Page 150 of Riordan's Revenge

Then a light weight slammed into me, Cassie landing on my back. I twisted in surprise, bringing an arm up to hold on to her.

Something clicked around my wrist. Silver. Metal. Handcuffs?

Cassie leapt down, her expression fierce, and her arm raised as she pointedly linked the other end to her wrist. She’d handcuffed us together. Police-issue silver bracelets.

I stared in confusion. “What are you doing?”

Cassie’s bottom lip trembled, but she set her palm to my chest right over my heart and peeked up at me, her expression unlike any I’d ever seen her wear. “I love ye. Please don’t break up with me. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. Just talk to me. Don’t end this.”

Horror and outrage crashed into my pain. “I didn’t. You did. You fell out of love with me.”

“What? That isn’t true.”

“It is.” I reached for my pocket, jerking her arm with me where she’d secured us together.

I passed her the note.

Cassie took it, opening it like she’d never seen it before. Her gaze tracked the words then lifted to me. “I didn’t write this.”

My indignation shook. “But those words.”

How could anyone else know exactly how to destroy me? I didn’t finish my sentence. Couldn’t.

Cassie gulped then sagged against me. I caught her.

Arran appeared at my side. He frowned at the cuffs then gestured to the crowd. “We need to leave. There are other gangs creeping up. Shit’s about to go down.”

In my arms, Cassie stirred. “I’m only going where Rio goes.”

My boss barked a laugh. “Think we all got that, Cass. Now move it.”

Together, Cassie and I jogged to my bike. There was no way I could drive with one hand behind my back, but Cassie had another solution in mind.

“Pick me up.”

She wrapped her arms and legs around me and buried her head in my neck, allowing me to sit on my bike with her clamped to my front like a koala. She extended her wrist back to give me enough play to start the machine, and the engine rumbled beneath us.

For a brief moment, I buried my face in her hair, hardly daring to believe I had the right. Another rumble came as the front wall of the church disintegrated with a rain of fire.

It hid the roar of my engine as I got us on the road.

Unlike my careless, desperate drive over, I took it steady on the way back, letting myself just feel Cassie’s body against mine and being careful for her sake because she was precious to me.

At the warehouse, Cassie’s family and the skeleton crew arrived with us, filling the car park, with the club’s neon-pink signs highlighting expressions of relief.

Cassie lifted her head from my shoulder, sighting Arran and Sinclair. “My apartment. Five minutes. I need to talk to ye all.”

We went on ahead. Climbed into the lift. I held Cassie close the whole time.

Only when we were inside the front door of the apartment did I finally say the words I so desperately needed to get out.

“What if you forgot you wrote the note?”

“I didn’t. It isn’t mine. I don’t know how someone knew to write those exact words.”

I carried her to the kitchen counter and perched her on the side, standing between her knees. Then I grabbed up a first aid kit I’d stashed there and set about cleaning her wounds. I needed action. I needed to keep moving so I didn’t wake up to this being a lie.

Cassie watched me, her arm shifting with mine thanks to her handcuff trick. “I told my therapist about being scared to lose ye, but there’s no way she could’ve written that note.”

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