PREGNANT AT THE ALTAR

by Claire St. Rose

  Sitting in that car with her face so determined and her eyes deep and intense, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. People showed there true colors during the difficult times, and Emily’s true colors were resplendent.

  I remembered Ruby had asked me a question. I shook my head.

  “No, not because of her. Because of you. You’re acting crazy, Ruby. You were crazy long before I met Emily and that hasn’t changed. It changed what we were. The fact that I met Emily and that we have something together has nothing to do with you.”

  Ruby curled back her lips in a snarl that really didn’t suit her. She was angry. I could feel it radiating off her in waves of heat that could sear the fine hairs on my arms if I got too close. I knew that it had not been what she’d wanted to hear, but I’d had to say it.

  Maybe just for myself, so that I could realize what I had. And what I’d lost. And that I couldn’t compare the two. Somewhere between this morning and now I’d completely fallen out of love with Ruby. Whatever shred of affection had been left for her, whatever I’d been holding onto in the recesses of my heart, was gone now.

  She was crazy. Manic. And I didn’t like it. There was nothing about her that I liked anywhere. The freedom that came with realization was light and airy, and I realized just how long I’d been trapped by the thought that maybe she belonged in my life.

  “What are you doing, Ruby?” I asked her. She hadn’t answered me after I’d given her my speech about Emily. That anger boiling under her skin was so close to the surface she was going to snap any moment. I wanted to stop it. I spoke to her in a low voice, keeping my tones calm. “What is the point of all this?”

  “The point?” she asked. Tension rose in the air, and her voice was shrill. “I’m taking matters into my own hands, Daniel. Because no one else will give me what I want, so I fucking have to get it myself. You know how this world works. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

  She sneered the words, and it made her ugly. She was ugly on the inside. I wondered why it had taken me so long to notice. I glanced at the men around her. They were shuffling on their feet, moving to some kind of rhythm it seemed only they could hear. Their eyes didn’t focus on me properly although I was sure they were looking at me. I realized that none of them were sober.

  They were all high, every last one of them. On what, I didn’t know. Maybe it was the same thing they’d been pushing into all the victims but in lower doses.

  “You’re buying their loyalty,” I said, putting two and two together. Ruby laughed and the sound was unpleasant, like glass shattering.

  “Loyalty takes a lot of different forms, Daniel. I give them what they need, and they respect me for it.”

  “Drugs? You give them drugs, and you think it’s going to get them to respect you? They’re just coming back to benefit themselves. Don’t tell me you have forgotten?”

  I mimicked her words, throwing them back at her. Her eyes flared, the fire inside her building, and I knew I was poking a bear. She was going to explode soon. And her flunkies were all high, which meant they were capable of anything. The upside was that their reflexes would be slower and their balance would be questionable. If they did charge me, it would be easier to fight them off despite the fact that they all had some sort of fighting skill.

  I’d been through every single one of those files. I knew what they were capable of, physically and morally. Or immorally, as the case may be.

  “Don’t make it sound like I’m fucking up,” Ruby said. “I know what I’m doing. You’re the one fucking around with some floozy, someone in a class higher than yours so that you think you’re moving on up. But really, it’s just pathetic, Daniel. You’re pathetic. How long do you think she’s going to stick with you? This life and this drama will follow you wherever you go. Is that what you can offer her?”

  Her words stung. She knew what she was talking about; she knew me enough to know where to nail me. I tried to shrug off her words, and it didn’t work very well.

  “I can change,” I said, defending myself when I really didn’t need to. Who was she? She didn’t have any kind of right to tell me who I was going to be for the rest of my life. And still it hurt and I wanted to justify myself.

  Ruby laughed as if I’d told her something ridiculous.

  “I don’t intend on offering her the kind of life I was offering you,” I said.

  “And why is that?” Ruby asked, that smile draining away into a grimace.

  “Because she’s better than that.”

  “Are you saying I’m not?” Ruby asked, her voice rising again in pitch. I didn’t answer her. I didn’t shake my head, I didn’t do anything. I let the silence speak for itself. She understood what I meant with it. After all, she did know me that well.

  The anger blew up into full on rage, and I knew that I’d pushed the right buttons.

  “You’re nothing without me,” she hissed. “I’m the only person who accepted you as you are. Broken.”

  I shook my head. That one wasn’t going to get to me. I didn’t feel like I was broken. I felt like I was left wanting, but not broken.

  “What have you given me?” I asked. “All you did for me was almost kill Taylor. Twice.”

  I glanced at Ruby when I said it, and she frowned. God, Taylor. He was still in there with Sarah. I didn’t know if he’d run into more trouble. I didn’t know if he was still alive. I couldn’t go in after him and check on him. I felt torn.

  I hoped to God that he was hiding somewhere with her, staying away until it was safe. Or better, calling the cops. I needed him to take charge for once.

  “Taylor wasn’t supposed to get hit,” Ruby said. She glanced over her shoulder and one of the guys shuffled as if he’d been the one to get it wrong. “But he survived, didn’t he?”

  “So you only intended to kill the others, but not Taylor? How noble.”

  She rolled her eyes. The anger was still palpable, but she had an enormous amount of self-control that I had to admire. If it had been reversed, I would have acted on my rage a long time ago.

  “I just wanted you to notice me again,” she said.

  I raised my eyebrows. She really was bat shit crazy.

  “You need to stop this, Ruby,” I said. I knew that it wasn’t nearly enough to get her to give up her ways. “You can’t keep killing people. If you do, now that I know it’s you, this is going to get very ugly.”

  “Are you threatening me?” she asked, and her voice was low and quiet, the complete opposite of what it had been until now. It was scary. Her quiet voice was a lot more dangerous than her shouting one. This was something I’d learned a long time ago.

  “Is this ugly enough for you?” she asked and pulled out a gun from the back of her pants. She pointed it toward Emily through the car window, aiming straight at her head.

  I hadn’t bargained on the fact that she’d be armed. I should have expected something like this, though. From Ruby, I should have expected madness. Instead, I’d been holding onto the image I’d had of her all these years, the blindness I’d been living with, the thought that she was like us…honorable. I’d been telling myself all morning that she was losing it. And I’d still not expected a gun. I was an absolute idiot. Blood drained out of my face, and my whole body went cold. If Emily died because of me, I would never forgive myself.

  Ruby laughed, a high-pitched cackle that felt more like a mockery than laughter.

  “You should see your face,” she said. “What, are you worried?”

  Of course I was worried. Pulling a gun on someone wasn’t easy. You had to know how to work the thing. And the trigger was so easy to pull, a squeeze that didn’t need a lot of connection to your feelings. Usually the emotional drama only happened after the fact.

  I had the idea that there would be no emotional drama for Ruby, even if she did kill someone with a gun. The look in her eye was manic, but she was calm, like the crazy was just enough to get her to do this. She wasn’t out of control. She knew what she was doi
ng. The madness and the quiet resolve together made for one hell of a cocktail.

  “Don’t do this, Ruby,” I said. I slowly lowered my gun so that it hung by my side. The last thing she needed now was encouragement. If I pointed the gun at her, she might just shoot Emily. I wasn’t sure that she had what it took to stop herself from killing someone. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  “I blame you, you know,” Ruby said. I frowned.

  “For what?”

  “For walking out. For pushing us to the point where you couldn’t deal with the relationship anymore”

  I took a deep breath. How many times had we been through this same little charade? How many times was she going to blame me for everything that had gone wrong between us? It felt like she did every time I saw her. I thought that we’d moved on far enough that we didn’t have to talk about this shit anymore.

  “Look, Ruby. I’m sorry for what happened between us. I know that you wanted forever. I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you.”

  She laughed again, manic this time. It was more like a burst of pent up emotion than something funny.

  “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? I was ready to commit to you, even with your fucked up life. Even with all your issues after your dad left.”

  I flinched as if she’d physically punched me. We never spoke about these things. It was a sort of unspoken agreement that we would just move forward and never look back.

  “You were going to hold onto that club, fine. You were going to do all sorts of things that could get you killed—“

  “You were the one sending me after them,” I said, nodding to the men I’d gone after as a bounty hunter, cutting her off. Some of them glared at me. One of them swung a knife at me like the threat would be something I gave a shit about.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it,” she sneered. To be honest, I was on the general topic she was, but I had no idea what she was referring to.

  “Ruby…” I started.

  “Don’t,” she said before I could carry on. “Don’t tell me that you couldn’t be the man I needed you to be. That’s such bullshit. I wanted you, just as you were.”

  “But I didn’t want you,” I said. The words were out of my mouth before I thought about them and what they could do to her. Before I thought about what words like that would unleash in a woman like Ruby.

  Her face changed. That manic air dissipated and she looked tragic for a moment. Sadness was on her face, turning her mouth corners down and her green eyes shimmered like she was going to cry. God, please don’t let her cry. I couldn’t stand her crying.

  The emotion didn’t last. To my relief, the tears didn’t come. Instead, the gun did. She pulled back on it with her other hand so that it was loaded now. It hadn’t been loaded before. She’d been playing it safe. But all of that was over.

  I took a step closer to her, but the men stepped forward as I did. They were going to charge if I did anything to try and stop Ruby.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  Ruby looked at me, and for a moment she looked the way she’d looked in the beginning. The pure, innocent woman, the one I’d loved once, stood in front of me.

  “I want you to take me back. I want another shot at making it work.”

  I swallowed hard. What were my options here? If I said no, she was going to shoot Emily. There was nothing like a gunshot to the temple to eliminate the competition.

  “Okay,” I said. I liked Emily living and breathing. When I glanced at her, her mouth was rounded in an ‘O’ of surprise, her dark eyes sharp and upset. I didn’t blame her.

  “What?” Ruby asked, as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “I said, okay.” This time I said it louder. Loud enough that everyone could hear me. Including Emily. Shit. I could almost feel her glaring at me.

  “Please, back away from the car now,” I said, hoping that this time she would comply.

  Ruby laughed, that mad cackle back in her voice. “So you can trick me and get away with her? I don’t think so. I want you to prove it to me.”

  I was aware of the gun in my hand, fitting my palm, the weight reassuring. I’d loaded it already before I’d come out. I didn’t have to give myself away.

  “I’m not joking, Ruby. Call them off. You’ve won.”

  She shook her head. She lifted the gun again. Everything happened in slow motion. Ruby’s hand slowly rose. The men started charging even though I did nothing. The gun was sure in my hand, and I started shooting. One of the bullets hit the car window, and it shattered. Left and right men started dropping. Before I could reach Emily, her gun had risen all the way up to Emily’s head. Everything was happening so slowly, and still, I couldn’t stop it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Emily

  I shoved the conflicting emotions of anger, jealousy, and understanding out of my mind. When Daniel said he would take Ruby back, my first reaction had been jealousy. Ruby was beautiful. Her copper hair was striking, her green eyes were captivating, and she had the kind of voice that could land her a job as a telephone entertainer, one of those women that led men to their wildest fantasies without ever touching them.

  Of course Daniel would want a woman like her. Why was he with me if he’d had her in his history?

  My second reaction was anger. How could he agree to take this woman back after everything he and I had shared? After last night at the hotel? After what he’d told me he wanted for his life, and the fact that he wanted me in it? I felt betrayed and hurt.

  The third reaction had been understanding. She had a gun, and she was obviously the one calling the shots, not just because she had the band of bastards on her side, but because she seemed completely switched off. Emotionally, she was all about business. The problem was that this business she was all about was killing people. Anyone who could do that so cold-heartedly was a force to be reckoned with. Daniel had a gun, too, but he couldn’t just pull the trigger and feel nothing.

  I was pretty damn sure that Ruby would feel nothing at all.

  It made sense that he said he would take her back. Anything that would play along with this game she had going on until we could find a way to secure the situation. Because right now we were drawing the short straw, and we were wildly outnumbered.

  There wasn’t a lot of time to think. Ruby was just about ready to lose her mind, guessing by the look on her face and the way Daniel was swallowing hard. And I knew that in the next couple of seconds everything was going to come to point…whatever that may be. It was the silence before the storm, and the atmosphere was so heavy it was almost electric.

  Sure thing, Ruby started lifting that gun toward me. And it was loaded this time. The idea that it hadn’t been before was calming in retrospect, but I hadn’t known it then and I’d just about tasted my heart.

  The next thing I knew Daniel had that gun up and shots were firing. My mind went on autopilot. Everything was crystal clear, and I was hyper-aware. It was as if I was on call at the ER, and there was a life or death situation coming through my doors. Except that, this time, the life or death situation was Daniel and I.

  The car window shattered, and I didn’t even think as I threw my body toward the opening. I was jumping into the range of fire, but I was a hundred percent sure Daniel wouldn’t hit me, and a hundred percent sure that Ruby would.

  I launched myself out of the window as far as I could and sliced that razor blade across her wrist, cutting in deep. The tendons there were what permitted her to hold onto the gun, and if I even only damaged them she would drop it.

  Blood colored my own hand a cherry red, and the gun fell to the floor. Ruby screamed. Daniel swore. The gunshots made my ears ring. And then it was all over.

  I hung out of the car door halfway, blood on my hand. Ruby clutched her cut hand against her chest and moaned with an awful sound that would haunt me for a very long time. Daniel stood next to her, staring at me, chest rising and falling. He was breathing too fast. He needed to slow it down or he
was going to hyperventilate. Until two seconds ago, I had completely been the victim at the business end of Ruby’s gun.

  Now it seemed that I was the only one who wasn’t in shock.

  Ruby sank to her knees, whimpering like a kitten. Daniel rushed to me, his gun still in his hands, and yanked the door open. He pulled me out and pulled me against him.

  “Oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god,” he kept muttering. Then he took me by the shoulders and pushed me away far enough to inspect my hand. “You’re bleeding.”