Page 127 of Connor's Claim

Eventually, the cops let me go.

Mick waited with my ride outside the station. “You’re the last out.”

My head weighed a million pounds. “Who else did they bring in?”

He rattled off the names of a couple of dancers who’d been close friends of hers. Not that they could’ve killed her. I was certain of that.

I formed a question that had gnawed at me. “Tell me we have footage of that part of the riverbank.”

His head shake in the negative gutted me. “Manny says not. The camera which would’ve given us a view of anyone going down there had been knocked to one side, just enough to hide it. Whoever strung her up there did so without anyone seeing.”

“Alisha,” I bit out. “Not ‘her’. Use her fucking name.”

Mick ducked his head and muttered an apology, then talked on about the crew dispersing after the abandoned raid, not that I’d thought twice about Red since the body had been found.

A sign outside the warehouse informed the public that the building was closed. It gave no reason or reopening date. I curled my lip and burst into the cool interior.

Everly waited in our apartment, and I pulled her into my arms, the first sliver of anything other than pain piercing my stone-cold heart.

“I’m so sorry.” She stroked my hair.

I couldn’t manage words. I needed sleep. Her. To bring an end to whoever was doing this.

A worse fear had crept into my darkest moments in the police station. If Everly had been hurt, I wouldn’t survive it. I could track her and lock her up, but if I couldn’t protect Alisha, how could I keep the love of my life safe?

By vengeance. Dark, targeted, and all-encompassing.

Whoever had done this would pay.

Chapter 43

Everly

On my knees, I drew my hand up and down in a sweeping motion, concentrating on getting the line completely right. Over and over, careful, accurate, enjoyably neat.

Then I sat back with my brush and regarded the wall I’d painted.

Connor had wanted me to make the apartment mine as much as his, and I’d spent money on clothes and shoes to fill the wardrobe, plus the occasional pretty thing like a vase of flowers on the kitchen counter and low-odour paint for the spare room.

I’d needed the distraction.

Alisha’s murder had sent shockwaves throughout everyone who worked for the warehouse. None more so than Connor. His mood had been dark ever since, and he spent long hours locked away with Arran, making plans I didn’t ask the details of.

Instead, I made friends with more of the dancers and sex workers, many of whom had remained in the warehouse forsafety’s sake despite it being closed, then worked with them on a list of potential future events.

It provided a welcome respite to the speculation none of us could avoid. The waiting. The fear.

A click sounded behind me. The front door. Connor had returned. Good timing, too, as I’d finished my decorating. He’d been out all evening, and a storm had battered our windows with pelting rain.

I’d been so worried about him, and happiness filled me to have him back. No matter his darker moments, he was always there for me. I wanted to make him feel just as loved.

I jammed the top back on my paint tin then turned around, wiping my stained fingers on the old skeleton crew t-shirt I’d borrowed.

Then, always happy to play by the rules, I stripped the shirt and bared myself to him.

My man in the hallway went still. Rainwater darkened his hair. Emotional, furious turmoil played out in his eyes along with deep lust as he gazed at my breasts. Hard love joined it when he returned to my face. My breath hitched. In the space it took for that inhale, he was on me.

Connor pressed a kiss to my mouth and caught my hand, pulling me with him to the bathroom. He thumped the button for the shower and walked me backwards under the spray. I gasped at the instant soaking, the water not yet warmed up, but that thought became a distant memory when his mouth was back on mine.

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