Page 40 of Riordan's Revenge

Riordan made a sound of pain and dug his fingers into his hair. “Then I’ll talk instead. No matter what, I can’t be anything to you. Not long term. It can’t happen.”

“Why?”

“I won’t live that long.”

My stomach tightened. “Are ye sick?”

“No, but there’s someone I intend to get revenge on which will mean I’ll likely end up dead or in jail.”

He… My brain instantly offered the solution. “The mayor.”

Of course. Of course he’d want that man dead after everything he’d done.

Riordan exhaled in a gust. “How is it you can read me like that? No hesitation.”

I shrugged. Like it wasn’t obvious. “Tell me why.”

“Arran took me into his crew at the moment I was realising I had no purpose in my life anymore. After my mother died, I worked and supported Gen. I kept our lives ticking over. But she’s found her own path now, and I have the chance to take my own. I’m not cut out to be a gangster. I don’t give a fuck about territory and reputation, and in the back of your car, I realisedhow easily my life could be over the minute someone decided to make it so. One person ruling over the city already wants me dead. He tried to give his daughter to a rapist piece of shit. The sister I should’ve been raised with. There is nothing good about that man, and the world will be a better place with him out of it.”

“So you’ll be the one to take him down.”

Abruptly, he leapt up and stalked to peer from the curtains out into the dark.

I pursed my lips. “You’re skeleton crew. They’ll help.”

He dropped the material and scoffed. “They won’t. Shade would’ve killed the mayor a long time ago if Arran didn’t need him. Arran talks about the balance of power in the city and how it works for his objectives. He keeps his business running smoothly because of who he can bribe and who steers the ship. The mayor’s at the centre of that. As much as I respect Arran, I can’t tell him what I intend to do because he has reason to stop me.”

I couldn’t contradict him. He was right, at least in part.

Riordan returned, stopping a few feet away. It might as well have been miles. “It’s a death wish. I’ll take my revenge but it will be on my own, and I’ll be acting against the leader of my crew. I don’t fear the mayor. Not him or anyone he cons into protecting him. But if he doesn’t kill me, Arran will.”

The world spun around me.

Fuck, no. Fuck no with fucking bells on it.

Riordan was not going to throw his life away for Mayor Makepeace. Whether or not my obsession was real, I was a ride or die kind of girl. I was Team Rio all the way, even if just as a friend.

Ugh, that word sucked.

I’d also learned a huge amount about this man in the space of one short conversation. He was still grieving. I didn’t know how many years ago his mother had died, but Genevieve had beena teenager. Maybe a decade? His ma confided in him a terrible secret which he couldn’t share with anyone. Not even after she died. He’d been trapped in needing to keep a roof over his sister’s head, all while reeling over what he’d found out.

The man they were living with wasn’t his da. He never had been, in anything more than the most basic pretence. Riordan had been left with more questions than answers, and it was like looking in the mirror.

I was hung up over my mother. I’d also wanted my father dead, but that was a done deal. He’d been in the ground a long time.

Sitting up on my knees, I stared Riordan down. “You’re right that Arran doesn’t want the mayor gone yet, but he’d never hurt ye.”

“He’s ruthless.”

I snorted. “He’s also in love with your sister. Ye could do anything, and he’d stand by and watch.”

“Shade has every reason to kill the mayor. He is a borderline psychopath, and though he’s in love with Everly, he hasn’t yet done the deed, even knowing what she suffered. That’s because Arran refuses to allow it. If I go in, they’ll stop me. If I persist, Arran can’t just stand by. He might not be the one to take a blade to my throat, but he has fifty men who would happily solve the problem for him.”

For a moment, I hesitated. I couldn’t deny the truth in that. I didn’t think it likely, but also it wasn’t impossible.

Slowly, I trailed my gaze up Riordan’s throat to the curve of his jaw. He hadn’t shaved, his shower time being used for other things, and scruff darkened his face, taking him from boy next door to potential murderer.

I liked it.

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