it, OK? I get it.”

“She’s a sweet girl who doesn’t deserve to be held captive in the back room of that house right now,” he went on. “So go ahead and judge me guilty, because I actually think the daughter of our sociopathic adversary is a lovely girl.”

The chocolate and sugar were wearing off, leaving me with a crashing sensation. “She’s really being held prisoner in that house?”

“She started freaking out last night, so I had to slip some sedatives into her water. She’s resting now, but she’s fully aware that she’s not free to leave.”

“That’s awful,” I said, hating that this appalling scenario was all my idea.

“The good news is that Martinez actually cares about someone,” Quinn said, sweeping some hair out of my eyes, either from affection or for manipulation—who knew? All I knew was that being around him was dangerous and blood-pumpingly aggravating, because there was no denying how viscerally attracted I was to him. “And the better news is that he has to play by our rules now to ensure she lives.”

“So you’ve communicated with Martinez?” I asked.

“Silver has,” Quinn said flatly. “That’s why we’re here. To discuss strategy now that we have the upper hand.”

“Right,” I said, swallowing my pride. I began walking back to the fiery pits of Skryker’s hell.

“Don’t worry.” Quinn took my hand and kissed it as we walked. “I’ll tell them that you talked
me
into returning.”

“Your chivalry is unnecessary,” I said, taking my hand back.

“The thing you have yet to understand,” he said, taking it once more, “is that this is really me. I may be professionally good at getting people to like and trust me, but that doesn’t mean I’m a real dick underneath.”

I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t pull away as we walked, but right before we passed through the vine-draped entryway, he stopped me and whispered in my ear. “When you see me falling for you, please believe that the fall might kill me.”

When his lips left my ear and his eyes found mine again, I couldn’t help but feel something genuine. Maybe I was the biggest sucker of all time, but as our gazes lingered on each other, I began believing him all over again.

And maybe it was going to be me who’d fal
l . . .
straight to my death.