Page 5 of Ruin

And I hadn’t had a second alone with him between then and the moment when he climbed onto his bike. He’d been so busy putting together the small crew that was going with him that he hadn’t spared me more than a glance.

And I’d convinced myself that I might be exaggerating. After all, he knew Devil just as well as Devil knew him. Surely he’d already thought about the idea that this might be a trap on Devil’s part. Surely he’d thought through the whole thing. He would have a plan in case things went wrong. He’d told me so himself. Plans B, C, and D, just in case.

I was being silly.

But as I watched him ride away, his shape disappearing quickly in the darkness, I couldn’t help but feel like this might very well be the last time I saw him. And if Knight died—if his men died with him—nothing would stop Devil from coming for me. Hell, with Knight gone and most of his men already camped out around Devil’s compound, I was here almost unprotected.

I didn’t think Devil would do anything now, when Knight might come after him. But if Knight didn’t return...

Work, I thought. I needed something to keep my hands—and my brain—busy while I waited. Otherwise I’d stand here staring into the dark for hours, thinking too much and expecting the worst possible outcome.

I WHEELED THE TV—WHICH for some reason sat on a cart in the bar—into the kitchen and turned it on, flipping until I found a cooking channel. The host was making some sort of chicken and pasta thing, which looked delightful.

“Seems as good as anything else for occupying my mind,” I said.

I walked into the kitchen and started gathering pots, pans, and baking dishes, while keeping an eye on the TV, where they were going over the ingredients I’d need. I thought I’d make a very large version of the recipe. Enough food for everyone once they got back from Devil’s compound.

A celebration of chicken and pasta, if you will.

I pulled all the pasta I could find out of the pantry, took it all out of the packaging, and started the water to boiling in several pots. I’d always heard you needed to boil the water first, and though it sounded like much ado about nothing, I figured this was a good time to try it. Waiting for the water to boil, I started stacking up the spaghetti noodles, getting ready to break them in half.

I’d just picked them up when I heard crashing coming from the garage, directly to my left.

I froze, staring at the wall between me and the garage, while the boiling water hissed and spat as it overflowed the pot. What the hell was that? No one was out there in the garage, I didn’t think.

At least... no one from our camp.

I heard a slight cough behind me and turned, terrified, to see Gemini coming out of the hall that led to the bedrooms. He still wasn’t at full capacity, his shoulder wrapped and shadows beneath his eyes, but his presence made me feel immediately better, like some sort of security blanket.

I might not like Gemini, particularly, but he was very large and very strong, and his job was to protect me. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen.

I hoped.

He turned his eyes from the garage to me, and I could see that he wasn’t so sure about any of that. He put a finger up to his lips, telling me to be quiet, and then turned toward the door that led out to the garage.

CHAPTER 4

KNIGHT

THE DRIVE WENT A WHOLE lot faster than I wanted it to, and before long we were about a mile out, maybe less. We passed the spot in the road where I hoped my men were waiting, guns at the ready and phones by their sides to get any message that I might send them. We blew past the stands of cactus that provided the only shelter in the area, and soon I could see the lights of the compound in the distance, bright and sparkling against the darkness of the desert. I wondered again at Devil’s decision to live all the way out here and remembered again that this was probably the only place he could live.

Every town in the area knew better than to have him inside their borders. He was too dangerous. Too unpredictable.

And if we did our job, this area would never have to deal with him again.

I tuned in to Mandy, who was still sitting behind me. She was shaking with nerves or cold or both, and I wished I could wrap my arms around her or offer her my jacket. Saraya had put her in an oversized hoodie to make her look smaller, so she wasn’t totally unprotected, but the desert in the middle of the night was a wild, unprotected place, and temps dropped quickly. I wondered whether she’d be able to hold the gun she was going to be in charge of. Wondered if she’d be able to shoot it.

If she could get Devil out of the house at all.

If he was even there in the first place. It hadn’t escaped my attention that he might not be. In theory, he’d be there waiting for Saraya. But he’d also have realized that it would make him a sitting duck, prey to whatever was coming for him. If I’d been him, I would have left someone else there in my place and gone to a safe house, where I would be out of the line of fire.

Actually, I wouldn’t have done that. If I’d thought Saraya was coming back to me after an absence, I would have been waiting in that house with bells on, a candlelit dinner and romantic music waiting for her arrival.

But I wasn’t Devil, and now that we were nearly there, I was starting to think that he was too smart to let us sneak up on him like this. And that was going to be a very, very big complication. There were so many ways this plan could go wrong. Which was why I’d decided halfway here that we were going to have to change the plan to something a bit less chancy.

I hoped it made Mandy feel better, rather than enraging her.

I pulled over in another patch of cactus about two hundred yards from the opening of the driveway and cut the engine. Close enough that we could walk into the compound, but far enough away that the engine noise might have just been someone driving on the highway, rather than someone coming for Devil.