Page 127 of Arran's Obsession

“You were paying her rent, and she came here tonight wearing a stolen uniform so she could sneak in.”

“Because she needed help and owed me a favour, not because we’re that tight. I needed someone else to walk into the strip club because if I’d seen you on the stage, I don’t know how I could’ve handled that.”

He cringed. I hid my relief. Riordan didn’t lie to me. As kids, he’d always spoken the truth even if it got him in trouble. If he loved Moniqua, he’d wear it proudly.

“Did her cousin come with her?” I asked.

“No. She told me she hasn’t seen that piece of shit in over a week, thank fuck. Something happened with him, and he’s been off Moniqua’s back.”

Good for her.

“Dad talked a lot recently about missing Mum,” my brother suddenly said. “I keep coming back to that, but I don’t know why. How does that link him to a gang? What does it mean?”

The door clicked open, Shade returning. “Alisha and the dancers have been released. They’re home and safe.”

I exhaled in relief. “What about Arran?”

“No news yet. The warehouse is locked up tight. It could be a long night, so I suggest we go upstairs to wait it out.”

Cassie bounced to her feet. “I’m starving. Is there food?”

Together, we took the lift up to the eighth floor. I’d insisted on my brother accompanying us, and Shade had blindfolded him as a precautionary measure. In Arran’s apartment, I opened the fridge, making myself at home. It was surprisingly well-stocked, perhaps for my benefit considering how he’d populated a wardrobe for me already. Cassie and Jamieson had obviously been here before, because both settled straight in, Jamieson making a call, watching the city out of the arched window. Cassie grabbed a blanket from a spare bedroom and made a nest in a corner of the sofa, her heels kicked off by the door.

She pointed to the big TV on the brick wall. “Can anyone see the remote control? There’s an ice hockey match I want to watch. The Colorado Titans versus the New York Guardians.”

Shit. The remote.

Without lowering the phone, Jamieson remarked, “Since when are ye into sports?”

She poked out her tongue. “Since I saw how hot the men are. Church, my favourite player, had a lower body injury, but he’s back. Boy is fine.” She cocked her head. “Do you think lower body means his dick? I hope not.”

Riordan chuckled then coughed to hide it.

Hurrying over with a bowl of chicken wings and dip, I sought out the remote and found the channel for her. Arran’s perverted game had taken that device out of action for anyone else. I hid it in the breadbin then did a circuit of the room, collecting up anything else we’d abused.

With the violent sport giving us something to focus on, we snacked and waited, the big arched window stealing my attention from the hockey boys fighting. Somewhere out there, Arran was in a police station.

My brother, still blindfolded, refused food and sat on the rug, resting back against the sofa, only the lower half of his face visible. Cassie alternated her watch of the screen with tracing her gaze along his unshaven jawline. When his breathing slowed, I knew my tough older brother had fallen asleep. It was four in the morning, and he started work every day at dawn.

I gestured to Shade. “I’m going to offer him one of the spare beds here.”

He’d taken calls, pacing the hallway for much of our wait. “Not here, ye won’t. I’ll take him over to my place. I have a bedroom with an external lock.”

A locked room? I wasn’t going to touch that thought with a bargepole.

Gently, I shook my brother awake, and Shade led him out of the door and across to his place.

Then I, too, claimed a blanket and curled up in a seat.

Finally, darkness stole over me. I shouldn’t have been as tired as I was, but a power nap took me under, the stress making unconsciousness seem like the better option.

Until the door softly snicked open.

A tiny sound that barely pierced my sleepy state. The opposite was true for Shade and Jamieson. Both men leapt up with sudden alertness, ghosting across the dark room in silent speed to intercept the incomer.

I snapped on the lamp.

Shade’s knife flashed in the light.

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