Rook and Ronin Box Set: The Complete Alpha Billionaire Series (Books 1-5)

by Huss, JA

  We sparred in four other languages before I settled on English at age six.

  And by seven they had a diagnosis. Asperger’s syndrome with some savant tendencies. Mostly numbers and math, but spatial things as well because of my photographic memory.

  I rebelled against that label—defective, the books said. Defective in communication and emotion. I read everything I could find on it in my dad’s psychiatry books in his office, but the information was sadly inadequate. So I started secretly taking the bus to the public library when I was eight to do research.

  And finally, after months of reading, I decided I did not have this syndrome and I did everything I could to prove it to myself, and others, that I was normal.

  I stopped doing well on my tests. It was too late, of course. My IQ was firmly established to be in the neighborhood of 190 by the time I started speaking English. But my parents, even though they knew I was a full-fledged freak, treated me like just another kid.

  They used that phrase often whenever I started getting weird. ‘Ford,’ my mom would say in that mom voice when I was about to blow a blood vessel over the rule against reading under my covers past midnight. Or when I got a little older, researching any of the hundreds of obsessions I had as a teen on the internet. I only require a few hours of sleep a night, why should I have to go to bed at midnight? It never made sense. But she’d never give in. ‘Ford,’ she’d say. ‘You are just another kid. And kids have rules. So you will follow the kid rules, or else.’

  ‘Or else what?’ I’d ask with my chin tipped up in defiance.

  ‘Or else I’ll kiss you. And not only that, I’ll kiss you in public.’

  I’d recoil every time at the horror. Because even though I love my parents, and they love me and I know they love me, they were not allowed to touch me. Not when I was a toddler, not now that I am a man. And I’m sure this is what ticked me off as a baby. The fact that they were constantly touching me. I suspect it’s the reason I refused to talk to them.

  Ronin might have a penchant for gambling, but I have a penchant for holding grudges. Even as an infant, apparently.

  I laugh at this. I know I’m odd. I do, I admit it. I understand this, I own it. What can I say. I was just born this way. But Rook never seemed to mind. She barely noticed—in fact, she said she didn’t believe that I was incapable of emotion. And I guess she was right. I love her. I had feelings for Mardee. I have strong attachments to Ronin and Spencer. Strong enough to stop me from pursuing the only woman I’ve ever wanted so bad I had to run away from her to control myself.

  So I guess I was right after all. I’m not defective. I want to be touched. I’ve denied myself this most basic of human comforts my whole life and I’m ready to move on.

  But the only woman I want to move on with is the only one I can’t have.

  Chapter Three

  The transmission whines as I climb up out of the canyon and hit the curve that takes me into Georgetown. The signs on the highway are flashing the winter storm warning and I only hope the Eisenhower Tunnel is open, or else all this driving will be fruitless. If they close the tunnel, and they do this often in the winter when there are accidents, then there’s nothing to do but go back. It’s pointless to spend the night up here in the mountains. Pointless, unless I can make a clean escape. Otherwise I might as well just go home and suck it up until my flight tomorrow.

  The snow builds as I climb. I pass through Georgetown and then climb again until the tunnel warnings become common. There wasn’t too much traffic for the entire drive, but there is now. And that can only mean one thing. The tunnel is either closed or they are stopping everyone going forward to see what their destination is.

  We slow to a crawl and all of a sudden I notice that the heater is no longer blowing hot air. I flip the switch to the off position and stew in my tuxedo.

  “What the hell are you doing, Ford?”

  This is not the internal monologue. This is me talking to myself.

  Of course, I don’t answer. I know what I’m doing. I’m running the fuck away, just like Rook accused me of back in the garage.

  My phone buzzes and it surprises me. I thought I turned it off.

  I check the screen. Rook.

  Ignoring it, I take my attention back to the traffic as the pace picks up. That’s good news from my point of view. It means the tunnel isn’t closed. At least, not for everyone. As I get closer to the entrance more and more trucks are on the side of the road. Some of them putting on chains, some of them just sitting there.

  I wait my turn in the dark until finally the car in front of me is waved through the tunnel and I pull up to the state trooper and roll down my window. He eyes my suit, then smiles. “Where ya heading tonight?”

  “Party in Frisco,” I lie. Frisco is in the valley just on the other side of the tunnel. It’s a safe destination. Close.

  “Cutting it pretty close,” he says, squinting at me either in suspicion, or maybe just trying to keep the blowing snow out of his eyes.

  I look down at the clock on the dash. Eleven thirty-two. “Yeah,” I huff. “Fucking hate parties. Girlfriends,” I say, sighing at him.

  “Yeah,” he says back in a conspiratorial tone. “Totally. I got out of it this year.” He points to the sky. “Storm duty. OK, well, go on ahead, but be careful, we just got word that the other side of the Divide is getting it pretty bad. And”—he stops to sniff—“you should check your fluids before you head back down the mountain. Smells like antifreeze.” He stoops down to check under the car, but straightens just as fast and shakes his head. “Can’t see shit. Too dark, too much snow.”

  “Yeah, I just lost heat, so you’re probably right. I’ll check it tomorrow before I head home.”

  He pops off a little two-finger salute and waves the car behind me forward as I move into the tunnel. The whole world is wiped away in here. I always loved this part of the trip when I was a kid. We have a house in Vail and before my dad died a couple years back, it was a pretty regular thing to spend a few weeks up there at Christmas and a couple months over the summer. When I was a teen it was every single weekend year round. But…

  My thought trails off. I’m not in the mood to think about that tonight.

  The tunnel ends abruptly and from here it’s all downhill for a good while as I head into Silverthorne and then Frisco. I don’t stop. I have no intention of stopping. Heat or not, I’m all in now. I just need to get the fuck out of this state. I’ll check the fluid levels the next time I need gas, but right now I still have half a tank. So I’m good. Heat is nice, especially when it’s the dead of winter and I’m in the mountains, but I’m not gonna die from exposure inside the truck. I’ve got an emergency kit in the back anyway. I’ll live for another half a tank.

  Besides, the Bronco loves me right now. We’re going downhill. And I feel better already. Crossing the Great Divide is sorta cleansing. Like Rook is on the other side of something. She’s east now. And I am west. She’s far away. Even though it’s barely an hour’s drive in good weather from the tunnel to Denver, it feels… significant.

  My pensive mood lasts for like three minutes, because that’s how long I get to enjoy the flat stretch of highway before I am climbing again.

  The transmission whines, it’s a steep grade, but I downshift, give it some gas, and then pick up enough speed near the next summit to shift back into fourth. The trooper wasn’t lying, this side of the Divide is much worse off as far as the snow goes. It’s thick and wet, sticking to the windshield even though I have the wipers on full.

  Copper Mountain comes into view and I briefly entertain the thought of stopping. But I can’t make myself do it. If I can get to Vail, well, then at least I can be on some familiar territory. Spending a cold night in a Copper parking lot does not sound fun. The mountain house is not somewhere I’d like to be right now, but it’s doable.

  A few miles past Copper cars start to appear on the side of the road, but it’s clear they are not just stopping to put on chains like t
he trucks on the eastern side. They are stuck. Or broken down.

  I shift down as the grade levels, then give it some gas to pick up enough speed to get back into fourth gear. It complies, but not without protest. Blowing by Copper might be a mistake I come to regret because there are no more towns between here and Vail. But I’m almost there and the drive evens out over Vail Pass.

  The snow grows heavier, falling in a thick blanket of white, just like I wanted. Only it does nothing for my mind, which is still hopelessly wrapped around Rook and the last memory I now have of her.

  Not the picture my mind took of her flashing blue eyes and cardboard crown back in Antoine’s office.

  No. Her face, screwed up in anger and hurt, as she called me a Runner.

  And she’s right, isn’t she? I’m running. I’m running so fast I’m in the middle of a snowstorm—blizzard, Ford, the internal monologue corrects me—up in the mountains, driving a truck that is almost thirty years old and is working on three gears. It whines and I downshift. Two gears, I’m corrected again.

  I can see the first lights of the Village off in the distance. It’s a miracle I can see anything in this weather, so that means it must be very close. I squint out the front window, trying to get my bearings. Our house is on the east side of the village, thank God for small favors, so I’m gonna make it.

  I believe this even as I coast down the off-ramp in first gear, the engine protesting each time I step on the gas. Because no matter how hard I wish it, the tranny is shot.

  I pull off to the side of the road as far as I can get without actually plowing through a snowdrift, and then the Bronco just stops.

  Fuck.

  After all that, I’m stuck in a blizzard on the fucking off-ramp, two miles from my family’s mountain home. If I had a coat, I could probably walk there. But I’m in a tuxedo and that’s it.

  I laugh a little and pick up my phone from the seat next to me.

  No fucking service. Awesome.

  I rest my head on the steering wheel and then jerk up when a horn honks at me from outside. Squinting through the snow I can see a truck, so I roll the window down and some guy is yelling at me.

  It’s hard to hear him over the wind, and at first I figure he’s pissed because I’m still kind of in the middle of the road. But then the wind dies and his words are more clear.

  “—a tow?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “I said…” He jerks his thumb behind him and I look at what he’s pointing at. A car on a flatbed truck. “You need a tow?”

  I look back at the man and this is when I notice there’s another person in the cab with him. A girl who is doing her best to shield herself from the wind and snow. “Yeah,” I reply back. “But—”

  “OK, look. Let me drop her off at Jason’s, then I’ll come back for you. It’s just right there.” He points up ahead on the frontage road where there’s a small strip mall-type building. Or as close to a strip mall as you can get in Vail. I know the place well. Hell, I even know Jason—we took skateboarding lessons in the same fucking summer camp one year.

  Real asshole. He bullied me a little, thinking I was weak just because I was quiet and smart and no one was allowed to touch me. But then I electrified the urinal flusher in the boys’ bathroom at camp, watched him go inside, and then proceeded to laugh my ass off when the ambulance came.

  I never officially got caught, but everyone knew I did it. And my dad was not happy about that. Not one bit. He made me clear a fifty-foot radius of brush and pine needles around our house that summer. Forest fire precaution duty, he said. But it was really no-electrocuting-kids-at-camp duty.

  The garage’s a family-owned place, Jason is really Jason Junior, and there’s a Travel Saver Motel next door with a blinking vacancy light that they own as well.

  Wonderful.

  Before I can answer the tow truck is gone, so I have two choices. Get out and walk the two miles up to my house in a raging blizzard, or wait for the driver to come back and tow me over to Jason’s and see if he’ll swing me across the freeway to the bottom of my driveway after he drops the Bronco.

  It doesn’t take a genius. And the wait is not that bad, since I can practically see him dropping the car he had on the back of the truck. It must belong to the girl who was in the front seat with him.

  I get out, painfully aware of how underdressed I am for the mountains in January, and then catch the exasperated look from the driver that he probably reserves for stupid tourists from the Tropics.

  “Nice coat,” he says as he grabs his chains from the flatbed and lowers himself down onto the snow to hook up the Bronco. “You can wait inside the truck if you want. I don’t need help, ya know.”

  He’s an asshole. And he looks familiar so I study his face when he comes back up from the ground and goes over to the controls on the truck. Dakota. Dillon. Dickhead.

  “Dallas,” he says like he’s reading my mind. “I’m surprised you don’t remember me. Jason’s cousin. I fingered you right away. Of course, who can forget this hunk of shit.” He points to my dilapidated truck. The drive train whines as the chain tightens and starts to pull the Bronco onto the bed. Snow is coming down so hard now, it might be piling up on my head.

  “Right. Dallas. I think I almost blew you up on the golf course with an exploding golf ball.” I laugh.

  He doesn’t.

  “Sorry about that,” I continue. “My antisocial and psychotic tendencies have mellowed over the years.”

  He glares at me.

  There is no way this guy is taking me any further than the fucking garage five hundred yards away, so I resign myself to getting a room at the Travel Saver. I’m not walking into the Village and I highly doubt a cab is available. This is Vail, not Denver. There are no public safe driver programs to keep the drunks off the road on New Year’s. Besides, almost everywhere you need to go is within walking distance here.

  Of course, there’s that little detail about the blizzard. But that’s why hotels have ballrooms. So partygoers can stay the night at the party. I doubt there are any rooms available in the Village anyway.

  This whole thought exercise is pointless. I have a fucking house two miles away that I can’t get to. Why the hell would I walk the opposite direction to get a room?

  I jump in the cab and scare the shit out of myself when I sit on something that squeaks. I brush the seat off and a little yellow duck toy goes flying onto the floor.

  “Oh, shit,” Dallas says as he gets into the cab with me. “I bet that belongs to that chick’s baby. Pick it up, will ya?” He pulls out onto the road as I pick up the toy. It’s all muddy from my wet shoes now, so I stick it in my pocket. We drive down the frontage road, pass the hotel, and then turn into the parking lot. The girl is still in her car, the interior light on as she fumbles around with something. I see the baby now, tucked inside a seat, bundled up with blankets. Dallas backs up the truck and positions it so he can drop the Bronco off in a snow-covered space not quite next to, but near, the girl’s brown Honda.

  I jump out and walk over to Dallas as he works the truck’s bed controls. “How much?”

  “Two-fifty,” he says with a straight face.

  I shrug it off and grab three hundred-dollar bills from my wallet. Who cares. He saved my ass. He deserves it. “Here you are. And Dallas?” I wait for his eyes to find mine. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow when Jason opens and we can grab a beer or something.”

  This is my new thing, since I met Rook. I’m trying to make amends for any and all weird past behavior. I figure trying to blow him up on the golf course counts as something that requires an effort.

  “Jason’s probably not gonna show up tomorrow. And he’s always closed on the weekends, so Monday, huh? If you’re still around.” He takes the money and goes back to his business so I take that as my cue to leave.

  I stuff my hands in my pockets and make for the motel office, my head ducking into the wind and snow.

  Chapter F
our

  The bell on the door jingles as I enter the hotel, the faint sound of a TV coming from the back room. An older woman appears and sighs heavily when she sees me, like I’m interrupting her Jeopardy game show and walking up front to wait on a customer is the last straw.

  “Help you?” she asks curtly as she punches some keys on her computer.

  I put on my I’m not a psycho smile and remind myself that this place was once my home, but she doesn’t look at me, so it makes no difference. I try for directness instead. “Room?”

  “One left,” she mumbles. “But you gotta be out by ten, because there’s a tourist bus coming in tomorrow and all our rooms are booked for the weekend.”

  “I can manage that. How much?”

  “Two-fifty plus tax.”

  “Hmmm, everything tonight seems to cost two-fifty.”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve. Prime season for us. You want the room or not?”

  “Yes,” I say through my smile. “Thank you.” She passes me a form to fill out and give her all my details. When I hand it back she stares at it for a moment, then looks up at me with the same squinting eyes that Dallas perfected back at the tow truck.

  “Rutherford Aston.”

  “Mrs. Pearson,” I deadpan back at her. “How’s the library treating you?”

  “Retired. We manage this place now. Can’t complain.”

  And that’s it. That’s all she has to say to me, even though if you add up all the time I spent at the library when I lived here as a kid, it would total in the years.

  It’s my turn to sigh heavily and I turn away as she finishes the job of checking me in. She doesn’t inquire why I’m staying here at the crappiest hotel in Vail when I live down the street. She doesn’t inquire why I left the make and model of my car blank on the registration form. She doesn’t say here you go, have a nice night when she slides the key across the counter. The only other thing she says is, “Room 24, last door.”