Page 174 of Riordan's Revenge

Cassie took a breath. “Can we go see?”

I turned the car for a macabre tour into the ruined neighbourhood. At the church, I pulled over and idled the engine.

Cassie gazed at the cordoned-off site with big eyes. “They’ve cleared the rubble. I bet they’ve got the bodies out. Do ye think there’s news on who they can identify?”

“I don’t know. Arran can find out.”

Horror passed through me again at the thought of how easily it could have been her, and I unclipped her to bring her to my lap.

“I would’ve died without ye finding me in that lane,” she said.

“I can’t even think about it without my stomach turning.”

“Can we go home?”

I kissed her as a way of answering to show her just how fucked up over it I still felt. Our enemies might be dead, but it would take a long time until the memories faded.

We returned to the warehouse, hunting down Arran and Genevieve.

In the management office, Arran called Kenney. “How many bodies did you pull?”

“How the fuck are you always one step ahead of me?” the chief constable griped. “We got thirteen charred lumps from the basement. No others found in the building. Forensics gave an informal identification for six, Reginald Rose, Sydney Stanley.” He rattled off another three names, none of which were familiar. “Last is Adam Walker. RIP your loss and all that.”

Arran hung up on him. He murmured something soft and cupped my sister’s face.

Genevieve gazed up at him. “I’m glad he didn’t name Convict. That still means something, doesn’t it?”

“He hasn’t come home.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s one of those unidentified bodies, does it? There’s still hope.”

Sadness flickered in his eyes. He blinked it away in a practice I was too familiar with myself. I’d done it for years when protecting my sister from misery she didn’t need to share. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t cut me out.”

Arran’s eyes shuttered closed, and he touched his forehead to hers. “Okay. I’m fucking devastated. I don’t want to believe it, but faith is hard to come by in this world, and he’s been gone for too long.”

I glanced away, tuning them out for the private moment I didn’t need to share. I only tuned back in when Gen said her father’s name.

“I’m okay. I expected it. I feel sad for Adam but I also know he did this to himself.” My sister came to me and squeezed my arm. “I don’t think I could ever forgive him for how he treated you, and with the way he was ready to join a rival gang, he could’ve given them the power to hurt us. Imagine if he’d succeeded and took Bronson’s job. Imagine what information he could have shared on us both. This is going to sound terrible, but like Everly with her dad, I’m not sorry that he’s dead, only on what we missed out on at his hands.”

I felt the same. For her sake, I’d tolerated him. For my own, I’d long stopped missing the father I’d never had.

Cassie tilted her head as if suddenly working something out. “Reginald Rose, is that Red’s real name?”

Arran inclined his head.

She smiled. “No wonder he shifted gears with his nickname. I wish I’d known that while he was alive.”

The two of them chatted about it, and Gen led me aside.

In a low whisper, she said, “The news brings me neatly to something else I wanted to talk to you about. As you know, I don’t want a formal wedding, but Everly is handling it all for us and talked me into a first-sight kind of deal at the registry office. You know, so Arran sees me in a dress and hopefully gets all teary. Will you stand at my side?”

She didn’t want to be given away but instead wanted to bring me closer.

My throat clogged. “I’d love to.”

Genevieve hugged me, and I scrubbed my knuckles over her hair, just to be annoying.

---