Page 143 of Riordan's Revenge

I seized his shoulder, jerking him to a stop. “What the fuck happened? Why isn’t anyone with Cassie?”

“She skipped out on the hospital and left without being seen.”

I stalled. “Why was she at the hospital? Did she get hurt?”

“Where have ye been since last night? How have ye not heard about the lass whose neck got cut open?” At my apparent horror, he amended fast, “Dixie. Not Cass. They were wrong about the killer.”

Fear stunned me. Struan grasped my arm and propelled me to Arran’s office. Inside, grim faces met mine. Arran, Shade, Tyler, my sisters, Sinclair, a couple of people I didn’t know. Jamieson was absent.

“Tell me—” Arran started.

I cut him off. “No, you tell me why you’re all here while Cassie’s tracker is showing her in the Four Milers’ territory.” I centred on Shade. “Why the hell is she there? She was supposed to be with you.”

The enforcer went perfectly still. “Four Milers? Show me.”

I produced my phone and opened the tracker screen. Cassie hadn’t moved, her location still the same haunting distance away.

Everyone in the room leaned in, the same horrified expression rippling over all faces.

Sinclair swore violently and stabbed at his phone, raising it to his ear. “Pick the fuck up,” he ordered whoever he was calling.

Tyler and another guy made for the door, and shouts came from outside.

I kept my gaze on the leader of the skeleton crew, the sense of panic inside me only thickening until it clogged my throat.

Arran, the grave, vicious gang owner who I’d watched kill a man, paled and reached for a drawer to pull out a gun. “As we speak, Red is holding a summit in his brothel and electing his new second-in-command. Over the past week, I’ve been dismantling his empire while he’s at his weakest, and today, we’re bringing an end to his reign.”

This couldn’t be good. Not for my intuition, and not from how fraught the room had become. Shade likewise weaponed up, sliding a mean-looking knife into a holster.

Arran continued, “Red and his key people are all in that basement, locked away. His drug importers, his traffickers. Anyone who wanted a chance at that top position is there, and anyone else they control is guarding the place. We only found out about it last minute and decided on rapid action.” His eyes flared in anger. “Whether he murdered the women or not, he still killed my friend.”

Convict, he meant. I understood the anger. The need for revenge.

“What have you done?” I breathed.

I already imagined the worst.

The words from his lips confirmed the fact. “Jamieson is torching the place.”

Urgency and desperation floored me. Panic formed on other faces as they made for the door.

Sinclair lowered the phone, his eyes haunted. “He isn’t answering. It means he’s in the zone.”

The rest was left unsaid. Cassie was in that brothel, and her brother was burning it down.

Chapter 44

Unknown

Slumped in the corner of the concrete-block basement, I played dead. I was pretty close to that state anyway, so keeping my eyes as slits and my breathing slow was no effort.

For weeks, I’d been in the Four Milers’ brothel, down in the rabbit-warren basement in a storeroom next to the boiler house. Beaten to within an inch of my life as Bronson’s plaything, allowed to eat, heal, rest, then fucked up all over again.

Remembering the details was becoming harder, though.

My mind moved sluggishly, and different parts of my ruined body throbbed.

During my first beatdown, my leg had been shattered and my skull cracked. A few ribs, too, though they troubled me less. It was the pounding in my head that messed me up. My brain swollen, probably, and my thoughts muddied.

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