Riordan’s Revenge (Body Count #3)

Chapter 1

R iordan

The furious thrum of wheels on the road beneath my captor’s car mirrored the beat of my heart. In the darkness of the back seat, I lay paralysed, conscious but unable to move, whatever drug I’d been dosed with in full effect.

The plush leather under my cheek told me the vehicle was high-end. The pace said I was being delivered somewhere with urgency.

Focusing, I willed my eyes to open. My fingers to twitch. Nothing .

Anger flashed inside me like lightning.

I’d joined the skeleton crew knowing what I was getting myself into, and now I was in the hands of a rival gang without the control of my body to fight back.

I’d expected to die from my career change, but not yet.

Trapped with my thoughts, I fought for logic. If they’d wanted me dead, I wouldn’t have been kidnapped to be locked up and used as collateral.

Except that didn’t make sense.

I wasn’t important enough in the chain of command of Arran’s crew. I was a new recruit, not trusted to do anything beyond security and grunt work. Realisation dawned, and I groaned inwardly. No, for fuck’s sake, I was wrong. This was about my sister. Genevieve was Arran’s girlfriend, so torturing her brother made perfect sense.

Through me, they could control her.

Which meant I was in for a world of pain.

The car slowed, my driver silent as we turned off a fast road, possibly a motorway, and entered a twisting country lane. I had no clue how long we’d been travelling, but it felt like hours, which either put us in the Midlands of England if we’d gone south, or north to the Highlands of Scotland. I couldn’t call it.

After a while, the car slowed and idled, and the driver rattled something and a clink outside followed. A remote gate, I guessed. We passed through, and the car swept around another road. At last, the smooth running sound changed to gravel. A car park.

This should’ve been my chance. As a prisoner, my opportunities for escape were in moments of transit when they took me from one place to another. I was almost certain that I wasn’t handcuffed, which meant they trusted in the drug.

My breathing quickened, and I tried to force my body to wake. It didn’t respond. I fucking yelled in silent frustration.

If I couldn’t will my limbs to move, I’d be caged. Tortured, perhaps. Maybe they’d kill me if they couldn’t get what they wanted from Arran.

We came to a halt, and the engine cut out, silence settling with ominous tension. I listened hard to clue myself in to where I was. Then a mutter from the driver flipped my world upside down again.

“Oh fuck de fuck. I’ve really done it this time.”

Christ. I exhaled in a rush of relief. I knew that voice. Cassie . What the absolute fuck?

She popped the door, and another voice came from outside. A woman’s, though I couldn’t make out anything in her greeting to Cassie except her accent. She was Scottish, too, which gave me a further clue to the direction we’d taken. Her tone was soft. Gentle. As if she knew Cassie. Abruptly, the vibe changed.

“Is that a body?” the other woman gasped.

Cassie’s voice held a strange tension. “I need help getting him into the house.”

“Sin’s on his way down,” her friend replied. “Oh, he’s here.”

Another set of footsteps crunched the gravel, and a male voice entered the chat, rumbling an affectionate greeting to Cassie before his attention came to me. “Is he dead?”

“No, just knocked out.”

“Who hurt him?”

I strained to listen. Try as I might, I couldn’t remember the moments before I’d been attacked. I’d been at work at the warehouse but after that I drew a blank. If I’d been rushed, I couldn’t recall the hit.

Cassie’s reply socked me in the gut.

“I did.”

A pause followed. Her male friend choked. “What the fuck, Cass? Who is he?”

“His name’s Riordan.”

“Which tells me nothing. Is he dangerous? Why the fuck didn’t ye cuff him?”

“I’ll explain everything. Can ye bring him inside? Be gentle with him. He’s important to me.”

Her friend grumbled a complaint but came to my door, the cool night air brushing over me where two meaty hands pulled my lifeless body into a fireman’s lift.

“Heavy fucker,” the man complained.

I swung under his rolling gait, then we reached a building, and my eyelids cracked open enough for me to witness the stone steps he climbed turn into a marble-floored entrance.

I stared, trying to work out where the hell I’d been taken. Somewhere fancy. My narrow glimpse reminded me of the stately homes my mother would take us to for family days out. Centuries-old stonework and echoing rooms. Elaborately framed doorways and oil paintings on the walls.

My captor, because I was an idiot to think anything less, jogged upstairs with me, my head bouncing off his broad back, then we entered a room and I was set down on a sofa. By luck, my eyes stayed open enough so I could take in the three people with me. The woman, braided hair, perhaps in her mid-thirties, snapped on lamps then settled into an armchair, her gaze on a pacing Cassie who was still in the same sequined black dress as last night. Then to the huge Scotsman who’d carried me. I was a big man, but he was a beast, not that I could’ve swung for him if I tried.

The woman reached for the man’s hand, and they swapped a worried look. They centred on Cassie, though this attention gave me nothing on who they might be.

My working theory? For all Cassie had pretended to be Arran’s friend, she was something else. Working for a rival, probably. Which was entirely fucked up because I knew he cared about her. I’d got entirely the wrong impression as well.

From the first moment of seeing Cassie, I’d wanted her. Attraction had smacked me down, enough for me to realise I’d needed to push her away. I’d faked a sex act with another woman to deter her interest and cut off mine.

Thank fuck I’d never kissed her. The regret hit a strange void inside me.

The big guy caught her wrist as she passed and slowed her pacing. “Sit, Cassiopeia. Tell us what the fuck is going on.”

She eyed him but dutifully dropped into a seat.

Then she stared at her hands.

The woman tried this time, her tone gentle. “Ye never mentioned a boyfriend. Is that what he is?”

“He’s… It’s hard to explain.”

“Is he a member of Arran’s crew?” she pressed.

At Cassie’s tiny nod, the man swore then abruptly left the room.

Cassie watched him go. “He isn’t my boyfriend, not exactly, but he is mine.”

Hers? My heart thumped out of time.

“You’re going to have to walk me through that,” the woman said.

Cassie sighed. “He has green eyes.”

“Do we think that’s a good enough reason to kidnap someone?”

Crumpling down in the chair, Cassie ground her fists into her cheekbones. “Fine, no, it isn’t. But I also knew he was mine from the first time I saw him. Isn’t that how ye felt with Da?”

Da, as in Dad?

They were her parents?

There was a passing resemblance to the huge man—black hair and blue eyes—but not to the woman. She was short, like Cassie, but that was where the similarities ended. In her face shape and mannerisms, there was nothing of Cassie, nor did she seem old enough to be her mother, but that didn’t mean much.

A rush of memories hit me. Cassie and I had shared a meal in her room at the warehouse after I’d hunted her down to challenge her on why she’d been tinkering with my bike. I’d caught her putting a tracking device on it, and at the time, I’d laughed it off. I’d reasoned away why she might be doing it. Arran or Shade keeping tabs on me, most likely. I’d challenged her, and she’d shared her dinner with me. I’d been fucking charmed by her cute conversation.

A conversation in which she’d told me her mother was dead. Funny that, as the dead appeared to have risen.

The scale of Cassiopeia Archer’s lies grew.

The door clicked, and her father returned with a roll of silver tape in his hands. He knelt beside me and tugged my hands free then drew out a length of tape with a rush of tearing adhesive.

Cassie’s eyes widened. “Is that necessary?”

Her father gave a gruff, “Aye, it is.”

Her mother raised a hand. “I just want to get a few things straightened out. This man, Riordan, is that right? You’re calling him yours. Does he share the sentiment?”

No, I fucking didn’t.

Cassie gave a sorrowful shake of her head.

“And he’s unconscious because?”

“I knocked him out a little bit.”

Her mother took a steadying breath. “I see. Do ye understand he might be upset when he wakes?”

With a sound of frustration, Cassie nodded again. Her mother inclined her head at the big guy, and he taped my wrists together, taking care to be thorough. Then he moved to my ankles, securing those as well over my jeans.

I focused on breathing. On the furious race of my heart.

Then Cassie spoke again. “I know what you’re saying. But I also want ye to think back on how ye began. Or Camden and Breeze. He bought her in an auction. None of ye had conventional starts to your relationships. I took him because I wanted him but also because it was necessary. I’ll make it good. Riordan is mine. Whether he knows it yet or not.”

I knew the fucking opposite. She was insane for what she’d done.

None of that explained the strange emotion that leapt in my chest at her claim. She’d said mine . The word found an empty part of my soul and made a nest there.

In that conversation in her room, she’d asked me didn’t everyone want to be wanted? It had stuck with me. I’d thought about it way too often.

Cassie, too. Every inch of her.

I was a fool.

I wasn’t hers, and who knew how far she’d go if she’d been willing to do this. The moment the drug wore off, I’d fight for my life to get out of here.