“Some cop you are,” the man said, his voice muffled. “I walked right in here.”
Mark wouldn’t have fallen for a ruse unless it was exceedingly well thought out. I had yet to meet someone who could deceive my boss.
And then I knew. Nausea climbed up my throat. How the hell had he gotten in here with a weapon? He’d had help. Inside help. Was there no one my father couldn’t get to?
“Put the gun down, Theo.”
He looked at me with intensely odd blue eyes. The colored contacts Jonah and Melanie had talked about. His face was covered in a black mask, his eyes distorted, and he’d tried to disguise his voice, but I would know him anywhere.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” my father said. “You’re going to call off the Steel brothers, and you’re going to stop trailing me. Got it? Otherwise, your boss here meets his maker.”
“Don’t listen to him, Ruby,” Mark said. “He’s bluffing.”
My father pushed the gun farther into Mark’s temple, wrinkling the skin. “I don’t bluff.”
No, my father didn’t bluff.
“Let him go,” I said.
“Not until you do as I say.”
“How stupid are you?” Mark asked, his voice never wavering. The man had nerves of steel. “You walk right into the police station and make demands? How the hell did you get past security? Past the blues on duty? You’ll never get out of here alive.”
“You’ll die before I do,” my father said.
“You need money, don’t you?” I said. “I don’t have any, but I can get some.”
“From your Steel boyfriend?”
“What does it matter, as long as I get it?”
“The only money I want is from his father.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Then tell me where his father is.”
“He’s dead.”
“That’s an old song, Dad. We know he’s alive. We know he faked his own death. What we don’t know is why.”
“I don’t know any more than you do.”
“You’re lying. And now you’re going broke, aren’t you? How much did it cost you to pay off Mills and Johnson? To get them off the Steels’ case?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ruby,” Mark said, his voice still calm. “I can handle this.”
My gun was in my shoulder holster. I was fast, but I wouldn’t be fast enough. By the time I could get to my weapon and take down my father
, Mark would have a bullet in his brain.
Oddly, I didn’t fear for my own life. So many years had passed, and my father hadn’t taken me out. He could have, but he hadn’t. I had every confidence that I wasn’t about to lose my life.
I wasn’t very confident about Mark’s life, though. I had to get him out of here.
This was all surreal. Mark was an outstanding detective and a renowned martial artist as well. How could my father have gotten the best of him?
Unless…