Page 138 of Riordan's Revenge

He exhaled. “I hoped not.”

I exploded. “What the fuck, Shade? Is Bronson really dead?”

He shot his gaze down the corridor to where a couple slumped against each other in a row of plastic seats. At this hour, the hospital was quiet. Not empty, but enough that Shade dragged me further along and out of earshot.

“Bronson’s dead, like I told ye. Don’t make out that I’m a liar.”

“I’m confused. Doesn’t that make this a copycat?”

His nostrils flared.

No, he didn’t think that.

I folded my arms, digging my nails into my flesh, waiting on his explanation.

The enforcer palmed his tattooed throat, the Scotland flag inked on the back of his hand giving me no comfort. “There was enough doubt with his confession to give us pause.”

I took a shocked inhale. For a second, time stopped. I replayed his words. “You’re fucking kidding me. ‘Doubt’ meaning he didn’t do it? Ye weren’t sure, and yet Arran announced the news like it was all over?”

His slight head tilt sent my blood pressure through the roof.

“What other minor details don’t I know? What else did ye cut me and everyone out of?”

He didn’t have a chance to answer when I was in his face again, the consequences overwhelming me. I shoved his chest.

“Do you realise what you’ve done? How many women were out there unprotected because of that claim? We thought it was over. We thought we were safe.”

Shade snarled and backed up a step. “I did, too. It was just a hunch I couldn’t shake off, and Arran felt the same. Every woman remained protected.”

My mouth fell open, and I wheeled away, unable to believe my ears. “They weren’t protected. Dixie wasn’t.”

He swore. “No. Fuck. She shouldn’t have been alone. Not going to or from work.”

“But she was. Long enough for this to happen.” My voice broke.

“We didn’t know for certain. Both of us felt at the moment we ended his miserable life that that was it. His murder spree was finished and we’d done what we needed to do. He fucking confessed, Cass. It was after we compared notes and admitted the uncertainty. A matter of a day ago. I still believed I was making something out of nothing. Ye said I wasn’t shocked when we found her, that’s not true. I’m just as cut up about this as ye are.”

I shoved him again. “Get out of my sight. I don’t want to see ye right now. If she dies, I will never forgive the both of ye.”

Shade backed up further, his features twisted in hurt and regret. Aye, he fucking should regret it.

“Don’t leave here,” he ordered with a stab of his finger at the floor between us.

Thank the gods, he turned and left.

I sank to the nearest seat.

All that time, the killer wasn’t gone, just lying in wait and biding his time.

A hot rush of emotion swallowed me whole. That person had wanted me dead. He’d been out for blood. Riordan or Shade had been with me every time I’d left the warehouse, but the same care hadn’t been taken over Dixie.

I palmed my face, more facts slamming into me.

I’d doubted Bronson’s confession, too. I’d said it didn’t feel right. My brain filled in all the reasons why Shade would’ve kept his suspicion quiet. To lure him out? Or her. I couldn’t reject that possibility.

The minute I got back to the warehouse, I was reinstating the detective wall.

If Dixie survived. If she didn’t… I couldn’t think like that.

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