“You can’t be my chauffeur all day, Ant. Besides, I don’t need the rest of the hospital talking about me and some hot guy who dropped me off.”
“You think I’m hot?” he asked, bobbing his eyebrows at her.
She giggled, “You’re missing the point,” she insisted. “You can’t just drive me around town. I can go to work, and after, I’ll meet you back at your place,” she offered. She was compromising with him, and he admired that.
“Fine,” he breathed. “But you call me when you’re done,” he said. “I’ll walk you to your bike. And if anything feels off—anything—you don’t second-guess it. You call me.”
Ruby nodded. “You’re not my keeper. I can handle myself.”
“No,” Ant agreed. “I’m your backup.” She smiled faintly at that. “When you get done kicking ass, I’ll take over.”
As he turned to leave her to pack, she stopped him. “Ant?” He paused, waiting for her to continue. “Last night you didn’t ask for anything. You had no expectations, and for that I’m grateful.”
He met her eyes. “That’s not how this works, Ruby. I’m not doing this so you’ll owe me. Hell, I’m not really sure why I’m doing this, but it’s not so you will do anything in return.”
Her voice was soft. “Then how does it work?” Ant didn’t have a clean answer. The truth was messier than either of them probably wanted to admit.
“It works one step at a time,” he said. “And we don’t pretend danger disappears just because no one is sitting in the parking lot, stalking you.” She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t wait around for a response. “I’ll be in my truck. Just come down when you are ready, and I’ll take your bags back to my place.” She watched him go, and Ant felt the weight of that gaze long after the door closed behind him.
As he walked to his truck, phone already in his hand, he sent a single text to Bolt.
Ant: Keep your eyes open. I’m betting the situation isn’t done, and Ruby is going to work.
Bolt: We need to talk. I’ll call you in a few.
Ant didn’t like Bolt’s message. He had a feeling that things were about to go sideways, and he wasn’t sure that letting Ruby work her shift at the hospital was the best idea. Whatever the man in the parking lot thought he was owed, he seemed hellbent on collecting. He’d just have to make sure that didn’t happen. Because Ant knew one thing for sure, Ruby wasn’t alone anymore—he’d make sure of it.
RUBY
Ruby quickly packed some more of her things and ran them down to Ant, who was waiting in his truck for her to finish. He was watching her place, and she wondered why his mood had shifted. He was usually a bit grumpy, but in the past ten minutes that he had left her, he had become downright irritable. Something was off, but when she asked him about it, he told her that she was imagining things and that everything was fine. She wanted to call him a liar outright, but thought better of it when he practically growled at her to get on her bike and get moving, or she was going to be late.
She was never one to do as she was told, but for some reason, she found herself doing as Ant asked her, not bothering to look back over her shoulder to find him watching her. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked over to her bike.
She got to the hospital with fifteen minutes to spare and decided to grab some coffee before starting her rounds. Everything around her felt wrong, as though she was waiting for the other shoe to drop all morning. Ruby was finishing rounds when her phone buzzed for the third time in ten minutes. She ignored it—muscle memory drilled into her from residency—until the pit in her stomach refused to be ignored. She stepped into an empty supply room and checked the screen.
Banshee:You need to call me—NOW!
And if that wasn’t enough for one morning, she had a second message from Bolt.
Bolt: Call me. Now!
Banshee would have to wait. Her fingers felt clumsy as she hit Bolt’s number, worried that something had happened to Ant.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she said the second he answered. “Is Ant okay?” There was a pause on the other end—too long. The kind that meant something bad had already happened, and there was no taking it back.
“They ID’d the guy you had a run-in with last night,” Bolt said. “The one from the club who sat in your parking lot.”
Ruby closed her eyes, the shelves pressing in around her. “Okay.”
“He’s wanted,” Bolt continued. “For kidnapping young women two states over. He has an active warrant out for his arrest that just hit the system this morning.” Her knees buckled. She grabbed the edge of the counter, breath rushing out of her lungs like she’d been punched.
He was wanted for kidnapping. Not harassment or assault, but something much worse. Something that didn’t end with fear alone.
“I—” Her voice broke. She swallowed hard. “Tell me that you didn’t let him go.”
“We did. We didn’t have cause to hold him then,” Bolt said, anger threading through his voice. “Ant’s tearing himself apart over it.”
Ruby slid down the wall and sat on the floor, her scrubs whispering against the tile. Images she didn’t want to think about flooded her mind—his hands, his voice, the way he’d looked at her like she was an unpaid debt.
