Chương 9
“To beg?”
“To explain.”
“You don’t listen until someone bleeds.”
The blade reached Sebastian’s collar.
Then Ranger struck Dominic from the side.
The dog’s weight knocked him off balance. The knife skidded away. Ranger clamped onto the sleeve of the gray overcoat and pulled, growling with a depth Sebastian had not heard at the gate.
Theo stood in the doorway behind him.
His face was white.
Ortiz and two officers entered from the opposite corridor, shouting commands.
Dominic twisted free of the torn coat and dove toward the gun beneath the rack.
Sebastian reached it first.
He rose with the pistol aimed at Dominic’s chest.
Everything stopped.
Dominic remained on one knee, one hand stretched toward the empty space where the weapon had been. Ranger stood between Ruby and the men, injured leg lifted, teeth bared.
Ortiz aimed at Dominic.
“Hands on your head.”
Dominic looked only at Sebastian.
“You know what happens if I live,” he said.
“Yes.”
“The records. The names. Every order.”
“Yes.”
“You think prison makes you a father?”
Sebastian’s finger rested on the trigger.
Dominic’s face was no longer the face of the man at Ruby’s dinner table. It was not the face of a monster either. It was worse than either simplicity. He looked frightened, humiliated, furious, and convinced that the betrayal had begun somewhere outside himself.
Sebastian had killed men for less.
He had also killed them because Dominic arranged the room, removed the witnesses, and later poured two drinks without asking whether Sebastian wanted one.
Ruby stood behind Ranger.
Her eyes were on the gun.
Sebastian lowered it.
Ortiz crossed the room and forced Dominic to the floor. One officer cuffed his hands behind his back while the other recovered the knife.
Dominic turned his head against the concrete.
“That won’t make her forget,” he said.
Sebastian placed the pistol on the table.
“No,” he said. “It won’t.”
Ruby ran to him.
He dropped to one knee and caught her. The force of her small body nearly knocked him backward. She pressed her face against his neck, then pulled away as if remembering something urgent.
“Micah.”
“He’s safe.”
“Theo?”
Sebastian looked toward the doorway.
Theo had both hands buried in Ranger’s fur. The dog leaned heavily against him, panting. A dark stain had spread around the wound on his front leg.
“Theo is here,” Sebastian said.
Ruby reached for him.
Theo hesitated before stepping closer.
She hugged him with one arm, keeping the other around Sebastian’s neck. Theo stood rigid at first. Then his trembling hands touched the back of her dress.
“You came back,” she said.
“You told Micah where to go.”
“I thought my dad would know what to do.”
Theo looked at Sebastian over her shoulder.
“He didn’t at first.”
Ruby considered that, then nodded as though this matched other evidence she had collected.
“He does that.”
Ortiz heard her and looked away, perhaps to hide a smile.
The tactical medic found a second cut on Sebastian’s arm and wrapped it while asking questions he answered badly. Another team carried Warren toward the loading bay. Warren was conscious and complaining that the stretcher straps were too tight.
As he passed the sorting room, Ruby pulled free and ran to him.
Warren lifted one hand.
“You were supposed to stay at the party,” he said.
“You were supposed to stop them.”
The words struck everyone nearby.
Warren’s hand lowered.
“Yes,” he said. “I was.”
Ruby touched the edge of the stretcher. Her anger lasted three seconds before fear displaced it.
“Are you dying?”
“No.”
The medic said, “He is not.”
Warren frowned at him. “I answered.”
“You answer optimistically.”
“I employ you.”
“Not anymore, probably.”
Warren looked toward Sebastian. “See what you’ve done? Employees are developing personalities.”
The humor was weak and badly timed, which made Ruby laugh once through her tears.
Then the stretcher carried him away.
Ortiz took Sebastian aside while officers photographed the room.
“Theo was supposed to be at the pump house,” she said.
Sebastian looked toward the boy.
“I told him to stay.”
“That must have been a new experience for both of you.”
“How did he get here?”
“One of your vehicles left the pump house after the medic called for transport. Theo hid behind the rear seats with the dog. Your people drove an eight-year-old child into an active hostage scene without noticing.”
“My people are having a difficult morning.”
“So are mine, and they count the children before moving vehicles.”
She glanced at the blood on his shirt.
“You need a hospital.”
“My daughter needs one first.”
“Both can be true.”
An officer approached and handed Ortiz a clear evidence bag containing Ruby’s shoe from the pump house. Sebastian looked down at the matching shoe still on Ruby’s other foot.
Ortiz followed his gaze.
“We’ll return personal items after processing.”
Sebastian nodded.
Her expression changed slightly, perhaps because he had agreed to something without an argument.
“You understand that you are not leaving,” she said.
“Ruby goes with Warren.”
“Warren is going into surgery.”
“My sister, Celia.”
“Where is she?”
“On a plane from Chicago.”
“Then child services will coordinate temporary care until she arrives.”
Sebastian’s head came up. “Ruby does not go into the system.”
“You do not decide that by volume or net worth. She is a kidnapping victim, her primary guardian is implicated in an active criminal investigation, and the people responsible included household staff.”
“I am not implicated in her kidnapping.”
“You are implicated in enough other things that your administrator token nearly caused three federal servers to have nervous breakdowns.”
Ruby stood twenty feet away with Theo, watching an officer bandage Ranger’s leg. She looked small inside the ruined sorting room.
Sebastian lowered his voice. “Do not put her with strangers.”
May you like
Ortiz’s face softened by an amount most people would have missed.
“She can remain at the hospital under protective supervision until your sister arrives. You will be treated there under guard. That is the most I can do without pretending procedure disappeared because today was terrible.”
