Epilogue
R iordan
Divine and Divide reopened the evening of Alisha’s funeral with a night dedicated to her name. Tension in the city was high, and the focus on Deadwater had turned global, with four women now killed in almost identical fashions capturing attention worldwide.
I knew from whispers then public news that the post-mortems of Alisha and some of the women before her that sedatives had been used. That made headlines, with speculation rife over the fact that any woman could be next. How the fuck did you defend against someone who knocked you out cold and slit your throat?
Then used you as a message no one could work out.
A dark vibe hung over the clubs.
For the sake of the women, and fewer men, who worked here, money still needed to be made, but the staff remained nervous. Clients were vetted heavily, and everyone was searched before being allowed in. A job I often took on as I learned the ropes.
Arran and Shade had been behind closed doors, plotting how to handle the threats against their crew while the heat on them remained high. My sisters made the decision to remain locked down, Gen switching her course temporarily to online, and Everly picking up work managing events in the warehouse.
For the first time after agreeing to join the gang, I felt relief that I could stay close to the women I cared about. I made a point of checking in on both regularly, even when they’d done nothing but hang out upstairs.
Tonight, I worked the reception room of the brothel, keeping the workers safe and monitoring the men who came here to get their dicks sucked.
Discomfort crawled over my skin, and I rolled my shoulders under my skeleton crew t-shirt, playing sentinel in my position against the wall.
Something was off.
I couldn’t tell what, but it had my senses alert and my hackles up.
The entryway to the stairs opened, and a woman stepped out, her gaze flitting over the room then landing on me. Inwardly, I sighed. Moniqua had left me alone for a few weeks, but from the beeline she made for me now, her interest wasn’t over.
Stopping in front of me, she clasped her hands together and peered up with big eyes. “Riordan. I’ve been trying to find you.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I’m a member now.”
I wasn’t touching that nugget of information with a barge pole. “I’m working so I can’t chat.”
She darted a glance around and leaned in closer so her perfume filled my nose and I had a clear sight down her low-cut top. Not that I was looking. I never had, and wasn’t interested now.
“I needed to see you. Baby, I’m scared, and no one makes me feel safe like you do.”
Briefly, I closed my eyes. I didn’t like causing pain. I knew all too well how rejection stung. I’d lived with it for years, copping a double dose from two men I could’ve called Dad but neither of whom wanted the role.
“We’ve already had this conversation. I can’t be what you want me to be,” I said. “I’m sorry, but this can’t happen.”
“You don’t understand. I need you. It doesn’t matter if you’re with someone else.”
Inexplicably, my thoughts went to Cassie, the dark-haired wild girl who’d listened to my outpouring of woe and hadn’t judged me. Who had hidden depths that hinted at a deadly side barely concealed under her cute, bouncy surface.
I thought about her too much and too often.
In my bed, alone. Against the shower wall with my dick in my hand.
Not that I could do anything about my attraction. With the plans I was making, all I could bring was trouble.
I didn’t know how, but I intended to force the sperm donor who’d sired me to acknowledge his act. To get justice in one way or another. I hated how he’d rejected my mother. I got angry at the imagined scene of her presenting her news to him, maybe happy, probably scared, and being summarily brushed aside. Worse—ordered to end the life of the baby she already loved.
He’d kept tabs on me yet hadn’t once stepped in. Even when Mum died, and for the month or so where Genevieve and I risked homelessness. I understood now why her father resisted letting us stay. The man loved her and hated me, yet we came as a package deal so he’d been forced to tolerate my presence.
All that time, my real father hadn’t given a shit.
“Riordan?” Moniqua brought me back from my dark thoughts.
“I’m not with anyone else,” I forced out.
She hitched her breath, her voice softer still. “Someone told me they saw you go into a bedroom with one of the women here. I don’t mind. I’m happy for you, but I don’t have anyone else to turn to. You know the gang my cousin was in? The Four Milers?”
Of course I fucking did. I gave her a short chin lift, tracking two men who entered the space and went straight into the arms of waiting women. Regulars. Nothing off about them.
She continued, “The leader, Red, came to my flat. He told me he wants me. He offered me money but he scared me, too. I think he made a threat. Someone warned me that his second-in-command, Bronson, uses drugs to knock women out, and Red said he’d send Bronson next time. What do I do?”
Fuck. Finally, I regarded her properly. The skeleton crew had been poised to raid the Four Milers’ new strip club before the eyes of the world fell on Deadwater and they’d had to go to ground. The longer they, or we , had to delay, the longer the women who worked for Red suffered. I fucking hated that. It made sense that Red would target someone like Moniqua. A woman alone in the world and unprotected.
I didn’t like her, but I hated that fate for her. She was harmless. A victim in the making. Despite myself, I considered options.
Soft fingers curled around my arm. “That scared you as much as it scared me. I can see it. I was thinking, if you give me your keys, I could go back to your place and cook you dinner. It’ll be waiting for you when you finish work, along with me.” She gave a funny little curtsey.
For fuck’s sake.
I inhaled through my nose, regretting it after receiving another dose of that cloying perfume. “Best thing I can think is for you to take a job here. That way, you’re off the table for Red. He’s lured women away but not directly taken them from the skeleton crew. You’ll be safe.”
She pouted. “I don’t know how to do the kind of jobs they have here.”
Across the room, the object of my dreams left the office behind the bar to talk to one of the staff. Cassie. I’d tried to avoid her, but couldn’t help seeing her around. She’d taken on some of Alisha’s duties and appeared to be a core part of the team.
Over Moniqua’s head, she locked her gaze on to mine.
Heat sank through me.
“Who’s that?” Moniqua asked. “She’s familiar. She looks like the girl who tried to steal your bike.”
“None of your business,” I answered, though I was stuck on taking Cassie in.
She had an endless wardrobe of pretty dresses, some sexy as fuck, others more playful. Tonight’s black sequined number was of the former variety. It clung to her curves, yet at the same time marked her out as here for business and not for sale. Those wild black curls were normally left down, but she’d pulled back a section with a comb above her ear, the sparkling pink crystals on it matching her nails.
I’d been staring at her for far too long.
She cocked her head in cute enquiry. It wasn’t like the way she talked to any other man. Then her gaze ran over Moniqua, and her lip curled. Jealousy flashed in her pretty eyes.
Fuck. Cassie liked me, too? I’d assumed it was mostly one-sided. That any lust was all on my behalf and at best, she’d been flirting.
Her expression told me I’d been mistaken.
It meant I should back the fuck away.
If my life went the way I expected, I’d be in even more danger than I was by signing up to this crew. From talking to Everly, who was the sweetest woman, I knew our father to be vicious and ruthless. When I took him on, he’d retaliate.
Maybe in that, I’d taken after him, because I needed to white fang Cassie. Hurting myself was no big deal. Hurting her would be unacceptable.
A sense of total wrongness tightened inside me, but I rejected the emotion and dragged my focus to Moniqua. “If you want me, get on your knees.”
Her lips parted. Eagerly, she knelt. “I didn’t expect you to like it so public. Sure you don’t want to go into one of these rooms? You can have me however you want me.”
Cassie squinted at Moniqua. The expression I’d considered adorable morphed to confusion. It flattened when eager fingers undid my belt.
I tracked Cassie’s flight from the room then dropped my head back to the wall, hating myself for what I’d done. Moniqua’s fingers slid under my waistband.
I grabbed her wrist. “Changed my mind. Go downstairs and talk to Clem at the bar in the strip club. She’ll hook you up with a job, if safety is what you really want.”
She rocked back on her heels. “I…I don’t understand.”
I didn’t either. I’d played the asshole, and it’d left me feeling worse rather than better.
Over the course of the night, guilt took me over completely.
I’d never wanted to hurt anyone, but Cassie’s expression had broken something in me. A woman I’d never even touched, except for in my imagination.
My shift had ended half an hour ago, and I’d prowled around the warehouse, hunting her down while rehearsing what I needed to say. Yet Cassie was nowhere to be found.
Her bedroom was my last port of call, and I made my way along the cam girl floor, entirely unfazed by the moans of ecstasy coming from behind closed doors. Just as she’d said, I’d got used to it.
At Cassie’s room, I knocked.
No answer came.
I tried the handle. It gave under my hand, and I cracked the door open, calling her name into the space.
No answer still.
Swinging it wide open, I hit the switch for the lights. Then I stared.
Across the whole stretch of the wall lay a spiderweb of paperwork, scribbled notes, and string connecting dots on a map. It was the kind of wall detectives in old movies would create while working on a case.
The title across the top read ‘The Skeleton Girls Detective Agency’.
She’d made this? Half in wonder, I entered the room and examined her work. The string connected four points on the map of Deadwater, one of which was right outside the warehouse, another on the riverbank just below. The third was next to Everly’s house, and the last was opposite the flat Genevieve and I used to share with her father.
All the places women had been killed.
The first, Cherry, I’d known in passing. My sister had developed a friendship with her, so I’d waved whenever I saw the sex worker in her territory.
That strange sense of foreboding tightened around me the more I looked at the map.
Cherry had been killed next to where I lived. Natasha, the second woman, had died on the night I’d come to rescue Genevieve from the skeleton crew. The third victim, Amelia, had died in the mansion next door to Everly’s house on the same evening I’d gone to warn her of the kidnap plot, then the last was Alisha. She’d taken me under her wing, briefly, but I’d liked her. She’d been kind and had sat with me in a private room for hours to give advice on handling the pressures of working in the club.
Another thought emerged. Moniqua said someone told her I had a new woman. Or at least implied the fact. Who was that person, and why had they been watching Alisha?
One thing was certain. I couldn’t deny the connections between my whereabouts and the murders. Displayed like this made it clear as day. It was too many to be coincidental, especially with the woman killed next door to Everly’s house.
Somehow, I was in the thick of this, and my plan to protect my sisters and get revenge on the father who’d rejected me shifted to include a third point.
To work out exactly how close to the centre of these deaths I’d become.
Reeling, I focused in on a sheet Cassie had titled ‘Questions’.
Some of the women were drugged. Who uses sedatives?
I’d just heard that Red drugged women. Moniqua was afraid of him. My pulse raced, the answer right there in front of me. I knew who the murderer was. I had to find Arran and Shade.
Darkness plunged around me, the lights extinguishing in the room and in the hall, instant blackness claiming my vision.
I swore and fumbled for my phone, needing my torch.
A needle jamming into my thigh was the last thing I knew.