Page 161 of Riordan's Revenge

She flushed red. “I was having an emotional moment after losing my only family, can you blame me? A police car passed me, so I hid in the graveyard, and she…she was just there. She was kind. Her pretty smile was so wrong in the face of all that had happened, and I flipped. All that went through my head was a conversation I’d had with Don, our last, where he’d screamed about Genevieve and her new man, and how Arran Daniels’ mother was killed by a single cut to her throat. Common knowledge, apparently. He said how easy it was as a killing method, and how Genevieve deserved the same. Once the idea was in my head, I couldn’t get it out. He was right, too. Cherry died so sweetly. After that, I went home and found I wasn’t all that traumatised by it, but I still had the problem of how to keepmyself safe. I decided to do what my cousin intended. I’d get the job he coveted. Even before Bronson met his end, everyone knew Red despaired over his second-in-command. I wanted that top spot, and with Don proving he was a useless sack of shit, I decided then and there to be better than him.”

“You went on a killing spree around the city.” I put disbelief into my tone to keep her talking.

“I made a plan. I wanted that job. I also wanted you, so I went to Divine. I overheard Alisha say that a woman should be running the place, and it backed up my sense of doing what Don never could. So when that bitch, Natasha, started badmouthing the club and the city as a whole, I knew I had to bring her down. I had Don’s stash of sedatives he’d stolen from Bronson and a boatload of anger. That tattooed enforcer guy very nearly caught me, which would be fucking hypocritical, because he drugs his victims. Don told me all about that.”

She made a sound of disgust.

I needed to work this through to the end. “And after that?”

Moniqua’s attitude shifted, her eyes darkening. “You made like your sister and rejected me. I followed you to the mayor’s house, and I went back again. I would have killed the slut you were there to see, don’t judge me because I didn’t know she was also your sister, but I couldn’t get in the house.”

I’d led her there. Fucking hell, she would’ve killed Everly. “So you took your anger out on the girl next door?”

“Something like that. She was available, I still needed the practice.”

“And Alisha?”

“That whore earned her fate when she slept with you.”

I shook my head, the whole conversation one massive mindfuck. “I never slept with her. Why did you think that?”

Regret flickered in her eyes. “I saw the two of you go into a room together. I took a gamble and led her away with a noteafter finding out who she had a crush on. She really wasn’t making a play for you?”

That was the night I’d started my skeleton crew job. Alisha and I had sat and talked, and the whole time I’d been thinking about Cassie who was let loose in the club. I’d worried for her safety. I’d wanted to trace my hands up her thighs to the ridiculously short skirt she’d worn.

My head pounded with the information.

“If it helps, I’m sorry about Alisha. It wasn’t my finest moment, even if it felt like it at the time.”

She’d strung her up from a lamppost.

She was insane.

Psychopathic, probably. She was telling me all of this like it was a conversation about the weather. Like it was logical for her to have done those things.

All of that had led her to Cassie.

“You would’ve killed my girlfriend.”

She tilted her head, the effect unnerving. From a hidden sheath, she pulled a blade. “I would’ve used this to do the deed. Recognise it?”

I clamped my jaw.

“Your favourite knife.”

At my complete lack of a response, her gaze turned exasperated. “Don’t you remember? You admired it once when you came to my flat. It was Don’s, but I quickly took over ownership when I realised it met your seal of approval.”

She tapped the bladed weapon on her hip. “Lucky for me, I didn’t need to waste my energy on that girl you fucked. The fire did that anyway. I mean, sorry for your loss and all that, but it’s a lot neater with her out of the way. Now I get you all to myself.”

Moniqua performed a little pirouette. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re in this life, too. You were so anti-gang, but being in the skeleton crew has given you the training andexperience you need to be with me. With your girlfriend and Red out of the way, we’ll take over the Four Milers. The ultimate power couple. It’s perfect, don’t you think?”

She stepped closer and reached as if to touch my chest.

From the shadows, Cassie strode out, fury written all over her pretty, feral features. “Touch him and die, bitch.”

Chapter 50

Cassie

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