The Dom Identity (Masters & Mercenaries Reloaded 2)

“I have frozen pizzas.” It was terrible health wise, but sometimes calories were calories.

Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Pepperoni?”

“Yep.” She’d gotten them on sale. “I’ll heat it up, and you can tell me all about your day.”

“I have some news,” Ruby said, hopping on the bar seat.

“Nope. Day first, business later.” Ruby didn’t seem to have a lot of friends, and her parents were a mess. She needed someone to talk to about the little things. Even when times were the worst, Vanessa had been able to talk to Nicki. Even when they had been fighting, her sister would always answer the phone. “How was your history test?”

Ruby groaned and drew the hood back, and with a sigh started talking.

Twenty minutes and one hot, somewhat plastic-tasting pizza later, she sat at the small bistro table as Ruby got down to business.

“I can’t get through that firewall,” the teen admitted, her eyes on the screen.

Vanessa felt her stomach threaten to flip. “What firewall are you talking about?”

Ruby’s mouth firmed to a mulish frown.

Vanessa was on her feet, pacing back and forth. “I told you to stay away from Lodge Corp. I’ll get you the names, and you can investigate from there, but you can’t try to get into Lodge’s system. It’s a crime.”

Ruby’s chin came up. “And I’m not eighteen. I’m telling you I can do a couple of years in juvie, easy-peasy. My parents wouldn’t even notice I was gone.”

“When I agreed to let you help me, I had some ground rules.”

Ruby’s eyes rolled. “You don’t know anything about hacking a system, Ness. And if you get caught, you lose everything.”

“I already lost everything. I will not have it happen to you.” She’d met Ruby when she’d caught her crying in the backyard shortly after Nicki’s funeral. She’d been sitting on the porch swing, her long legs curled up to her chest, sobbing so hard she hadn’t heard Vanessa come outside.

She hadn’t known why this teen was sitting in her backyard, and it hadn’t mattered. She’d simply sat down beside her and for the first time since she’d gotten the news her sister was gone, she’d been able to cry. Ruby had looked up, startled, but she seemed to have understood Vanessa meant no harm. So they’d sat there, rocking and crying. Eventually Ruby had gotten up, put a hand on her shoulder, and nodded before jumping the fence and walking away.

It had taken two more crying jags to get the young woman to talk. In the months she’d been here, she’d probably talked more to a sixteen-year-old girl than even Dani.

Was she fucking up Ruby’s life, too?

Wasn’t that why her mother hadn’t allowed her back in the home she’d grown up in? Because she was a poison that infected every person she came into contact with?

“Hey, I’m not losing anything here, Ness.” Ruby’s expression had lost that eternal rage-against-the-machine look she so often saw there, and concern bled through. “I’m sorry. I wanted to give it a try. I know you said not to. I won’t do it again.”

“It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous.” How would she feel if Ruby got dragged fully into this? If there was one thing she’d learned, it was getting other people hurt was far worse than taking the pain herself.

“Okay.” Ruby nodded, her voice softening as though she knew something would change if she didn’t lower the temp in the room. “Like I said, I made a play, and no one even noticed. But I don’t have the skills to get in and get a list of names of club members. I did get you some information on the names you gave me last week.”

Even having Ruby check out social media profiles and readily available information on the men who went to The Club was risky. “I think you should go.”

Ruby stood in front of her. She was a good three inches taller than Vanessa, though she likely weighed twenty pounds less. She had a gawkiness that would fall off her someday and turn her into a gorgeous swan. Or maybe she would keep that adorable weirdness and be okay with it. “If I go, I’ll still look for the asshole who killed my friend, and I’ll probably do it in new and terrifying ways. I’ll end up on Dateline. Or they’ll do a whole podcast about how they found my body stuffed in a drain somewhere.”

That was why she’d given Ruby something to do. Yep. There it was. “Julian would never stuff you in a drainpipe. He would make sure your body was never found.” Vanessa sighed. “You have to be careful. I don’t think you should be hacking at all.”

Ruby’s lips curled up. “But I’m so good at it. And usually these kinds of businesses have old dudes watching over the gates. They always think they know how to catch people. I will admit that this security is pretty good. I didn’t get far. I got a tiny peek and then I realized someone was coming.”