Ruby made several attempts to get to know Justin's mother, but the woman always refused to meet the little girl with her crimson hair. This hurted the two children a lot, but made them grow even more strongly attached to one another.
Whenever Ruby's parents lashed out at Justin, Ruby defended him and whenever Justin's mother denied the existence of the little girl, he was there to comfort her.
When Ruby reached the age of 16, she and her brother were as close as they could get. Justin has told her many times before that she has a beautiful voice and Ruby had trained herself as much as possible. Her father thought singing was an idiotic passtime and he wouldn't let her follow any singing lessons. One of Ruby's (older) lovers has offered her a job in his nightclub as a singer. Justin is slightly worried when Ruby breaks the news, but he lets her know he is behind her in whatever she chooses to do. When she and Justin tell her parents at her birthday party, they get furious and a big fight begins. Benjamin and Yvette McLaughlan blame Justin for Ruby's choice. The girl leaves the house angrily and her brother follows. At a quiet place he gives her the birthday present he got her. A crystal on a necklace. Ruby is pleasantly surprised at such a fine jewel and wears it for years, not knowing yet the crystal will have much more meaning to her.
Despite her parents' disapproval Ruby leaves school to sing in the nightclub. Her first step to the adventure she so longs. Justin is quite proud of his two years younger half-sister, until he sees she "loses it" a bit. At the age of 16, the young girl enters a world full of alcohol, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll...Justin worries about her every time he sees her leave the nightclub with yet another older man, but knows it has no use to tell his sister off. Even though her life style changed drastically, the 18 year old Justin and the 16 year old Ruby remain close...
While Ruby has her own nightclub life, Justin gets into the darker era of his own. Together with a man called Tristan Dannon. The man is 6 years older than Justin and works together with him in the small-time crime bussiness. Tristan and Justin become partners and best friends, practically family.
Justin suggests they should go out and have a drink somewhere and they decide they could go see Ruby (17 years old by now) in the nightclub. The moment Tristan lays his eyes on the young redhead he falls madly in love with her. Though Justin notices this, he keeps his distance, not liking the gaze of his best friend on his little sister. Besides that he knows Tristan like no other and knows the man isn't very stable, despite their bussiness...
Ruby, however, feels flattered by the admiring looks the handsome Tristan Dannon gives her and does everything to seduce the man. Again Justin sees a side on Ruby he dislikes, but again he does nothing to interfere. Knowing his sister would never listen to him.
Tristan and Ruby become lovers and the redhead moves out of the house to live with her new "prey". Tristan asks Ruby to marry him and she agrees, not knowing the value of marriage. After all, her parents weren't much of an example... The two become engaged and this time Justin disagrees. Knowing his 18 year old sister knows nothing of the real world yet and will only end up hurting Tristan or being hurt by him. The two men leave the room and a verbal fight commences. Justin tells Tristan how he disagrees with the engagement and Tristan does all he can to convince Justin otherwise. Ruby is left in the living room, upset and alone... All she knows is that Justin leaves furious and Tristan seems strange...as if he's about to explode. Yet when he sees his young lover he calms down.
A couple of years pass by and Tristan becomes more and more unhappy with his lover. Ruby has not given up on her wild lovelife and makes it a regular habit of drinking Scotch on the rocks. More than she can bare...
Ruby feels unhappy with the life she leads now. Suffocated by the love of Tristan and prisoned by the boring London, she decides she wants to leave for New York to seek fame and fortune. Ruby is 21 by now...She discusses the matter with Tristan and he begs his fiancée not to go, for he cannot go with her. He has bussiness to do with her brother. The contact between her and her brother has faded a lot, so she does not seek advice from him anymore.
She leaves anyway, only leaving a note for Tristan and a phone number....her cell phone number...
Tristan cannot bare the pain of the loss of Ruby and feels his life has no meaning anymore. On a cold morning he hangs himself , leaving a letter on the kitchen table, right next to the note Ruby left...
Justin feels anger and hurt stirring up and firstly blames his halfsister for his best friend's death. He calls her on the number she left for Tristan...
It's night in New York City when Ruby's cell phone rings, she's at a café with a friend and seeks a quiet corner to answer the phone. When she hears it's her brother on the other side of the line she is pleasantly surprised, but soon the smile on her lips fades when Justin shouts at her. Ruby asks him calmly what happened, but all she can remember of the flow of harsh words from Justin's lips are "Tristan killed himself. He killed himself because of you!"
The young woman returns to her friend, her skin even more pale than it already was. However, no questions are asked and Ruby goes on with her life as well as possible. Though she will now always be haunted by the guiltfeeling, knowing she is the reason of Tristan's death...
In the meanwhile Justin proceeds with the crime bussiness he is in and gets a new "job"... he is supposed to kill a man, but steal some of the man's properties as well, so it looks like a robbery that has gotten out of hand. Justin soon discovers the man he is supposed to kill isn't an ordinary man. The man jumps on him and a struggle begins, where Justin is thrown out of the window and lands on a car, seeing the man has fangs...
Luckily Justin manages to get out alive and wakes up in a hospital. After his recovery he can't help but feel watched every time he goes down the street and every night he is asleep in his bed. He tries hard to buy a flight ticket to New York City with his last money to find his sister. The only one he feels he could trust.
Ruby in the meantime has had her encounters with vampires, werewolves, werecats and daemons and is quite used to the way of life in New York. When she and one of her one-night-stands are about to go into the house, her cell phone rings. When she picks up all she can hear is breathing... Justin hangs up on the other side and Ruby feels a strange sting in her chest. then she sees a figure dawning in the mist. No one other than her brother Justin. Not knowing wether she should be happy to see him or not, the greeting remains calm and cold.
In a café Justin explains to Ruby what happened. he seems scared, franctic and paranoid. This time the parts have changed... Ruby is there to proect her big brother and not the other way around. Justin isn't quite sure how he should feel about this, but the ice has broken. The two are happy to see each other again and Ruby offers him a place to stay with her.
When Ruby meets a mage called Joseph Halfyard with whom she falls head over heels in love with, she has a talk with her brother, telling him how guilty she feels about Tristan. Justin explains to her his reaction wasn't right and that Ruby is not to blame. It was Tristan's own choice and he feels it is his sister's right to live her life. Besides that, he finds Joe a good man who takes care of his sister.
Ruby and Justin came back together again, but both know they need to keep their eyes open in a dangerous city like New York. For Justin may still be hunted down and Ruby doesn't know if she can always be there for him, like she was when they were kids...
