“Well enough to know she’s off-limits if you’re thinking about causing any trouble, and from what I heard from my wife, you tried to stir up some shit,” Bolt replied. “Royal Harlots protect their own. Banshee would skin a man alive before she let shit happen to that girl.”
Ant raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
Bolt nodded his head. “Yep, she has earned her place with us. Saved my life in Nashville last year and has been patching up Royal Bastards and Harlots’ wounds since before she was even licensed. Got a heart bigger than most people.”
Ant leaned casually against the wall outside HR. “That so? Cause I’ve seen her someplace that doesn’t exactly scream that she’s a doctor.”
Bolt’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
Ant held his stare. “Strip club off 23. Velvet House. I work there in my spare time for them as a bouncer. She was dancing under the name of Scarlet.” He could have cut the silence with a knife, and he worried that he had said too much. Bolt’s jaw locked, and something like a warning flickered behind his eyes.
“You’re wrong,” he said firmly. “Ruby wasn’t dancing anywhere. That wasn’t her.”
Ant nodded slowly. “Sure. Maybe I mixed her up with someone else.” He hadn’t, but from the look on Bolt’s face, there would be no convincing him of the truth.
Just then, the HR door opened. A woman with large glasses and a clipboard called them in. “Anthony Sawyer,” she said, calling him by his full name. Only his grandmother and schoolteachers ever used his given name.
“Just Ant,” he corrected automatically, stepping inside. Bolt followed—but not before giving Ant one last look. It was a look that told him to back the fuck off, Ruby, but Ant wasn’t sure if he could do that. Because, for some gnawing reason, deep down in his gut, he just had to know if he was right—no matter what the cost.
Ant sat through paperwork, fingerprints, and an orientation video about confidentiality and operational protocol. All the while, his mind drifted. Why was she lying about working at the strip club? Who was she afraid of—her past? Or her own people? Maybe even herself, but he wouldn’t know unless he pushed the subject, and everyone was telling him to back off.
After the HR rep finished his ID badge and slid it across the desk, she smiled politely. “Welcome to Huntsville Operations, Mr. Sawyer. We appreciate what you’re doing. Just remember—” she lowered her voice, almost like she’d been trained to say it, “this unit runs on trust.”
Ant’s hand froze halfway to the badge. “Trust, right?” he murmured. He stood, pocketed the badge, and finally said the thing that’d been buzzing in his head since last night. “What happens when someone’s living two lives? Which one do we trust?” He looked straight at Bolt when he asked his questions.
Bolt stiffened beside him as the HR woman blinked up at him, seeming thrown off. And all Ant could do was smile, smooth and easy.
“Just a hypothetical question, of course,” he quickly added. But there was nothing hypothetical about it.
As they walked out into the sunlight, Bolt finally spoke up. “You got questions about Ruby; you bring them to me first. She has nothing to do with the FBI.”
Ant looked over. “And if I want answers, are you going to tell me to let them go?”
Bolt’s voice dropped—dangerous quiet. “Then you'd better start deciding whose side you’re really on. She’s a Harlot and questioning her will mean questioning them all. They won’t like that, and neither will Savage and the Bastards. Don’t go borrowing trouble.” Ant wasn’t opposed to trouble. He used to love trouble when he was younger. The question was, would Ruby be trouble that he could handle?
They stood there a moment—his new HR badge on one side of Ant’s chest, and the echo of a dance studio spotlight burning on the other. He had been living two lives for a while now. He always lived in two worlds, skirting the edge of good versus bad, but still knowing the difference. Two worlds—one truth waiting to break loose. And Ant knew one thing for damn sure—he wasn’t done with Doctor Ruby Monroe. Not yet—not even by a long shot.
Hospitals always feltlike a foreign country to him. They were too bright and too sterile—like they wanted to scrub out anything real. He’d healed in places like this before, but he never felt whole because of them. They were the kind of place that stitched up your body but ignored everything broken deeper inside.
Ant sat in the exam room, elbows on his knees, looking out the half-closed blinds. The hallway echoed with distant footsteps, loud voices, and monitors beeping. Everyday life—seen through glass. He didn’t belong here. And he didn’t like waiting, but he had no choice. He was there to finish onboarding with the FBI, and without a drug screening and check-up, he’d never be able to start work. No amount of insistence that he was fine would change anything for him either.
Then the door opened, and Ruby stepped inside the small room, making it feel even smaller. She had his chart in her hand and a quiet determination in her eyes. She was wearing light blue scrubs that were covered by her white lab coat. Her stethoscope hung around her neck, and her hair was pulled back like she meant business. She didn’t look as surprised to see him as he was to see her. In fact, he was shocked to find her standing in front of him. But Ruby only looked troubled.
“Ant.” She shut the door behind her. “Didn’t know you were assigned to me this morning.”
“Didn’t know I was getting special treatment,” he said with a smirk.
“You’re here for a check-up and bloodwork,” she said, more stating a fact than asking him a question.
“It’s standard procedure,” he insisted. “Onboarding stuff for the FBI.” She kept things professional, moving toward the computer to log his vitals after she took his blood pressure and pulse.
“We will run a quick physical, draw blood, and sign you off for active federal clearance,” she explained. “We do these all the time for the Arsenal and FBI.” He watched her hands as she typed—steady and skilled. “Just routine,” she said quickly, as though she was trying to rush through everything. “You’ll be cleared by this afternoon.”
He leaned back on the exam table. “Funny thing is, I’m not used to being examined by someone I’ve seen dance on a stage before.” Yeah, there was no way that he was going to be able to drop the subject—even after Banshee and Bolt both warned him to. There was something about Ruby that both rubbed him the wrong way and turned him completely on at the same time.
Her shoulders stiffened—but she didn’t stop working. “I told you,” Ruby said, her voice controlled, “that wasn’t me. You’remistaken. Maybe I just have one of those faces and look like someone else you know.”
“You sure?” Ant tilted his head. “The Velvet House, off Highway 23. It was just a few days back, and I could swear that it was you on stage that night. You’re not someone that I’d easily forget.”
