Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Contrary to what nearly anyone would believe and what made sense considering her father’s business and her own precision, Ada didn’t like using guns.
They made so much damage, were so final – the ultimate threat. They unleveled the playing field, which, usually, she didn’t enjoy.
But tonight was a different matter.
Tonight, she had used her proficiency to tip the scales back to the side where they belonged, even though after his refusal of her help, she should have allowed Jonny to lose it all himself.
She would have done so, would his downfall not mean her own or that of her friends.
As they rode away from the police station, Jonny tried to speak a few times, likely in protest, but she shook her head at him, telling him to be silent.
She had much to say to him, but she would far prefer to say it when they were alone.
She rapped on the roof of the carriage, and when the driver began to slow, she turned to Will, her gun trained on him.
“You will get out now,” she said. “Tell your employer that Jonny will meet with him soon, that he has what he is looking for, but that if he wants it, this is the last involvement he will have with Jonny or Manchester Central. Do not involve me in your explanation.”
“Or else what?” Will challenged.
“Or else you will find out what the consequences might be,” she said with what she hoped was a sinister smile.
It must have worked, for Will swallowed hard before pushing the door open and stumbling out into the night. They had arrived at the docks, so hopefully, he would be able to pass on his message to Sharpe soon enough.
When he was far enough away, she ordered the driver to continue before pulling the door closed and staring at Jonny from across the seat.
“I think you can put down the gun now,” he muttered. She actually rather enjoyed having this power over him tonight, especially after this had all proven her to be correct — he had needed her.
“Can I?” she asked, lifting it as though she was inspecting it. “It’s rather fun to hold you at gunpoint.”
“Apparently,” he said wryly, but she did lower it, making sure she set the hammer at half-cock.
“Well?” she said, leaning back against the squab. “Are you going to thank me?”
“Thank you?” he said incredulously. “For what?”
“For rescuing you in there,” she said in equal disbelief. “If I hadn’t arrived, Will would have the ledger and you’d be sitting in one of those jail cells.”
He scoffed. “I had that well in hand. There was no way Will was leaving with the ledger.”
“Very well. You both would have been in a cell,” she said. “Better?”
She lifted a brow and waited. Despite her annoyance with him, she couldn’t deny how attractive he was to her, how she couldn’t help but eye that solidly built muscle beneath his shirt which had her fingers itching to reach out and feel it for herself.
She had tried to deny how she felt about him – physically, of course, for she had no interest in him in any other regard – but it seemed the only way to keep herself from thinking about him was either to get him out of her life or to maybe – just maybe – have another little taste.
“Fine,” he said, his eyes glinting. “Thank you, Ada, for following me when I told you not to, and running into a police house with your gun, shooting everything that moved — and many things that didn’t — just to prove a point.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Just can’t admit a woman saved you, can you?
” she said. “I seem to recall you being the same man who said the women should stay at home during your rescue attempt last year. Let me ask you, how would that have turned out for you if we had done as you said? Oh, yes, you would all be at the bottom of the River Irwell. You nearly were, as it was, thanks to your brother’s arrival. ”
He grunted, refusing to meet her eye as he crossed his arms over his chest. She thought about her conversation with Emmaline.
It was time to rethink Jonny as a man to enjoy.
For he was far from fun and would never be the man to ensure she was enjoying herself, despite how much her body seemed to want him.
Far better to find someone else. Someone different.
“What is your next question?” she said, tapping her finger on her chin as though she was having a conversation with him and not with herself.
“Oh, yes, why did I come? Well, unlike what you might think, I did not come to save you for your own benefit. If you had been caught, we all would have been implicated as we were part of this with you, of which Finch is well aware.” She stared at his expression, even as he tried to hide it from her.
“I see that you already considered this, judging from the guilt in your eyes.”
“I do not feel guilty.”
“He can talk! Ashamed, then?”
“Listen, Ada, just take me wherever you want to take me, and then do what you want with the ledger. I know you think the worst of me, but I was only trying to find it so that I could give it back to Sharpe and keep him away from me and those who are close to me. Got it?”
She studied him silently for a moment.
“I do not doubt your intentions. I do doubt your ability to take this all on yourself. There’s nothing wrong in accepting some help.”
“From you?” he said incredulously.
“From anyone,” she finished. “Listen, Jonny, out of everyone you know, I am the one who is most aware of Sharpe and Blackwood’s operations. You can work alone, or we can work together, sharing what we know to try to get you away from him and living your own life again.”
“What’s in this for you?” he asked suspiciously. “And how can you even help?”
She smiled slowly. “I can provide you with information about how Sharpe operates,” she said. “My father supplied him with ammunition for years. He knows the who’s who of the entire operation. I can also help you when needed. Like tonight.”
“I was hoping to give him the ledger and be done with it,” he said, but she could tell from the resignation in his eyes that he knew the truth as well as she did.
“Jonny,” she said, shifting closer to him, looking deeply into the depths of his warm brown eyes with their hint of gold.
“As much as we can hope that to be true, we both know that this will never be the end. If you give him the ledger, he will see it as you agreeing to work with him. He will suck you back under, and you will never be free of him.”
“So, what’s the alternative?” Jonny practically shouted at her, realizing in the moment that they had continued to lean toward one another as they spoke, and she was now just a breath away from him.
“That I don’t give him the ledger? He will keep coming after those I love until I return it, and then he will be more powerful than ever with the information within it. ”
“I have a plan,” she said. “And the end? That is what I want from this. To bring him down. Him, and everyone alongside him.”
Jonny could only stare at her. Part of him was so deeply emasculated by the fact that he had to rely on her for help, that he hadn’t come through this alone.
The other part of him wanted her so desperately that it was becoming harder and harder to hide the fact.
The best way to do so, he considered, was as he had been doing — defending himself by pushing her away.
“You really think that you can take down Sharpe?”
“I think that we can take down the entire organization. Sometimes you can’t go at everything alone, Jonny.”
He had tried to do things with others before, but all that had gotten him was betrayal. Even last year, when he had joined forces with his new teammates, in the end, they still questioned him, still doubted him, still wondered if he had truly left his old life behind.
“You think it’s better to do it with you?”
“Your friends care about you, Jonny,” she said in a softer tone. “Even if you don’t believe it.”
He snorted. “I’ve seen that play out, luv,” he said. “No one will ever truly believe I’ve changed.”
“You’re wrong in that.”
“Am I, though?” he challenged her. “I miss one practice, and Rhys is on my ass. You didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said calmly. “How was I supposed to trust the man who I witnessed showing up at my house, demanding my father to go along with Blackwood’s demands or else he would hurt me and my entire family?”
Jonny took a sharp inhale. He had gone to her father’s house, yes. Had made threats. But he had never followed through on them, nor had he ever had any intention to do so. He couldn’t say the same for Blackwood’s other men.
“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered. “I would never have hurt you.”
“I’m growing to believe you,” she said. “But you have to understand where I’m coming from.”
“And you have to realize that your father supplied guns for all of Blackwood’s operations. That hardly makes you innocent.”
“Do you take the blame for your father’s actions? Your brother’s?”
He didn’t have much to say to that.
“Exactly,” she said. “That’s what I thought. My father made mistakes, yes, but I was just a child. Interesting that your brother also didn’t recognize me.”
“You were so young,” he muttered.
“So, you do remember me.”
“I always remembered you. I just didn’t realize the little girl I remembered was the woman standing before me.”
Tension filled the air between them, their shared past a reminder that their future didn’t have to be the same, that there was another way forward – if they worked together.
“If we do this,” he finally said, and she lifted a brow, waiting. He cleared his throat, twining his fingers together. “If we do this, how does it work? Do we ask everyone else to be involved?”
“Maybe eventually,” she said. “But for now, I think it’s just you and me.”
“You and me,” he repeated, as the carriage jerked to a halt. Ada, caught off guard as she had been too intent on Jonny instead of her surroundings, lurched forward into him, but he was already reacting, his arms lifting, his hands wrapping tightly around her shoulders as he kept her from falling.
“Thank you,” she murmured, awareness tingling every place they touched, from their knees to his hands, still wrapped around her upper arms.
“Of course,” he said, looking everywhere but at her. “Where are we?”
“Well,” she said with a wry smile as she retook her seat, “if we are where we are supposed to be, we are at your residence.”
“How do you know where I live?” he asked in a sharp tone.
“I made it my business to know all I could about you once you involved yourself with Minnie’s rescue last year,” she said with a shrug. “Just in case.”
He shook his head at her as he made his way toward the carriage door, his hand brushing against her leg as he moved by her.
“You going to give me back the ledger?”
“I’d like to look over it first. See if there’s anything interesting within that we can use.”
“I’d like a look at it myself.”
“We’ll meet up. I’ll send you a note.”
He sighed in resignation before looking around him as though realizing what he was sitting in for the first time.
“Whose carriage is this?”
“Lily and Colin’s.”
“Do your parents know where you are?”
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “They think I am upstairs in bed.”
“I’m not sure what to think of you, Ada Jones,” he said in that low, gravelly voice of his that did terrible things to her insides. “Every time I encounter you, I find myself surprised all over again.”
“That sounds terribly fun,” she said as he climbed down the stairs of the carriage, “for every time I see you, I am proven right, again and again.”
At that, he shut the carriage door, and she grinned at his retreating back.
She had won this round, in a game that he didn’t even know they were playing.