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Worried, her dad had sent her to therapy, where she’d been diagnosed with complex PTSD, exacerbated by the fact that she’d been at a formative age when her mother had been murdered, an age when she’d been giving the world a test-drive for safety.
She’d been given a host of tools and practices to soothe herself, but she’d still been ripe for the picking eight years later when Adam swaggered into her life, older and in uniform, the knight in shining armor she’d been waiting for.
Except the knight had turned out to be a bandit, one that had stolen what little sense of safety she’d been able to regain.
“I think something’s wrong,” a small voice said from the door of the bathroom.
Ruby looked down at Olivia, standing in her purple pants, the orange shirt twisted on her tiny torso to reveal her soft little belly.
Ruby laughed. “I think you’re right.”
“She definitely gets that from you,” Brooke said, turning back to the mirror.
After that, it was a flurry of last-minute wardrobe and hair adjustments. Then they were out the door, hurrying down the stairs and out into the chaos of the city.
Adam was undoubtedly already at the school, checking the time and counting all the ways he would punish Ruby for what had happened in the alley behind the coffee shop.
She forced herself to breathe. Her dad would be there. And Brooke. Most importantly, Olivia would be there, and Adam had never hurt Ruby in front of their daughter.
Yet. He hasn’t hurt her yet.
She muted her sister’s voice in her head. She was managing. She was taking care of herself and her daughter, keeping them safe. It was the most important job in her life and the only one she truly cared about.
She could keep doing it. Shewouldkeep doing it.
It wasn’t like she could count on Roman to be there every time something went wrong.
8
ROMAN
Roman paced the living room of his loft in Brooklyn. Ruby was out there somewhere, playing nice with the bastard who hurt her, doing it for her daughter.
It made him want to punch something.
To hurt someone.
He’d spent the drive home replaying the hour they’d spent together, breathing in the scent of jasmine that lingered in the car, thinking about the look on her face when she’d turned him down for coffee.
I don’t think that’s a good idea.
She’d wanted to say yes, he was almost sure of it. He’d seen it in her eyes, in the sadness that had cast a shadow over her disarming smile.
He sighed. The streets were quiet on the other side of the loft’s industrial-style windows. It was one of the things he liked about this part of Brooklyn. It was noisier on the weekends — not that he could hear much of it through the soundproofing he’d had installed when he’d renovated the loft — but during the week, it was as quiet as a suburb on a Monday night.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Max.
Fifteen minutes. Want me to stay down here during the meeting? Keep an eye on things?
Roman considered it, then texted back.No. The men need to see you here. How’s that background going?
He felt guilty for ordering background on Ruby. He didn’t know her well — or at all really — but he knew enough to know she wouldn’t appreciate him prying into her life.
But he had to know more about her, both because he couldn’t stop thinking about her and because he wanted to help her.
Sam’s working on it, Max texted back.
Information was power, and Samuel Plaskin was the hacker Roman had been using to set up his takeover of the bratva. It wasn’t lost on Roman that it probably wasn’t a good sign that he was now using the powerful resource that was Sam to find out more about the woman who’d set up camp in his brain.
