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The blond man’s hand went to his gun.
“I wouldn’t,” Max said calmly a few feet away, his jacket open to reveal his hand resting on his own weapon.
The man who’d been hurting Ruby looked from one to the other of them. “Are you threatening me? I’m a fucking officer of the law!”
Roman felt the man’s fury in his bones because it was familiar, but the reason for it was a mystery to him. Causing pain was one of Roman’s greatest pleasures, but he had never — would never — hurt a woman.
“An officer of the law harming an unarmed woman in a back alley,” Roman said. “A woman it seems you know.”
“She’s my fucking ex-wife, asshole.” The man was straightening, trying to recover his dignity — something he’d clearly never had in the first place — while assessing the threat posed by Roman and Max.
“You think that gives you the right to hurt her?” Roman asked. His curiosity was genuine. He’d never loved a woman enough to call her his wife, but the vow was sacrosanct.
A vow to love and honor.
To protect.
“Listen,” Ruby said, drawing in a deep breath as she looked at Roman. “Thank you. I appreciate… this. But you should go.”
Her meaning was clear: she was afraid for him.
Forhim. Roman Kalashnik.
Afraid that this peon of a man, this fuckingcoward, would somehow hurt him.
Roman closed the distance between him and the other man, stopping when he was only a few inches away. The other man’s hand was still on his gun in its holster, but that didn’t worry Roman.
He didn’t need a gun to hurt this man. To kill him.
The other man was tall, but still a couple inches shorter than Roman. Roman stared down at him. “If you ever touch her again, no badge, no title, no uniform will protect you.”
He gave the man his back, the clearest sign of disrespect he could offer, a sign that he wasn’t afraid, that this man was nothing to him.
Max, still standing a few feet away, would cover him. Like always.
Roman walked toward Ruby and gestured toward the door leading to the coffee shop. He’d known she was working — he was embarrassed to admit even to himself that he knew her schedule — when he’d stopped at Roasted after the meeting with the Orlovs.
When she hadn’t been at the counter, he’d asked about her and been told by her coworker that she was “out back.” Something in the other man’s manner had set off alarm bells in Roman’s body, as if the barista were trying to tell Roman something.
Ruby opened the door with a glance back at the blond man in the alley. “I’ll see you at the show.”
Roman had to close his mouth against the protest on his lips. He didn’t want Ruby to ever see this man again. He was worse than dangerous — he was mean. There was a difference, and Roman had an inexplicable urge to make sure no one was ever mean to this woman again.
He followed her into a dark supply room at the back of the coffee shop, boxes stacked all around the dusty interior, and waited for the metal door to clang shut behind them.
He’d never been this close to her, without the coffee shop counter between them. The urge to pull her into his arms was strong but inappropriate, so he settled for looking down at her face instead, his gaze trailing hungrily over her features now that he could look at her without it seeming strange.
“Are you all right?” Up close, he saw that she was younger than she’d looked under the harsh lights of the coffee shop. He put her at around twenty-five to his thirty-eight, her skin smooth and clear, a slight smattering of freckles across her nose that made him want to stand between her and the world forever.
She nodded. “I’m sorry. He… gets that way sometimes.”
“He’s hurt you before.” It wasn’t a question because Roman already knew the answer, but they had to execute this song and dance for the subject to really be on the table.
She hesitated, then nodded. “It’s why we’re divorced. The main reason anyway. We… have a five-year-old daughter. There’s a show at her school tonight. There was an argument about whether we would ride together.” She shook her head and laughed a little. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he said, fighting to keep his anger in check, to keep himself from pushing through the metal door back into the alley and beating the man senseless, cop or not. “He should be the one apologizing, but I’m guessing that doesn’t happen often.”
“Not since the divorce.” Her eyes were green in the hazy light of the supply room, the streaks of burgundy in her glossy auburn hair blending together in the ponytail that bobbed when she talked. “I’m trying to keep things civil. For Olivia. But… well, it takes two, you know?”
