Resisting Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) (17 page)

“Do you know the statistical probability of first loves staying together?” he asked, busying himself with bowls and spoons and glasses of ice water.

“No, of course not,” I answered, not really wanting the answer.

“Two percent.”

“That cannot be true,” I argued, though it might have seemed relatively reasonable. “Who told you that?”

“Wikipedia, which is, like,
always
right,” Quinn joked with a Valley Girl accent. Dang, he was good at getting me to smile under the worst of circumstances. “But seriously, it’s really lo
w . . .
and do you know why?” He handed me a bowl of peaches, a napkin, a glass of water, and a spoon.

I shook my head.

“Because we’re young, and we change. And we don’t always change in the same ways at the same times.” Quinn sat next to me and dumped some salted nuts into a bowl between us. “And it’s not always a bad thing.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to voice my agreement. Instead I took a few bites of peaches and a few nibbles of nuts and stared out the window at the bright-blue ocean in the distance. How could my shoreline have moved so far away that I couldn’t even see it anymore?

I didn’t jump at all this time when Quinn put his hand on my thigh. In fact, I sort of felt it coming. Or hoped it was coming. As much as I missed Liam and the way h
e’d
always been there for me (until recently), I needed someone. And Quinn seemed to be that
someone
now.

I needed his experience, his abilities, his strengt
h . . .
and more.

Like h
e’d
said, people change. I wasn’t the same girl I was a year ago—the girl who’d always resisted who she really was. Maybe it was time to embrace the way Quinn saw me: tough, capable, ready. Maybe it was time to stop resisting Quinn, too.

Turning, I kissed him full on the mouth. He didn’t exactly refuse me, but he didn’t take the reins either. Sliding off my stool, I pressed myself between his legs and held his face in my hands. I took his bottom lip between mine as if I knew what I was doing because of all my practice with Liam.

No, don’t think of Liam.

Shifting my head to the other side, I let my tongue brush against his. Sparks of something new and intense flashed through me, a surge of power and desire I never let myself feel with Liam.

Stop comparing Quinn to Liam!

My hands moved from his jawline up through his perfectly groomed hair as my lips pushed harder against his. Remembering he was wearing a button-down shirt, I began unbuttoning it with precise fingers. In one swift motion, he stood up and lifted my legs around his waist as he carried me toward the couch, sweeping all the stupid pillows to the ground to make space. As soon as he laid me down, I wrestled him onto his back to resume control. If there was one thing I wanted to hold on to, it was the thin belief that I still had a shred of control over any aspect of my life. Despite the fact that I was embracing this existence of fighting and killing, I could manage the small things. Like whom I shared myself with, and how.

I sat up and took my shirt off to feel his warm chest against mine.

“Ruby,” Quinn said between heaving breaths, removing the gun from the back of my jeans, “what are you doing?”

“Don’t ask questions,” I breathed into his ear, taking the gun away from him and putting it on the coffee table without looking. Honestly, I was becoming more and more turned on by the slight opposition he was showing.

Kissing his neck and around his ear, I knew what I was doing to him—something that I could never afford to do with Liam. But maybe just like Quinn had tested me in the cabin by provoking me into a fight, I was testing Quinn by provoking him into a sexual encounter. Maybe I wanted to know how he really felt about me.

I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer just yet. I only knew that the moment felt too good to stop. My hands found his clenched at my waist, and I forced them above his head. Pinning them down with only one hand, my other hand was free to get to work on that shiny little Diesel belt buckle
I’d
been eyeing all morning.

His head arched back, and a small moan escaped his lips. I quieted him by pressing my lips back onto his. Would Sofia have done this to him? Would Eva have done this to Liam? Before this moment, I wouldn’t have done it to either Quinn or Liam. But people chang
e . . .

My lips kept moving like they had an agenda all their own. Like his skin was sweet as chocolate. Down his neck, to his chest, past his gun holster, along his abs, almost to the point of no return—

Suddenly, I wasn’t on top anymore. I was on my back, on the floor, with Quinn on top—and I didn’t like it. I palm-thrusted him in the elbow to break his tiger stance over me, but he grabbed my wrist and prevented me from rolling away. Using my knee, I tried to get leverage to kick him away, but he smothered me. I played dead for a second until he loosened his grip, then I slammed his back against the coffee table. The tray of pebbles and candles went spraying across the rug and skittering across the tile, making a crashing sound. He let go of me, and I let go of him.

“Ruby, would you stop?” Quinn said, a tone of suppressed pleasure in his voice as he sat up on the rug. “As much as I am thoroughly enjoying myself, this isn’t going to be your first time.”

“My
first
time?” I played dumb, wildly out of breath. “How would you know that?”

He gave me a condescending smile. “I won’t lie; your moves aren’t very virgin-esque, but you weren’t going to go all the way. Not like this.”

“You’re avoiding the question
again
!” I said, pretending to be upset but thrilled that he passed the test. Today wasn’t the day.

“A few harmless wiretaps between you and BFF Alana might have revealed as much.” Quinn shrugged. “Though ‘best friends forever’ may not apply after you almost got her killed a second time.”

I slammed my head back on the couch. “Of course, how could I have forgotten that you’ve been stalking me for months? How charming.”

“
Stalking
is such an ugly word.”

“So is
murder
, and you don’t seem to have a problem with that,” I argued. Off point, but so what. The blood was still pulsing through me, making it hard to think straight.

He sat up to run a hand through my disheveled almost-sex hair, and I let him. “I might sort of care about you a little more than
this.
” He gestured to the sloppy couch scene.

I nodded. I might’ve sort of cared about him more than this, too.

“But I’m glad we got that out of our system,” he continued. “It was far better than I imagined it would be. Minus the bruising I’ll get on my back.”

“Sorry,” I said, biting my lip and remembering how soft and full his lips were.

As if reading my mind, he leaned in and ever so gently pressed his still warm lips against mine. Between delicate kisses, he said, “I’m not sorry.”

He lifted me once again onto the couch, but this time without aggression and with overflowing passion. We lay side by side, legs intertwined, on equal ground. His touch turned intimately sweet, caressing, and soothing. Yes, we were most likely on a collision course with death or prosecution, but in this moment, we could live. In each other’s bruised and beaten souls, scarred and nearly naked skin, we understood one another in a way few ever could. The loss that w
e’d
endured, the terrible things w
e’d
accomplished, all added up to an unspeakable pain. Yet in this scrap of time, none of those things mattered.

His fingers trailed along my chin and jaw as he savored me. My fingers ran along his chest and back as I soaked him in. He stopped kissing me and let his face rest on his arm inches from mine.

“Whatever happens, whatever we decide, we do it together, OK?” he asked, a little-boy look of openness in his eyes. He was beautiful, rich, elegant, and deadly, and he wanted reassurance from
me.

I thought of Liam again and my breath caught, wondering if I could promise loyalty to this boy I barely knew but felt like
I’d
known forever. Considering the ramifications of what a simple nod of the head would mean. Taking into account that none of it might matter in a few hours anyway. Methodically overanalyzing the impact.

The alarm went off, and I sprang to my feet looking for my shirt—and my gun.

CHAPTER 23

Four of us sat on the couches. Me and Quinn on one. Liam and Silver on the other. Positioned across from each other as if we were on opposing teams.

Eva, with her hipster black fingernails, wild brown pixie-posh haircut shaved short on the sides with long spiked bangs, and adorable polka-dot Dolce & Gabbana flats, leaned against the bar behind Liam with her arms crossed. While I tried not to look in her direction too much, I couldn’t help but be surprised. And a little impressed. I was totally prepared to hate her, and somehow I didn’t. She seemed cool—with a soft gleam in her eyes—and I wondered what her story was. She even made a point of saying hello and shaking my hand when she came in.

Meanwhile, Liam still hadn’t looked me in the eyes. Yes, h
e’d
scanned my body for evidence: shirt askew, disheveled hair, puffy lips. Quinn’s shirt collar, also askew, didn’t help anything.

I put my head in my hands. It was supposed to be me and Liam trying to cover our making-out tracks, not me and Quinn. How did everything get so turned around in such a short amount of time?

“Let’s get down to business,” Silver said, interrupting the pressurized silence. His discomfort gauge, measured by deep breaths and an overly furrowed brow, was just as high as everyone else’s. “I know that there are many things that eventually need to be discussed on both the personal and professional levels, but for now, we need to focus on the most important task. Survival.”

“Survival?” Quinn asked, verbalizing my thoughts. That seemed like an extreme word for Silver to use.

Silver shot Quinn a potent glare filled with condescension and rip-your-head-off fatherly rage. “Young man, I’m going to do my very best to ignore the fact you’ve crossed every boundary I can think of with my daughter—”

“Wait,” I said, sitting up. “Not only do you not get to call me that, but you don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Enough, Ruby,” he cut me off with a booming voice. His gray eyes flashed with impatience. “I am your father, whether you like it or not. And I am the leader here, whether
either
of you like it or not. Understood?”

Neither of us said anything, but our silence was our placid consent. For now.

“The way I see it, there are several threats to be contained,” Silver said, turning to Eva behind him. “Eva here is our cracker. She’s got some news on Martinez.”

Cracker?
Since it didn’t seem like Silver intended a racial slur, he probably meant a computer cracker. Maybe as in the person Quinn was referring to when he said they’d take care of my mom’s financial situation.

Eva grabbed a bag off the counter and rounded the couch. “He’s planning something big. Targeting Sergeant Mathews, SWAT, and his former department. Apparently, he’s not content with destroying your family anymore, Ruby. He wants to bring down everyone and anyone who ever crossed him. He posted this from an encrypted access point.” Eva grabbed a small tablet out of her bag, swiped the screen with a few deft movements, and handed it to me. On the screen was a document entitled “Manifesto.”

I took the device and held it in front of me so Quinn and I could read it at the same time. Words like
corruption
,
retribution
, and
destruction
popped out at me. Martinez was a full-blown madman and terrorist. It wasn’t enough for him to disappear into the darkness of his lucrative international criminal endeavors with all my dad’s money. And apparently he wasn’t satisfied that h
e’d
pulled off the ultimate destruction of my family. He wanted to “expose the system” and “bring justice to the hypocrites.”

I closed my eyes and hung my head while a furious energy gathered momentum inside me. Martinez had to be stopped, and I wanted to be the one to do it. Prison wasn’t good enough for him. Death row wasn’t an option either. With endless appeals and access to outside sources, Martinez was never going to stop being a threat to innocent lives until he was dead and gone.

“How do I find him?” I asked no one in particular. I would take anyone’s advice. Even the two cents of the hot hacker hipster girl who got to be with
my
Liam.

“We’ll do this as a team,” Silver said, sitting forward as if he could make our square seating arrangement into a circle of friendship. “He’s got dozens of criminals at his disposal, and for now there’s only five of us.”

I could tell by the way Silver clenched his jaw that he hated attaching himself to this group of underage assassins. Not to mention the overflow of adolescent relationship drama. I assumed it would be possible to get more backup through Black Tide or Silver’s resources, but I had to agree that for now, a smaller team was better—especially if I wanted to keep Martinez to myself.

“Right, so as a
team
,” Quinn said—sounding half-amused, half-intrigued—“how do you propose we go about this?”

“Right now, Skryker has a group scrubbing the web for any content possibly related to Martinez.” Silver took the tablet back from me and indicated for Eva to take it. “This manifesto was live for only two minutes before it was pulled. Eva managed to bypass the encryptions and trace the originating location back to an abandoned warehouse in east L.A.”

“We start there,” Liam said, shifting in his seat. “East L.A.”

“But Liam,” I said, wanting to reach out to him in so many ways, “it’s a trap. There’s no way that Martinez is stupid enough to let his idiotic manifesto lead us to him unawares.”

“Ruby’s right,” Quinn said. “Posting something like this seems calculated. He knows Ruby wants him dead. He knows she now has help and that we’ll eventually track him down. So he’s thinking ahead and dealing with us first. He’s being proactive.”

“You may be right,” Silver said, nodding. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t hurt a lot of people in an attempt to get to us.”

“So we follow the only lead we have, whether it’s a trap or not.” Liam stood and left the room, but not in the direction of an exit. He was heading upstairs. Where did he think he was going?

Ignoring the reactions of everyone in the room, I followed. I couldn’t help myself.

Each stair got steeper as I trailed Liam to the second floor. He began talking, and I wondered if he was speaking to me—then I realized he was calling home. His tone completely changed as he said, “Hey, Tug, can I talk to Mom?”

Listening from the hallway, I heard him spend several minutes pleading with Tug to give his mom the phone. When she finally came on, his voice broke. He was preparing her for the worst. Trying to explain in vague terms that he had to take care of “something.” That he was going to text her the number of the account she now jointly owned, an account full of more money than she could earn in a hundred years at the bar.

I listened until he finally cut her short and said he loved her. Until he said good-bye.

My heart broke as I imagined Tug, Christian, and their mother, Claudia, sitting in their house, crying over Liam. Worrying they’d never see him again. I wanted to barge in and demand that he go home. To order him to stop fighting for something that made no sense to his family. But, of course, the whole
ordering him around
was part of the reason he dumped me.

“I know you’re there, Ruby,” he said, his tone turning cold again.

I peeked around the corner.

“What do you want?” he asked, sitting on the bed, his blue eyes an iceberg
I’d
never be able to navigate around.

“I want you to go home to them,” I said, choosing my words carefully as I stepped into the master bedroom. “They can’t lose you.”

“Ruby, did you come up here to boss me around again? To assert your control over me?”

“Why do you insist on seeing things like that?” I asked, now standing in front of him. “I care about you. Why can’t you
see
that?”

He laughed, a low and sinister growl. “You
care
about me?”

My jaw dropped. “Of course I do. You know that!”

“Ruby, I told you I loved you. And within minutes, you were following another guy out the door. Doing things with him that you never did with me. Is that how you define ‘caring’ for me?”

I braced myself. Red Hot Ruby was about to explode. “First of all, I haven’t done anything with him that I didn’t do with you—not that that’s any of your business. And how truthful were you being about loving me, when you hooked up with someone else right away?”

Liam went silent, giving nothing away. Not admitting guilt, yet not denying it. Standing, he turned his back on me and walked toward the veranda, stopping right in front of the glass doors.

Was he staring out at the ocean for strength, for courage, for inspiration on how to truly drown me with his words?

“Remember that night of the party, when we were out there?” He gestured to the couch by the railing. “I grabbed you, and you broke my grip.”

“I remember.” I had been trying desperately to keep him at a distance—for his own sake. I should have tried harder.

“I let you do that. I let you hurt me. Break my skin, break my heart. Time after time, I let you shove, push, karate chop me away. In this very room, in this very bed!” He pointed in exasperation. “For the last several months, we were as close as two people could be. Well, almost as close. You never let me in. Basically telling me time after time that I had nothing to offer you. But I won’t let you do that to me anymore.”

“Liam, why won’t you even try to understand that maybe I did that because I thought you were better off without me, because I never wanted you to get hurt? And if you would’ve only listened back then, you wouldn’t be in this awful place you are now.”

“I happen to like the place I am now.” Liam turned so I could see the fierceness in his eyes. “I’m finally exactly who I want to be, with things I want to have. I’m finally going to be able to take care of things the way I should have.”

“I know you’re talking about your father,” I started, trying to keep my voice calm. “But getting yourself involved in all this is not the way to get justice against him.”

“It’s exactly how to do it, and the beauty is that now I’m not subject to your rules or anyone else’s.”

This wasn’t Liam. I didn’t recognize this boy. The charming and devilish grin he used on teachers and girls in the halls at school was only a memory. This hardened man before me was a cold and calculating killer, bent on revenge and control. And like most things I couldn’t have, I wanted the old Liam back. Desperately.

If there was even a shred of hope that the boy I fell for was still in there, I was going to fight to get him back. For Tug. For me. For his soul.

Just as he was about to leave the room, I stopped him with my hand on his wrist. “What if I told you that I loved you?”

My breath caught.
I’d
used the L-word. Sort of.

He looked at my hand, then into my eyes, before he broke my grip as easily as if it were a small child’s. “I would tell you it’s too late.”

It was Quinn who eventually came up to get me. Of course it was Quinn—the one person who made the situation worse
and
better at the same time. Worse because it separated Liam and me even further, beyond the point of repair; and better because he was the one person who could make me smile under this hellish set of circumstances.

“You look awful,” Quinn said, sitting next to me. “You’re quite the ugly crier.”

I slugged him while making an embarrassing laugh-snort sound. I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands and tried to breathe the heartache away. But it wasn’t just Liam I was mourning. It was my dad in the ground, my mother in the hospital, Bill Brandon at the coroner, Skryker behind the curtain, Martinez around every turn, Alana out of my life, Chase in recovery, and Mathews in danger.

It was my twisted past, my tortured present, my bleak future.

“I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” Quinn said, more sincerely this time, putting an arm around my shoulders. “But I know the perfect remedy.” He walked his fingers up my leg, starting at my knee. I watched them inch up my thigh until I finally slapped them away.

“Your remedy is to get fresh?” I asked.

“It’s to distract you. I’m like a magician, you see.” Quinn bit his lip in a restrained, self-satisfied smile as he stood and held up the gun that was supposed to be in back of my jeans.

“What the
wh
a
. . . 
?” I asked, feeling behind me to confirm it was missing. “How’d you do that?”

“Distraction. You should learn it sometime.” Quinn pulled out the clip and checked my rounds. “It works. For heartache, for pain, for revenge.”

He clicked the clip back in and handed it to me. “The best distraction of all will be the satisfaction you’ll have when you know that Martinez will never maim, torture, kill, or hurt again.”

He was right. Already feeling my sadness for Liam turn to boiling hatred for Martinez, I squared my shoulders and pulled myself together. If I could just focus on ridding the world of Martinez, I could be strong.

Never mind that my hope for a normal life with Liam—the boy of my high school dreams—was over.