Ruby (19 page)

Chapter 12

“
I don’t understand.” Josh
wanted to shake Dwight until his teeth rattled, but he was simply
too afraid of his own strength. “You’re saying things that are just
not possible. I think…when was your last physical?”

“
Before you fucked my
girlfriend.” His temper, usually very controlled, was at its
limits. “Sorry. But as I have been trying to tell you for the last
hour, I’m not human. None of the people in this household are.
We’re paranormals, or supes, as they call us. And we can protect
you better than anyone you might know.”

“
And you say you’re a
wolf.” Josh growled, and Dwight smiled. “That was really good. Can
you do anything else?”

“
I can do this.” Josh
turned to look at Ruby when she spoke, and before he could tell her
no, she had shifted. Christ, no matter how many times he’d seen her
do it, it still surprised the hell out of him. He turned to look at
Dwight when he screamed.

“
Don’t run. If you do,
she’ll run you down. It’s in our nature to want to run down our
food before we eat it.” Dwight whimpered, and Josh smiled. He was
reasonably sure that Ruby wouldn’t eat Dwight, but it was fun to
see that look on his face all the same. “Now. What did I tell
you?”

“
She’ll have me for
dinner.” Josh nodded his head. Ruby moved up to Dwight and put her
head on his knee. “Josh, Josh, Josh! Don’t let her kill
me.”

“
Ruby would never kill you
in our home.” It was the low growl from Ruby that had him laughing.
“She won’t kill you. Not unless you won’t do as we say. You don’t
want to piss her off. She’s an alpha-bitch, and they are rarely
reasonable when pissed.”

Josh, you’re terrifying
him.
He told her that was the plan.
Okay, well, I’m going to change. You’d better
convince him that he’s safer here or we’ll have to have Blair lock
him up. It’s not safe out there.

It wasn’t either. They’d gone back to
the building when Cartwright’s men had left. Lucky for anyone that
might have worked that day, there was only the blood stain from the
man known as David. Dwight had let them all go home early when the
meeting with Manson had been set up. The only sign that a body had
been in the building at all was the stain of blood on the carpet
and the broken chair.

“
I’ve set up a meeting
with the Feds.” Lila grinned at him as she entered the room
speaking. “Hello, Dwight. I guess you really fucked up this time,
didn’t you? I guess he took a bit of convincing about you being a
wolf. Had to show him, didn’t you? I guess that smell of urine
isn’t because some animal came in here marking the place
up.”

“
I did not wet my pants.”
But he was drenched in fear. Josh could smell that on Dwight and
wanted to point out that he was safe, but he continued before he
could. “You’ll have better respect for me, Lila. You never were
very nice to me.”

“
With good reason. And I’d
never have respect for a drug dealing asshole like you are. As far
as I’m concerned, I’d have left your ass there to rot, not brought
you here to be treated like one of the family.” Dwight looked at
him, and Lila laughed. “He’s not going to tell me to behave. It was
one of the stipulations when I told him I’d come to work for him. I
get to be my own person. Which leaves you open for me to take
pot-shots at. Welcome to hell, Dwight. I’m going to poke at you
whenever and wherever I can.”

Lila left Josh a file that he’d asked
for and left them. Josh was just opening it up when Dwight got up
to walk to the window. He thought about teasing him more, making
his life a little harder, but he didn’t. The information in the
file suddenly caught his attention.

“
Teri is on the loose. She
may be headed this way, but they can’t tell right now. There isn’t
much information to go on. The Feds think it has to do with the
missing money.” Dwight turned and asked him how much was still
missing. “Nearly twenty more million than I have. There was an
account that it had been shuffled to, but it’s gone now as well.
They don’t know if it’s been moved to yet another off shore or it’s
been withdrawn.”

“
Manson found it. He’s
pretty savvy about this sort of thing.” Josh wanted to remind him
that the man might be savvy, but he did try and kill him. But
Dwight turned back to the window. “I wanted to tell you again how
sorry I am about all this. I want to say to you that it was all
Teri, that she set me up for the fall when you weren’t doing as she
wanted. But I knew what I was doing when I slept with
her.”

“
Yes, you did. But I can
forgive you that because I found Ruby.” She was his life, and Josh
told Dwight that. “I never really loved Teri. I might have married
her someday, but I would never have been happy. She’s too…she’s too
much.”

“
She is. I never loved her
either. Not even to tell her that because it was great sex. Because
to be honest with you, it wasn’t. Not with…the other men were her
idea. I only went along because I was getting laid regularly and I
liked that.” He turned then. “I have nothing to leave behind when
this is over. Not even a dime that I’ve earned honestly. I would
like to…the building will be taken before much longer. The business
is shit because I never had what you did. I can’t even give it all
back to you in compensation.”

“
I don’t want it.” Dwight
nodded and turned back to the window. “Dwight, she used you as much
as she did me. I’m not saying I was smarter, because I really
wasn’t about her. But I was so focused on making a name for myself,
I just shoved her aside. After a while, when she couldn’t get what
she wanted or needed from me, she looked elsewhere.”

Ruby came in just as he was telling
Dwight how much he loved her. She kissed him on the forehead and
sat down across from him. They were in the dining room and Lila was
in his office. Josh noticed she was in her scrubs.

“
Duty calls. I have to go
in for a few hours. They just called.” Josh nodded. He was really
disappointed because he’d had plans for them today, but he knew
that she needed to work as much as he did.

After she left, he and Dwight sat down
with the federal agent that was sent in. His name was Andrew Gavin,
and he seemed like he knew his stuff. As soon as he took Josh’s
hand, he knew that he wasn’t human either.

“
Shifter. And you’re a
wolf?” Josh nodded and decided to ask someone what that meant, to
simply be a shifter. “I’m not going to let anything happen to your
friend, but he is going to prison for a very long time.”

“
He’s aware of that. What
he’s worried about—as are the rest of us—is if you think he’ll make
it to prison.”

Andrew looked around the room, then
back at Josh. There was something there, more than him not being
human, and Josh took a step back.

“
I won’t hurt you.” Josh
nodded and took another step back. “I’m not going to hurt any of
you. But there is…can you smell it? It’s…it’s tiger. Do you have a
tiger in your pack?”

“
Not that I know of.” He’d
just found out last night that he and Ruby were pack leaders.
Neither of them were very happy about it, but it was going well so
far. “Why does that make you look…well, all weirded
out?”

“
Because I’m not into cats
of any kind.”

Josh started to tell the older man
that he had no idea what he was talking about when Lila came into
the room. Andrew immediately snarled at her.

“
Behave yourself.” She put
up her hand and looked like she was going to hit him on the nose.
“I’ve gone ten years with this boy and him not knowing, and you
come along and shoot that out of the water in one
second.”

“
You’re a tiger?” She
grinned at him and nodded. “You’re a tiger? When the hell did
that…why didn’t you tell me?”

“
Well, you being a…when
you was human, it didn’t seem necessary. It kept you safe and
sound. Then I came here and found out you was a wolf.” She
shrugged. “Dogs and cats don’t get along; you know that, don’t you,
boy?”

While Andrew and Dwight sat at the
table and talked, Josh went to his office. All this time…he
wondered if the rest of the family knew and decided to call on
Blair. He needed the practice on calling out to him
anyway.

Of course we knew.
Josh rolled his eyes when Blair confessed.
We never said anything because we figured…I guess
we were wrong about that. You’d have smelled it on her,
right?

She just smelled like
Lila.
Blair laughed again.
What else have I missed? And by the way, what the
hell is a shifter? Don’t we all shift?

A shifter is someone that
can change into nearly any animal. Some of them are even able to
take on the shape of a few inanimate objects. Not many but a few
can.
Josh’s mind worked out the
possibilities on that until Blair continued
. I take it you have a person there that is a
shifter?

Yeah, the Feds sent over
this guy, and he knew what I was right away. I’m assuming it’s
smell.
Blair told him it was.
And he said that he and Lila don’t really get
along. I don’t know if he was making a joke or not, but she will
not be leaving here because he has an aversion to cats. She’ll stay
here before him any day.

I’m sure she has, but
remind Lila she has to report to the local leap. And before you
ask, that’s what a bunch of cats are called. Sometimes they’re
called a pride, depending on what sort of cats they are.
Blair laughed again.
Your Lila, she just emailed me about an appointment with you.
We have one?

I wanted to talk to you
about expanding. You should grow more. You’re not hitting your
potential.
Blair asked him how much bigger
he expected him to go.
As far reaching as
the world.

~~~

“
When you letting me out
of here, Luna? I got to get to my stuff. They’ll rob a man blind if
you don’t watch yourself.” Ruby grinned at Bart as she looked over
his chart. “I’m better than I was when that cock sucker shot
me.”

“
I know that. And you know
why too.” That made him shut up and Ruby went to his bed. “You
would have died had he not stepped in, and you know it. How you
even spoke to me at all is still mind boggling to me. But Bri wants
you to stay with them. She said that she needs a pain in the ass to
come keep her in line.”

Bart huffed. “I ain’t lived in a house
in more years than I ever did. I don’t know how to act in one. The
walls are closing in on me here.” He looked around. “The food is
terrible too.”

“
We can see about getting
you a better meal plan.” Ruby had already made arrangements on his
chart for his meals to be upgraded. The man was very picky for a
homeless guy. “The police want to talk to you too. And the Feds.
They have it in their head that you might know something. Do
you?”

“
I know that guy in the
car come over and poked me with his cane before he lit out of
there. Why did…does this have to do with Lilywhite and her brother?
He did say it was for them. Not sure who this man thought he was
messing with, but I don’t go down easy.” Ruby knew that he’d
struggled hard to get there that day, and then again to talk to her
when he’d been brought in. “I know I gave you a paper. When can I
have that back?”

Ruby took the paper out of her pocket
and handed it to him. He looked it over before putting it in his
worn wallet. She didn’t ask what it was for, and he didn’t
volunteer any information either. Instead she sat down
again.

“
I need to talk to you
about this guy that watched. What did he look like?” She had a
feeling it was Manson but wanted to be sure. The fact that he’d
touched Bart at some point during the fight had given her enough to
capture his scent, but she wanted a visual to go with
it.

“
Big as a flipping house,
he was. If’n he’d have fallen on me, he’d have crushed me like a
bug. And in my life on the street, I’ve seen some pretty big bugs.”
She nodded. So far the description fit the one that Dwight had
given her. “And he had this here mark on his face. Like somebody
went and carved him up with a sword or something.”

Bingo. “It was a whip, I guess. Seems
when he was a kid, his daddy wasn’t such a nice guy about having a
lazy son.”

Bart nodded and then looked at her
hard. “You going after him? You and that mate of yours, you going
after this here feller?” She nodded. “Good.”

Ruby had no idea what she had
expected, but him telling her “good” wasn’t anywhere near it. She
laughed when he told her she had the balls to do it too.

“
And Josh? What do you
think of him?” Bart looked around the room before looking at her
again. “You don’t think he can fight?”

“
He can fight. But he’ll
be…the man’s head won’t be on saving his own ass, but yours. Not
that you need saving, but he’s a good man and might need a little
talking to beforehand.” Ruby had thought the same thing. “You got
it in your head to do this, ain’t no talking you out of
it?”

“
No. I need to finish this
so that we can move on. And this guy hurt someone I’ve come to
admire.” He asked her who that would be. “You. I have a fondness
for cantankerous old men, and you fit that bill nicely.”