Rook and Ronin Company Box Set: Books 6-9 (JA Huss Box Set Series Order Book 2)

by JA Huss

  I open the drawer in the nightstand and find guns.

  Of course you do, Syd. He’s an assassin. I pick each one up and handle it, checking the weight, the chambers—they are all loaded—and then put them back and close the drawer.

  I never want to use a gun again. Ever.

  The second nightstand on the other side of the bed has a closed black case and a first aid kit with a selection of drugs. None of them are the cocktail he’s giving me, because they are all antibiotics, heart-rate things, antagonists, and epinephrine. A crash kit. To save a life.

  Nice to know the man whom I am lusting over, not for Stockholm-related reasons, is prepared to save me from too much anesthetic, should I ever require it.

  I pick up the black case, spy a lock, and therefore expect it to be locked when I trigger the mechanism.

  But it isn’t. He must not get many visitors up here.

  That makes me let out an involuntary cackle. I think I might be losing my mind for real. Like, irretrievably for real.

  The two guns inside are… magnificent. Black matte FN Five-SeveNs with custom grips and an aftermarket laser. There’s writing on the grips, so I pick one up and turn it sideways to read it.

  The only gun you’ll ever need. Happy birthday, Merc. ~ XXOO♥♥✿ - Smurf

  I have no idea who Smurf is, so I just put it back inside the case and look at the three cartridges, which are also lined up, like this was made for a display. They have writing on them too, so I take one out to get a better look. With love, Sasha, it says three times over.

  I guess she is the Smurf. Figures. That kid has had his heart since the night he left me out at that cabin. It makes me so furious to think that she got a cute nickname and her fairytale ending and I got…

  I don’t want to think about what I got. It brings up bad things. Things better left buried.

  I put the cartridge back and close the case and then the drawer. I don’t want to shoot Case. So I’m not even remotely interested in nabbing one of his guns.

  The sound of a snow machine draws me out of my introspection, and I get up and make my way downstairs so I can meet him at the door.

  God, I’m so pathetic.

  Chapter Thirty - Sydney

  “Eventually… you have to trust someone.” – Sydney

  I settle for the couch instead of greeting him at the door so I don’t look like I’ve been waiting for him. Or like I’m happy he came back.

  The couch faces the living room window, so I peek over the back of it. He comes through the door, stomping his snow-covered boots on the mat, and then hangs his hat and takes off his gloves.

  He sees me just as he unzips his jacket. “You’re awake. I wasn’t sure how long you’d sleep. I didn’t give you much, I swear.” I can see his muscles through his long-sleeved thermal shirt as he hangs up his coat and kicks off his boots. “I had to go out and do some things,” he explains. Like I’m his wife, wanting to know where he’s been.

  I do want to know, but not because I think he’s out hooking up with some chick. We are in the middle of nowhere. And Merric Case doesn’t strike me as a guy who fucks around a lot. Either on the side, or otherwise.

  He walks into the living room in his socks. There’s sweat on his brow from the warm clothes and the heat of the wood stoves. “I just didn’t know what to do. Sorry.” He looks down as he walks to the kitchen and starts pulling out some food.

  I want to say something, anything to break the silence, or change his mood, because he seems worried. And I don’t want that worry to be because of me. I’d like him to save me, yes. But I don’t want him to pity me. I’d rather die.

  But I’m not a social girl, having grown up in the wilderness. Cheyenne doesn’t really count as a city, even if I told him it did a few hours ago. It’s a small place filled with small-place people. So I don’t know how to start this. I tuck my feet underneath me and stare at them instead of trying.

  “You feel better?” he asks, unwrapping some meat from white butcher paper and throwing it in a pan. “Hungry?” He throws in some potatoes and then drops in baby carrots too. He puts it all into the oven and closes the door. I guess we are having a roast. He opens the fridge back up and pulls out two beers, pops the tops off with a bottle opener, and walks out into the living room.

  I take the one he offers me and he plops down on the couch. Close. Very close. Like we’re together and we always have beers on the couch in the evening. Not like he kidnapped me a few weeks ago and washed me down with a fire hose. That should piss me off, because it fucking hurt. But it doesn’t. I’m not mad about any of it and I wonder if there are more drugs in me. Calming drugs. Anti-anxiety drugs. Things to keep me on an even keel.

  I hold the beer up and he looks at me. “Should I be drinking this? Will it interact with the drugs?”

  He takes a swig of his own bottle, but for a second there, I think I see a wince of shame. “I think you’re OK, Syd. I gave them to you this morning. I think they’re out of your system by now.”

  He seems genuine, so no. Drugs are not the reason why I don’t give a shit about all the stuff he did. And since we’re clear that this is not Stockholm shit, I have no other ideas about why this might be.

  “You wanna tell me about the rabbit?”

  I close my eyes tightly, to keep the images from popping into my head. That noise, though. That scream the rabbit gave when I picked it up. It’s burned into my memory.

  Case puts a hand on my leg and gives it a squeeze. “You don’t have to,” he says. “I think I get it.”

  I give my head a small shake. “No, I think you have the wrong idea about pretty much everything, Case. Be the rabbit.” I look up and he’s listening, but confused. “Be the rabbit is what I used to tell myself when things got bad. It gave me hope and calmed me down. I was supposed to kill a rabbit that Garrett caught. And I know how to kill a rabbit in a live trap, OK?” I search Case’s eyes. “I know how to do it right. But what Garrett wanted me to do was cruel. So I let it go.”

  “It got away?” Case asks hopefully.

  One more small shake from me. “No, the dogs got it. They ripped it to pieces.”

  Have you ever heard a rabbit scream?

  “I have seen many things in the woods. Nature.” I look up at Case. “You know? The rules of nature play out every moment of every day, and we hardly give it a thought. But I lived with that for a very long time.” I look down at my beer and realize I haven’t taken a drink yet, so I raise it to my lips and have a good long gulp. It goes down cool and soothing, so I take another. “Garrett treated the dogs better than me. At least they never got shocked with a collar.”

  When I look back up to Case, he’s frowning. “Look,” he says, almost a whisper. “I am sorry I didn’t take you that night—”

  “Stop,” I say. “Just don’t, OK? I saved myself, so forget about it. When things got bad, I just imagined I was living a different life. It got me through.” I gaze out the window, into the darkness hiding the beautiful view beyond. “It got me through. I’m still here.”

  I can feel him nod, but I don’t see it. Because I can’t look him in the eye.

  He guzzles his beer, gets up and walks into the kitchen, and then tosses it into the garbage with a clink that tells me he’s been drinking a lot while I’ve been drugged. The top comes off another and then he walks over to the stairs. “I’m gonna get a shower before dinner. Make yourself at home.”

  I watch him walk up the stairs. He climbs slow, and maybe I’m imagining it, but it seems a little bit somber. But beer and bad news will do that to a person. He disappears and a few minutes later I can hear the shower running.

  I finish my beer too and grab another from the fridge. It’s a local brewery out of Jackson. I stock it in the bar. God, the bar. What’s even happening to my bar?

  And that’s when I spy his cell phone on the counter. I walk over and pick it up, glance up at the stairs to see if he’s watching, and then swipe my finger to see if I can unlock it. />
  It’s not even locked. I open up the keypad and punch in the number for the bar, but just as I’m about to hit send, I stop. “What the fuck will I tell them?”

  I set the phone back down and go back to the couch. It’s not Stockholm. It’s not. I just have no good reason to want to go home. There is nothing good there for me. Nothing. I know this. I love that bar, I really do. I’d give anything to be able to wipe away all the things keeping me from it and go home. Because that place—filled with drunk cowboys, shitty country karaoke, and ninety-nine-cent microbrew nights—was the only place I felt real.

  Cowgirl, Case calls me sometimes. I am a cowgirl. I like that girl. Maybe I can be that girl instead of this one?

  But I can’t go back. Not until I know what’s happening to me. Not until I figure it out. And I know my only hope of figuring out what I’m feeling right now is to let Case in on things.

  I want him. But I don’t trust him. And just as that thought consumes me until I feel like I will explode—I hear the music coming from the third floor.

  Chapter Thirty-One - Merc

  “Moments are permanent. You can’t take them back or change them. You can only make new ones. – Case

  The music has always saved me. But it reminds me so much of Sydney. That song—my fingers pluck it out, just from habit. I learned to play it years ago, back when it first came out and it was on the radio in Sydney’s car every single day. I know that not because I was in the car with her, but because I have been stalking this girl for eight years.

  I was relentless the first two years. I had Garrett in my sights so many times. I could’ve killed him a thousand times over if I had acted then. But Sasha needed me. My friends needed me. I saw all that shit through with them, and Sydney was an afterthought while we pieced together the final mystery.

  Only we never solved it. We got the money we stole. But that final piece of the puzzle never materialized. And now Syd is here, a place where I’ve imagined her a million times—but this is definitely not how I imagined it going down.

  In my head it was quick. Some torture. Some questions. Some answers. Mental persuasion was always an option, but I never, ever saw things turning out like this.

  Like what? I have to ask myself that. Because I’m getting tangled up in her past. I’m letting her get to me. I’m allowing her sadness to take over all my plans. And I’m not quite sure what to do about it.

  That scream. Now that I know she was imitating the rabbit, it makes sense. But it was blood-curdling. It was evil. It was fright on a level I’ve never experienced before.

  I have killed a lot of people. Even some women. I don’t discriminate in that department. If they deserve it, if the money is right, I finish the job. But I have never heard a noise come out of a person’s mouth like that scream today. Drugs were my only option. She was hysterical. Just gone.

  The stairs creak and then she appears in the shadows. I have one lamp on. And I guess it sets my mood. Low. That’s how I feel. On the bottom of something.

  It’s not a good place to be in the middle of a job. And the feelings, I’m not used to the feelings. I care about people—not many, but I do care about them.

  I should not care about this girl.

  “Hey,” she says, flashing her bandaged hand in a wave.

  “How’s that feeling?” I ask, still strumming out the tune I can’t seem to get out of my mind.

  She looks down at her hand. “It’s better.”

  “We’ll take the bandages off tomorrow and have a look at the blisters.”

  She nods and takes a seat on the bed. Not far from me, but not close. I’m on the floor, one knee up, skin showing through a hole in my jeans, with the guitar in my lap. No shirt on. Not to make her look, even though she looks. But just because it gets so damn hot up here with the wood stoves burning downstairs.

  “You must really like that song.”

  I flash her a small smile. “I got it from you.”

  “I realize. So…” She crosses her legs and I glance at her bare feet. She has a tattoo on the top of her left one. A rabbit. I’ve seen it before, but figured it was some girly thing. It’s running, its long hind legs crossing its front legs, and looking over its shoulder. Like it’s in the middle of a mad dash for its life.

  “So, yeah,” I finish for her. “I’ve been watching you for a very long time.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” She wrings her hands a little and then looks me in the eye. “If you want to kill Garrett so bad, why not do it a long time ago?”

  “So you believe that he’s alive now?” I stop playing, letting her know that this is not a casual question. It’s an important conversation, if she allows me to continue it. Maybe the most important in her whole life.

  She shrugs. “I really don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”

  I look away and start playing again. Because that was my answer. She’s not ready. Even though I know she knows Garrett is alive, and she admitted to talking to him the night before her wedding—the very night she ran like a rabbit—she’s not gonna talk about it tonight.

  “You know why I like that song?” She nods to my guitar.

  I look down, letting my still-wet hair fall over my face, and hide a small smile. It’s not about Garrett, but it’s the next best thing. Her. “Why?”

  “Because it’s got a good message. Nothing At All. The title says everything I feel. And the words, they just… it’s like they’re talking about me.”

  “I guess that’s the secret of all good songs, right? Words that are personal to the writer can speak to millions.”

  “I want everything and nothing.”

  “Me too.” I strum it a little harder and pick the strings a little more carefully.

  “Because you never know what you really want. It changes every day. And you get things, and then they’re not what you want.”

  I nod as I play the ending, letting the music get louder and louder, mimicking the building crescendo. In the real song, it sounds chaotic, like life is taking over and nothing makes sense. But if you listen carefully, it all fits together perfectly until the final bit of guitar that evens it all out and makes it OK.

  “That’s life, right?” I say in the ensuing silence. “You bust your ass to get to the place you want to be, and then you realize it’s not what you expected.”

  “It’s a letdown.”

  “Makes you want to stop wanting things.” I look up and smile. She laughs a little and bows her head. I’ve seen her in so many situations, but I’ve never seen her confident. I’ve only ever seen her afraid. Or shy. Or helpless. I bet she’s never seen herself as confident, either.

  I reach for her leg and give her a squeeze through her jeans. “When I’m not thinking of you, this is the song I usually play.” I take a breath and then say, “One, two, three…” and then I start strumming. She lets off a little laugh. “So you know it?” I ask.

  “I love Shinedown.”

  “Shit,” I say. “Bitch, this is Skynyrd. Fuck that cover shit.” I look up to see how she reacts to my joke. But she’s got a nice grin on her, so I continue to strum. I’ve never seen her happy either. I’d like to see that just once. So maybe I can make that happen tonight?

  “Are you a Simple Man, Case?”

  “I try.” I bow my head a little as I play the bridge. “But I’m not so sure I’ve been successful.”

  “Did you have a mother to give you simple advice on how to get on in life?”

  I shake my head and keep my eyes closed, seeing the music in my head. “No. She died from a fire when I was eight.” I look up at her. “So we never got to the good parts.”

  “What are the good parts?” Sydney scoots down, dropping her ass to the floor like mine and stretching out her legs. She’s close to me, almost shoulder to shoulder, and I wish I could ask her to sit across from me so I could get a better look at her.

  “You know, the part where I make her proud.” I stop strumming and take a deep breath. �
�My old man was an asshole, but compared to the torture that Company kids endure, he was perfect. I mean, he drank and shit. Was an alcoholic, actually. But after thinking about him for the past fifteen years… I’ve come to the conclusion that he was just heartbroken. He loved her, Syd. And how can I be mad at a guy who can’t pull himself out of the fact that he was the one who started the fire that killed the love of his life?”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  I start playing again. Mostly to change the subject without having to say anything.

  “Well, I had a mother for a little longer than that. But I don’t think she’d have had anything to say even if we did get to the good parts.”

  “What would be the good parts for you?”

  Sydney stays silent. Thinking maybe. “My wedding day, I guess. A real one. Not the one I agreed to just to make my life have meaning.”

  “So you don’t love Brett?”

  She shakes her head and her hair covers her face.

  I stop playing and reach over, dragging her hair behind her ear. She looks up at me, startled, and I give her a nice smile to ease her down. “I like looking at you.”

  “Why? I’m covered in bruises.”

  “Ouch,” I say. “That stings me a little.”

  “Did you really want to kill me?” Her eyes fill with tears and I know I’m pushing her tonight. It’s not a good plan, but I can’t seem to help myself. I’ve never had a real conversation with the girl. And she’s pretty. And I fucked her all wrong the other night. All wrong.

  “I would not have had sex with you that night if I’d known you were a virgin.” It’s not the answer she wants, but it’s one that makes her think. Maybe see me in a different light. Not many people get that opportunity, and I wonder if she’ll bite.