Page 20 of Heart and Soul
I know what he wants. “Payback.”
He bats eyelashes heavy with mascara. “Payback? Why, whatever for?”
“For breaking up your little street race, which I could have won, by the way.”
“We’ll never know, will we?”
“You had my car.”
“A 2006 Pontiac. Truly hideous.”
“I only took back what was mine.”
“Only?” For the first time, Ruby drops the smile. His eyes lose their spark, turning cold and dead, unblinking. “If you hadonlytaken back what was yours, I wouldn’t be here.”
I don’t like this sudden shift in mood. The music still thumps away, but the demons no longer bob to it. Their dead stares make my flesh crawl. “You’re right,” I stammer, “I…I needed a distraction, and so…”
“And so…you blew up the crown jewel of my car collection.”
“No.”
“No?” Ruby goes to elbow his henchman again.
“No, yes!” I spit out. “Yes, that happened, but it’s not what wassupposedto happen, I swear.”
He blinks, and his mouth drops open. “Oh. Oh my. It wasn’tsupposedto happen, did you hear that, boys? Well, heavens to Hades! This has all just been a misunderstanding. She didn’t mean for any of this to happen. My two-hundred-thousand-dollar muscle car wasn’tsupposedto be wrapped in chains, and it wasn’tsupposedto be hooked onto a crane, and it wasn’tsupposedto be hauled thirty feet up in the air by its ass.”
“No, no, all that was supposed to happen. It’s just the next thing that…”
“Hm? The next thing?”
“Right. The…” I make a gesture with my hands of an explosion. “The whole dropping out of the sky and goingboomthing. That part wasn’t supposed to happen. That was a mistake.”
“A mistake. I see.” Ruby’s thin, pale lips stretch into a mirthless grin. “Whose?”
“What?”
“Whose mistake? You were driving. I know that a man met you on the street. He left a stolen truck. Another man must have been working the crane, and another man must have attached those chains to my darling. The chains, see, they were the weak link, literally. If it’s not your fault, then tell me whose it is. Who hooked up the chains?”
This is no help to me. Brenner hooked up the chains, and Ruby probably knows that. He’s toying with me. When I don’t answer, he elbows his man. Before the demon can unleash a swing at Brenner, I surge forward and bury my claws into the man’s jugular. He lets out a painful gurgle, Ruby screams at me, and a gun presses against my head. Brenner pulls my hand back, releasing the henchman. The other bodyguard keeps his gun trained on my face.
“You owe me!” Ruby screeches. “A lover for a lover, Ms. Davies. I’m a greed demon. That car had greater hold on my heart than any man could ever have on yours.”
“That’s just pathetic.”
“And yet this is all happening because you couldn’t stand to be without your Pontiac. Seems there may be a fair bit of greed demon in you, too, Shayne Davies.”
I have no answer for that, because…truth hurts. Ruby’s right about me being greedy. And Rook’s right about me being blind. And Gorgeous is right about me being stupid. And Mom’s right about me being immature. All of those truths became obvious to me once I started sharing a life with Jay Brenner. Those truths will also be what gets Brenner killed. I know it.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of killing him.” Ruby spreads a content grin at Brenner. “Then again, sometimes things happen that aren’tsupposedto happen. You understand.”
The car makes a sudden stop. Thinking we’ve arrived in the west side, my heart races with panic. Ruby calls up to the front, annoyed. “What is it?”
“This jackass spun out on the ice,” the driver says, honking at a black sedan. “California driver!”
“Take the alley,” Rubicon orders.
We back up and turn into a narrow alley that I recognize with dread. We’re only three blocks from west side territory. Once we cross that border, it would take an army to get us out.
