Page 159 of Riordan's Revenge

Cassie’s eyes flared.

I gripped the phone. “Your cousin’s alive?”

“He is, and he’s so angry. Please, I need you to come to me.”

A recollection hit my mind. When I’d driven down her street on my way to the church, the lights had been on in her flat. Yet she’d been in the basement with Cassie as a prisoner. It was a small detail, but it added up.

“Why do you need help?” I breathed.

“I told you, he’s in a rage. He’s dangerous.”

“Is Don the person who’s been killing all the women in Deadwater?”

She sobbed again. “Yes. It started with your sister rejecting him. He saw Arran at her place and got so furious that he crashed his car. His friend died—that’s whose remains they found. He went back to confront Gen but ended up killing the prostitute on the steps opposite your flat instead.”

“He told you all this?”

She took a rushed breath. “He’s coming back. I have to go. I’m so scared. Please, please, rescue me or I’m going to be next, and who knows who else. We’re on an industrial estate. He had a drug deal.”

She rattled off an address, then the call disconnected.

Silence filled the space. Shock, too. Because what the hell?

Cassie was first to speak. “What are we waiting for? We know who the killer is.”

“She could be lying,” Genevieve said.

“Okay, correction, she claims she knows who the killer is and we can torture her then decide if it’s true.”

Shade palmed his jaw. “Or all of it is a lie and she just wants Riot.”

My girlfriend cracked her knuckles. “True or not, that piece of shite arranged to have me kidnapped. She offered me up to Red in exchange for a job. She’s mine. All of ye got that? I’m going to go pick her up.”

Her gaze flashed to me, feverish intent contained inside it. A challenge, too, for me to dare tell her she couldn’t come.

This time, I didn’t need the handcuffs.

I brushed her hair back from her eyes. “Your second kill gets to be a little more fun, but I’ll grab her so she doesn’t get spooked. Don’t argue. You can have her after.” I turned to her brothers and the skeleton crew. “We’ll round her and Don up to add to the suspects haul.”

Arran swapped a glance with Shade then turned to Cassie’s brothers. “Sin, Struan, go with them.”

I didn’t argue. Cassie needed protection, and it was me Moniqua wanted, which meant arriving separately, and there was no way on Earth I was leaving Cassie unguarded.

We left Genevieve and Everly behind in the apartment with Jamieson, Shade providing a quick strategy for what I might encounter. Then there was nothing more than to kiss Cassie goodbye and take off on my bike.

It was strange riding solo over the bridge to the Scottish side of Deadwater.

The trip out to the industrial estate and suburb where Don was apparently hiding gave me an odd moment of headspace. I knew Cassie and her family were behind me, but I’d be walking into this alone.

It was past midnight and the streets empty and quiet. This part of town was far from the sirens and firelight of the burning city. Skeletal trees dotted corners, the leaves lost and scattered. I took the twisting road that led to the river, passing in and out of isolated yellow streetlights.

The houses here were workers’ homes, marginally better than a slum and densely packed together. They were in clusters of narrow streets, blocked in by warehouses and with not a soul peeking out at the motorbike cruising by.

An intense feeling of discomfort settled over me, and fragments of my never-forgotten nightmare returned. The fear of being chased and ending up down by the water. All I needed now was my father to pop up and lodge a bullet in my chest to live out that horrible dream state.

I rounded the corner. Ahead, the road ended with two high-sided industrial buildings bracketing it and a scrubby wasteland beyond.

A final feature of my nightmare resolved in my mind.

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