Page 82 of Dangerous Love

“They used you as leverage.”

“They planned it all along.”

Grace glanced at me before focusing on the road again. Her lips had dried like sandpaper, as if she’d been biting them for the last hour. “What happened after that?”

Memories of Riley on the chair being tortured flashed in front of my eyes, like a bad B movie. His face as he watched me across from him. Each of us helpless to change the outcome. And the smell as his skin melted off his arm.

Oh god…Nausea hit me like a truck without breaks. I wound my window down, letting the fresh air whip my face until the invisible stench faded from my senses. I dry retched, my arm around my belly until it finally settled. “That bastard branded Riley like fucking livestock.”

Grace’s head jerked towards me. “You don’t mean literally, right?”

“Like a barbaric motherfucker,” I hissed, rage zapping my every pore. I shoved my thumb in my mouth, the flesh stinging as I bit into it. I took deep breaths, fighting the sob building in my lower belly. “He told Riley he’d kill me if he moved, so he just sat there, without a fight, as his own fucking father branded him with a makeshift torture kit.”

“Oh god.” Grace brought a hand to her mouth, her voice trembling as she murmured, “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” I cried. “I think so. It looked bad, Grace. So bad.”

She reached for my hand and squeezed my fingers a couple of times. “What happened after that?”

“Cooper grabbed me and said I had to be next, just so Riley never forgot where his loyalty belonged.”

She eyed my forearms, and when she didn’t see any burns, she exhaled, her gaze focused on the road again. “Okay.”

“Riley completely lost it, like a switch flipped in his head when he saw Cooper about to hurt me.”

“That boy loves you, Sienna. He always has.”

My throat tightened. “I know that now.”

“How did Riley stop Cooper, sweetie?”

We exchanged a glance, my heart racing until it burnt a hole through my lungs. I inhaled, the truth caught in my throat as visions of Cooper’s and Alexandro’s bodies flew past my line of vision. Then I exhaled, the words coming out like a long overdue confession. “With a bullet to his brain.”

CHAPTER40

Riley

Avery’s face dropped the second he stepped a foot in my father’s office. He paused in the doorway, his eyes going from me to Trey, and back to the corpses between us. “Shit. Are they dead?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Welcome to our little predicament, dude,” Trey deadpanned. Tension held his body hostage despite his attempt at dark humour.

Avery stepped over Alexandro before dropping his eyes to my forearm. “Fuck. What happened to your arm?” He moved closer and crouched to take a better glance. “We need Jarryd to look at that.”

“Okay.” I thrusted my eyes away. I didn’t want the reminder of my father right now. I swallowed hard, sadness and shame weighing me down with the knowledge I’d bear this cross for the rest of my life. Everyone would know I was a Cooper. I’d be linked to this son of a bitch until the day I died. “We should probably call the cops.”

Avery turned to Trey. “How much authority do you have over the clean-up crew?”

Clean-up crew?I tilted my head, the questions in the air.

“I did work for the bastard for a few years, remember? Trey and I did some cleanups together back in the day.”

“You mean you bitched, while they cleaned and I sampled the hotel’s mini grog bottles.”

Avery rolled his eyes. “Sounds about right. So, what’s the issue?”

“The issue is they’re in the middle of a merger, so leadership isn’t quite…” Trey made a face. “…established.”

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