I should be feeling something other than wonder as I fall. I don’t think I scream, and time slows as I float toward the unforgiving floor of the basement.
I never reach it. Ronan has me in his arms before I can hit the floor.
“Jesus,” he says, touching the handle of the knife. “Jesus Christ.” He leaves the knife in and carries me up the stairs. I notice the chief, dead on the ground, with surprising detachment.
I can’t keep track of time. I’m in the passenger side of the mustang now. It’s reclined all the way.
An explosion roars in the distance, and I move to sit up.
“Don’t move,” he says. “Don’t move, Ruby.” His hand is on my shoulder.
“What was that?” I murmur, confused. “You promised you wouldn’t set it on fire.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, gunning the engine.
“Ronan,” I say. “You didn’t lie about that too?”
He turns to me for just a second, anger lining his face. He turns back to the road.
“I never lied to you, Ruby. I never have, and I never will. I need to get you to the hospital.”
“I heard an explosion,” I say. “I think. The old lady and her cat…”
I’m drifting out again, finding it hard to focus on Ronan. He’s saying something to me, but I can’t hear him. Next thing I’m aware of, I’m in his arms again, and we’re heading into an emergency room.
It’s too bright here, too. My head hurts. People are moving over me, too fast, and Ronan’s gone from my sight. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again now that he doesn’t need me.
Not worth worrying about.
Someone slides an IV in my arm, and everything drifts away.
17
Ronan
It’s two hours before she’s in a room. Before I can see her. I haven’t sent word to my brothers or to my father.
Told them to stay radio silent for plausible deniability.
I want to protect them.
I want to protect Ruby, too.
And now everything’s gone pear-shaped.
The nurse lets me sit next to her bed even though it’s way past visiting hours. Smart lady—probably knows I wouldn’t leave anyway. It’s just easier this way. I want Ruby to sleep through the night, to heal, but I desperately want to talk to her, to know she’s okay.
I’m holding her hand when her eyes flutter open. It takes a minute for her to focus, before she recoils like she’s afraid of me, pulling her hand away.
“Hey.” I hold my hands up.
Not a surprise that she’s unhappy to see me.
“Jeanna’s dead,” she says. “Jeanna’s dead because I let you use me. Because I let you trick me. Because I trusted you.”
“Jeanna?” I ask. “Who’s Jeanna?”
“God, you didn’t even bother to learn the name of the people you set up, Ronan.” She’s crying now.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry, Ruby, I don’t know what Michael told you but…”
“Don’t,” she says, swiping at her eyes with the hand not in a cast. “Don’t try to talk your way out of this. Jeanna was only a kid. She was so excited to be a police officer.”
Oh, now I know who she means. “Officer Byrd isn’t dead, Ruby.”
“What?” She shifts to sit up but winces at the pain in her shoulder.
“She’s probably in this place somewhere,” I say, sighing. “Though you’re right that she has me to thank for that. You to thank for being alive.”
She’s blinking back tears. Of relief maybe? I don’t know. Probably anger.
“Let me tell you what happened.”
“All of it,” she hisses.
I think I know what O’Dooley told her, and it was probably the truth.
“I was planning on killing him tonight,” I say, softly. “You know that part. I had a contact in the plant. I needed the cops distracted so I could get through his security.”
She’s staring coldly at me. She wants me to say it.
“I knew you’d do the right thing in reporting the corrupt police. It’s why I asked you here in the first place. You always do the right thing, Ruby. I never intended for you to get hurt. You were supposed to be safe inside our room.”
“Stop,” she says.
True to my word, I do.
“I met my contact in the parking lot of the brewery. O’Dooley bribed him. Offered him dope in exchange for setting me up. He’s too cynical to believe that anyone could say no to a life they’d recovered from.” I trail off.
“Then what?” she snaps.
“He didn’t want it, but he went along. Dumped the drugs and pretended to be strung out. When I met him in the parking lot tonight he told me it was a trap. That O’Dooley wasn’t there. I initiated the timer and took him back to town with me, and…”
“What timer?”
She must not remember the ride here.
“Last night, when I left, I went over to the brewery.”
“To kill Michael, she interrupts. “I know.”
“No,” I say, furrowing my brow. O’Dooley got that one wrong. “I didn’t think he was there. I went to set up some explosives on the silos where he keeps his stores. It’s further back than the brewery itself, and there are a few little trailers where more of the dirty work happens.”
“Did you kill Peter O’Dooley?”
Always straight to the point, this one.
“He caught me putting the last device under the final silo. Said his cousin had sent him to kill me.” I shrug. “Didn’t work out for him.”
Hopefully she could understand self-defense, at least.
“I’d rigged the timer for thirty minutes. When I got to town, I saw commotion at the police station, and I knew…”
God, I’m choking up. Focus, Doyle.
“I knew something had happened to you.”
I can’t look at her.
Fuck.
“I ran into Clyde outside. He told me you’d asked him to keep an eye on things, on Jeanna.” I feel guilty saying her name. “He heard something that sounded like a firecracker and ran over to the station. The other officer was dead, but Jeanna was still alive. The bullet had grazed her head.”
Ruby makes a noise, a choked cry.
“I’m so sorry, Ruby.” It’s hell not to be able to take her in my arms right now. “Only the drug pushers were supposed to get hurt.”
“You couldn’t have been that naïve,” Ruby says tearfully. “Come on, Ronan. I might be that stupid, but you’re not. Collateral damage, right?”
It’s like she’s slapped me.
“You can’t think that poorly of me.”
She doesn’t respond for a moment.
“Then what?”
“Clyde hadn’t seen you or the chief. But it wasn’t hard to guess where they’d taken you. I’d recognized Peter O’Dooley from the church flyer, like I’d mentioned.”
She cringes.
“I drove up to the church. The chief was there and drew his gun on me, so I killed him. Probably would’ve killed him anyway for hurting you. You know the rest.”
She’s trying to wipe the tears from her face as fast as they fall. I hand her a tissue, and she takes it reluctantly.
“Ruby, I never lied to you.” I don’t know why it matters so much that she believe me, but it does.
“You didn’t tell me the truth, either,” she says, her voice curt. “You led me on and let me believe you care about me so you could enact your revenge.”
“I didn’t lead you on,” My voice is a hiss. “I care about you, Ruby. A lot. More than’s good for either of us.”
“I’m sure,” she says, crumpling her tissue up.
“I gave up my mother’s murderer for you,” I’m on my feet now, shouting.
God.
I fall back into the chair by her bed, defeated.
“He’s gone, Ruby. And I don’t know if I’ll have another chance to find him. I won’t before my father dies. I’ve let ev
eryone down.”
I bury my face in my hands. It’s too fucking much.
And for what?
Ruby hates me and my father will be ashamed of me.
He’ll die worried that his son can’t handle simple business.
I don’t want him to go like that.
I knew, I knew from the beginning, that I was playing with fire.
My commitments are clear: my brothers, my businesses, the people I’m sworn to protect.
The oath I made to my father.
There’s no room in all this for what I want.
And the sooner I accept that, the easier it’ll be to move on.
Let Ruby move on with her life. A thought that rips at something in my chest so raw, I’ve never felt anything like it.
I can’t do this.
I stand back up.
“I’m sorry, Ruby. I shouldn’t have let things get this far. You’re better off without me in your life. You’ll be safer. I’ll send a car to take you home tomorrow. The doctor’s said you should be good to go by the afternoon. They just want to observe you since you had a concussion. Do some IV antibiotics because of the knife wound.”
“Right,” she says.
“I guess I’ll see you back in Boston, maybe.” I try to adopt the tone we’d used formerly in our banter, but it falls flat.
“Goodbye, Ruby.”
She doesn’t respond.
It’s better this way.
18
Ruby
The painkillers drag me into an unwilling sleep. I wake up, confused.
“Hi!”
I blink slowly. Someone is far too chipper.
“Jeanna,” I say, easing into a sitting position. “God, it’s so good to see you.”
She has a bandage over the left side of her head but otherwise looks fine. She’s in regular clothes, leading me to believe she’s already been discharged.
“I lost a lot of blood,” she says with a shrug. “Deep graze. I would’ve died from blood loss but Clyde says you sent him after me.”
“He’s a fan of yours,” I reply. “So am I.”
She looks far too cheerful for someone who could be dead right now. Easier to recover when you’re young, I guess.
“He was like a father to me after my own father overdosed.” She shrugs. “It was rough out here before the brewery brought in jobs. Didn’t realize it was bringing in other things, too.”
“Is it…”
Still there? I don’t know what I’m asking.
“Someone took out the back end of it,” she offers. “But nothing that directly affects operations. It’s going to shut down for a while since it turns out the owner was a big drug smuggler. But it’ll be back in business once the legal red tape is sorted.”
That could take a very long time, but I don’t say so.
There’s hope there, and in a place like this, hope counts for something.
“Did they find the owner?”
She shakes her head. “No. Some federal agency folks are here investigating what went down and providing support since we don’t really have a police force right now.”
She stares off wistfully, the smile falling from her face.
“That’s just because you’re out on medical leave,” I say.
She smiles at me. “Sure. Ruby, can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” I say.
“So you’re here investigating corruption?”
“I am.”
“How do you do it? How do you stay focused when it feels like you can’t trust anyone?”
She’s so earnest. It’s painful.
“You listen to your gut,” I say. “People will surprise you sometimes. Hurt you. But I could tell you didn’t trust the chief, which told me what I needed to know about you both. Was I wrong?”
“No,” she says. “There was something off about him. I didn’t know what, but it was wrong. The other guys, though. They seemed nice.”
“It’s easy to get swept up, Jeanna. Who knows the extent of what they did or didn’t know? Or how deep they were in, or what the chief told them.”
She nods. “That’s what scares me. I could’ve gotten caught in it, too. I’m just so new they hadn’t had time to fill me in.”
She’s pleading with me to absolve her, but I can’t.
I can’t absolve myself, either.
We both made the choice to be part of something that had a rot deep at its core.
Neither of our faults, not by a long shot.
But that reality leaves a lasting mark that you have to wrestle with, come to peace with, on your own terms.
“It’s possible,” I say. “It’s always possible. You have to do what you think is right, which isn’t always what’s legal.”
Fuck. Ronan’s words are coming out of my mouth. “Corruption often runs all the way to the top, which means people could be ordering you to be complicit.” There’s a plant on my corruption task force. I know that now. I don’t think it’s my contact, but it needs addressing.
“Life is complicated,” she says. “More complicated than I’d ever imagined.”
“I hear you.”
Boy, do I.
“Listen to your head and your heart, Jeanna, and you’ll do great.”
“Thanks, Ruby. For everything. Do you mind if I keep in touch?”
“I’d love that,” I say, holding out my good hand. She’s smiling again and leaves a few minutes later.
What’s right isn’t always what’s legal.
Or what’s easy.
He’d saved me even though it meant losing O’Dooley. I can still feel the pain in his voice. We’d both gotten caught up in this wanting redemption. I wanted to prove that I could root out corruption even when it wasn’t close to home, and he wanted to prove to his father that he could take care of the family before his father dies.
And because I was stupid enough to walk into a trap he can’t do that.
If I had waited even a few minutes longer, Ronan might have gotten back to town before I’d gone to the police station.
It was all bad timing and shitty coincidences.
I care about you. A lot. More than’s good for either of us.
I’ve bought so far into the narrative that no one could want me beyond a quick fuck for so long, that I believed Michael O’Dooley’s story. Not all of it, but the parts where Ronan only cares about what he can get from me, whether it be sex or distraction.
I don’t want to buy into that narrative anymore.
And I think I can fix this.
I know where O’Dooley is.
I just need to find Ronan.
It’s late afternoon by the time I’m discharged. As if by magic, there’s a car waiting for me, with all of my things from the bed-and-breakfast packed inside.
“Take me back to Prescott,” I say.
“But miss,” the driver says. “Mr. Doyle asked me to take you home.”
“Please,” I say. “I need to go back. It’s urgent.”
“Yes, miss.”
He takes me back to town. My body is aching, but I’d refused more painkillers. I’ve never been stabbed before, but it feels like ice on fire. Not as bad as last night, but not good either.
I leave my things in the car and ask the driver to wait while I head to Clyde’s. I figure he’d know what time Ronan left.
I burst into the restaurant and stop in shock when I see Ronan inside, sitting at a table with one of his brothers…
And his father.
One of my brothers will be here if something happens.
Oh my god. I can’t imagine what he’s feeling. His mouth opens and his eyes narrow when he sees me. He looks defeated, and I hate that. But he doesn’t like being disobeyed either, and a dash of the flame I see in his eyes doesn’t strike me as a bad thing.
I stumble over to his table, and he’s out of his seat, steadying me in seconds.
“Ruby, I mean Detective Williams. I thought you’d be home by now?”
I flinch at the formality, but I brought that on myself. His brother—Kieran, I think? —stares curiously.
“Manners, boy. Ask the lady to sit down.”
Ronan turns to his father, apologizing for what I’m sure isn’t the first time.
Murphy Doyle looks frail, but my gut tells me not to believe that. He’s not out yet. He must’ve been a big man in his time, too. His eyes are clear. He has some bruises on his face. Maybe from when he lost it the other day at O’Dooley’s letter.
“Please, Ruby,” Ronan says softly. “Join us?”
Kieran stands up with his brother while I sit, and they both sit back down when I’m seated.
I feel bad for the driver, but I imagine he’s used to this by now.
“How are you feeling, miss?” Murphy asks. “Got caught up in some family business and I’m very sorry about that. We all are.”
Ronan looks like he’s been punched.
“Ronan saved my life,” I say. “But he paid a high price. I’m sorry, sir.”
Murphy waves me off. “Ronan’s a smart man. He made the right decision. Your life is more important than settling old debts. Would’ve been disappointed in him if he did differently.”
I watch Ronan from the corner of my eye, and he seems like he’s struggling to believe his father. Yet men like Murphy Doyle doesn’t mince words to make people feel better.
On some level, Ronan has to know that.
Has to hear it.
It makes me wonder how much of his family’s responsibilities are expected, and how much he takes on himself?
Kieran is taking in me watch his brother, and when we make eye contact he gives me a shit eating grin. His blue eyes twinkle.
Good luck lady, you’re definitely going to need it with this one, they seem to say.
“Don’t feel guilty,” Murphy says to me, but I know it’s for his son, too. “He’s hiding like the rat that he is. His business will be picked apart by the family he’s so contemptuous of, and he knows my kid was the one who did it. And he’ll know you took out his corrupt pals.”
He turns to Ronan. “You’ll look out for her, Ronan.”
Devil: The Doyles, A Boston Irish Mafia Romance Page 12
