Page 175 of Riordan's Revenge

Then I had work to do, and during that, another sister to find.

On my request, Everly joined me in the CCTV office where I was taking my lunchbreak with Manny. Shade escorted her down then stood at the door, his expression conveying how he didn’t trust her being anywhere out of his sight, but after aminute, he managed to leave her with a gruff request for us to be watchful.

My newest, older sister sat neatly with her hands in her lap. Her gaze left Manny who was on a call, and settled on me. “It’s really nice for just the two of us to talk. Do you want the latest on the house?”

I shook my head in the negative. “Favourite colour?”

Everly blinked. “This week, a bold red stripe because Christmas is the next celebration I have on my mind after Arran and Genevieve’s wedding. Yours?”

“Blue.” Like Cassie’s eyes. “Favourite movie growing up?”

A smile stole over her lips. “The Princess Diaries. How about yours?”

We talked until we ran out of questions. About her baby, about how we would’ve been friends if we’d known each other as kids. I even indulged her subtle query about if I had a big party on the horizon and would I let her do the planning.

After, I hunted down Cassie.

My emotions had been on a rollercoaster the past few days, and I needed her.

But when I entered the apartment, she was on the sofa with a stranger standing over her. A big guy with extensive tattoos down both arms.

And in his hand was a gun.

Chapter 55

Cassie

The door clicked, and I leapt up to dance over and hug Riordan hello.

His embrace swallowed me, but his gaze stuck on the man holding the tattoo gun.

I gestured between them. “Rio, meet Camden, the only one of my brothers you haven’t met yet. Cam, this is the boyfriend everyone’s been gossiping about.”

Riordan’s hostile expression dropped, and he visibly relaxed. He extended a fist to bump Camden’s. “How’s it going?”

Camden smirked, the motion twisting the deep scar he carried down one side of his face. “I’m just going to take a second to get over the fact that one, my baby sister has a boyfriend, and two, that he stuck around even after meeting Struan. Nice to finally put a face to a name. My daughter said ye were big and scary, but I can already tell Cass runs rings around ye.”

Rio hung up his leather jacket and mooched over. “Is your daughter the mini-me of Cassie?”

“Aye, Wren. They’re two peas in a pod, except Wren is a little less stabby. So far.”

My boyfriend laughed and settled next to me on the sofa, and another piece of my happiness cemented in. At my home, he’d been angry at me, with good reason because kidnapping was somewhat out there in terms of courtship rituals, yet even then he’d paid attention and mapped out parts of my life. He’d remembered them. I exhaled joy made of dangerous actions and a wonderful man.

Riordan peered at Camden’s setup. “What are you doing?”

“Cass wanted another tattoo. I refuse to let any of my kin get work done by another artist after the shitshow of Jamieson’s last solo attempt.”

Riordan’s eyebrows rose. “What happened?”

“He wanted flames on his ankle and went to some fucker in Edinburgh. It took me hours to fix the piece-of-crap design he came home whining about.”

I held out my arm so my brother could resume perfecting the stencil he’d created. “Camden runs his own studio and was booked up, hence why Burn went rogue. In a few days, I’m taking you to the Great House for dinner so you can experience the craziness that is my whole family in one place at once. Feel free to use that anecdote to shame Jamieson good.”

Camden smirked and got busy tattooing my upper arm with the design—a skull with a plain bandanna over its lower face. It was the logo for the warehouse, and informally, for the skeleton crew. A flip of the way the crew would wear skeleton print bandannas over their faces. Arran had it, and Shade probably did, too, though he had an awful lot of skulls on his skin, so I wasn’t sure.

“That is fucking fire,” Riordan admired when it was done.

I nudged him. “If ye want it, too, Arran gave permission.”

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