Page 131 of Ruby Mercy

“Spare me the bullshit, Rayne.”

“It isn’t bullshit!” she insists. “At the end of the day, you’re a rich, powerful man who feels the way all rich, powerful men do. A maid is fun for a romp, but she isn’t the woman you marry. As much as you claim to hate her, Viktoria is the kind of woman you know you should be with. I won’t spend my life trying to be her.”

Rayne’s house comes up on the left, and I pull along the curb. I can see the door hanging at an awkward angle from where I kicked it in. There is loud music pumping out of the shuttered, graffitied crack house next door.

She thinks I look down on her because this is where she lives. Really, I look down on where she lives because she deserves better. She and Yuliana both are too good for this.

They shouldn’t be in just any house.

They should be inmine.

Telling Rayne that won’t change a thing, though. She wants to do this the hard way? Fine. We can do it the hard way.

Rayne unbuckles her seatbelt, but I reach over and grab it, pulling tight so she’s held captive in the seat.

“What are you—”

“I expect to see you first thing tomorrow morning,” I tell her. “You want to be a maid? Then show up tomorrow and be a maid. I won’t be paying you for the last two days. You didn’t submit a formal request to have them off.”

I release the belt, but Rayne stays perfectly still. Her face turns red. “You are such—”

“Don’t say anything you’ll regret. I’d hate to have to fire you for insubordination.”

Her lips clamp closed. Silently, she gets out of the car and unbuckles Yuliana from the backseat. The little girl is drowsy, but she gives me a small, limp wave as she climbs out of the car.

For her sake, I dig up a smile and wave back.

I watch Rayne lug their bags up the walkway to the broken front door and disappear inside.

As I drive away, I text German.Get security on Rayne’s house immediately. I want someone stationed there all night.

She can be reckless if she wants.

But I’m always going to protect what’s mine.

45

RAYNE

“I know you’re having a hard day, but if you don’t move your ass so I can mop this floor and leave for the day, I’m going to shove you out that window.”

I turn and see Natalia standing next to me with a mop paused a foot away from me. Water is pooling in a circle around the brush.

“I’m sorry.” I step back from the window and drop onto the couch. “I’m not being any help at all.”

Natalia shrugs. “I get it. You just found out you’re losing your dad. Err, well, not your dad, but—How exactly are you categorizing Kenneth Garner’s relationship to you now?”

“I haven’t had the time, energy, or desire to think about it.”

“Fair enough,” she says. “Long story short, you lost your dad in multiple ways this weekend. If anyone deserves to stare blankly out of windows for a while, it’s you. Though if you ever shut your phone off for that long ever again, I will have to put a tracking device in your arm while you’re sleeping.”

I let out a choked laugh and rest my head back on the sofa. “Deal.”

Natalia and Harmony took turns absolutely letting me have it last night.“What in the hell were you thinking going off the grid like that?”Natalia had scolded. I turned on my phone and called her once I put Yuliana to bed. She answered the call already yelling at me.“I was about to call the police. Do you understand that? Lana didn’t know where you were. When I talked to her, she said you’d called her looking for Yuliana. Like, what the hell?”

“That was a misunderstanding. Yuliana was fine. Kirill had her.”

Natalia was also livid about me not keeping her updated on my dad’s prognosis and the whole “Rayne, I’m not your father” fiasco, but Harmony was hung up on the Kirill of it all.

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