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She looked incredulous, and a puff of mocking laughter escaped her mouth. “He doesn’t have a choice.”
“You share physical custody?”
“On paper but— ”
“You’ve been fraternizing with a known criminal, Ruby.” He could barely utter the words around the contempt he had for himself. Ruby had gotten under his skin like no other woman, but he would have given anything to turn back the clock, to go back to the day when he’d shown up outside the coffee shop and convinced her to have dinner with him.
He’d ruined her life.
“What exactly are you saying?” she asked.
“Adam worked with my father to make you disappear, which means they both have an end game.” Roman had been able to put it together with the facts and the few clues his father had dropped about Adam Hale when he’d dangled Ruby’s release in front of Roman like bait.
Roman didn’t know the details but he knew enough. His father’s goal: decimate Roman, leave him broke and alone, humiliated, and possibly dead. He suspected Adam’s goal was to take Olivia from Ruby, not necessarily because he wanted full custody but because he wanted to punish her.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruby said.
“My father used you to stop my takeover of the bratva,” Roman said. “Except how did he know about you? I was never tailed to your house — I made sure of that, and so did Max — and we’d only been… seeing each other a few days.”
The words didn’t do justice to what had been happening between him and Ruby before the shit hit the fan. He’d fallen hard, had been obsessed with her — her cozy apartment, her life, small in her eyes but big in all the important ways.
And then there had been the fucking.
He pushed the images of her naked body from his mind. Now was not the time.
She let out a gasp of horror as the pieces fell into place. “You think Adam approached your father, told him about us.”
He nodded. “I don’t have the full picture, but yes.”
The lack of information had nagged at him, kept him up at night in the weeks they’d been searching for Ruby. It hadn’t made sense for Adam to recognize Roman from his work on the police force — Adam was a beat cop, not a detective or organized crime specialist — and Roman’s father hadn’t known about Ruby then, which meant he couldn’t have approached Adam.
Ruby got even paler. “I think I do.” She drew in a labored breath, like she had to remind herself to breathe. “Adam found out who you were. I don’t know how — probably by asking around at work — but he found out and put together a file on you. He brought it to me at the coffee shop before…”
The final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “That’s why you weren’t returning my calls and texts.”
Roman had been thrown by her sudden silence after the weekend they’d spent together, but now it all made sense.
She’d found out about him, about his work, from Adam. Then she’d been kidnapped by Igor’s men before she’d had a chance to talk to Roman about his lies.
Her eyes flashed green. “You lied to me.”
“Yes.” He wouldn’t defend himself by pointing out that it had been a lie of omission.
A lie was a lie.
“Why?” she asked.
“At first, it was because I didn’t want to involve you. Then…”
“Then?” She lifted her eyebrows like she knew the answer and was challenging him to say it.
“Then you told me about your mother.”
“You knew I wouldn’t want to see you again if I knew,” she said.
He nodded.
The room was quiet around them, the tension between them heavy and oppressive in the sleek, sterile loft.
