Chapter 13
C assie
Riordan sat up, shifting away from me. “Talk to me about your predator elimination plan. How will you identify them?”
Reluctantly, I gave him some space. “Shade uses a list that the cops give him. Those are people who already committed the worst crimes. I was thinking about throwing my net wider. Get access to the list of predators who live in the community, so aren’t just jail releases like Shade gets his hands on. Maybe offer an anonymous tip-off form where people can report concerns. They can give as much detail as possible with any evidence and I’ll do the rest.”
“What exactly?”
“Investigate them. Provoke them, probably. Take them in and hurt them if I need to. Then if the claim is real, bye-bye baddie.”
He went quiet for another long while. Then his stomach growled.
Shite. I should’ve fed him. I picked up my phone and tapped out a message to Tyler, asking for someone to bring us up something. Assuming all was still secure, we could’ve gone down, but I wasn’t willing to give up the strange pocket of closeness we’d found.
I’d watched him sleep. Got so distracted when he flinched from his nightmare that I’d missed my telenovela, resisting until I let myself curl up against him.
Nothing had ever felt better.
My phone buzzed, and I dragged my gaze back to it.
“Tyler’s going to bring us dinner,” I said.
Riordan exhaled then reached for the remote, handing it to me. “Put on that show you’ve been watching. I fell asleep at a cliffhanger, and it’s been bugging me.”
Heh. I cued up the TV. “Knew ye were watching it as much as I was.”
“I’m a prisoner. We don’t have much to do in jail.”
I cracked up. “Says the guy who locked me in here then tied me up.”
He groaned and adjusted his position on the couch, the lamplight falling over him and softening his hard edges. Darkness had fallen again, but we’d never opened my curtains, it being safer to have no way of anyone seeing in. With only the lamp on behind me, it made for another cosy night.
In any other circumstance, romantic.
The telenovela started with a recap, but I dismissed it. Then I paused. “Did ye miss anything? I can run that again.”
“Alexia is having an affair with a guy in the next town over. Her husband is a pilot for an aid organisation and is away a lot, but is due home. She regrets her cheating and wants to be a family again with their three kids. The cliffhanger was her showing up to tell the lover whose name I didn’t catch that it’s over. She wants him to promise never to reveal what they did for the sake of her marriage.”
“Jeez. Ye really are enjoying it. The lover’s name is Eduardo.”
“That’s it.”
His gaze met mine. Something hot crackled between us. All that cuddling in our sleep and this was what did me in.
My chest constricted, and it took a long minute until I was able to focus on the screen and the montage of sex and dates the two lovers had been on.
In her lover’s doorway, Alexia trembled and rang the bell.
Eduardo answered. “Baby? What are you doing here? You’ve never come to my house before.”
“I needed to do this in person. We said a month and our time is up. It’s over. I’m married, Eduardo. I need you to promise never to contact me again.”
Eduardo gave a cry of pain and thumped the wall.
He rattled a framed photo that Alexia stared at and the camera zoomed in on as if it was scandalous. Two men, arms around each other in clear familiarity. The lover and another, older guy.
“Who’s in the picture?” Riordan asked.
“It’s her husband. A younger version. Check the identi-moustache.”
“That’s Dirk? In Eduardo’s house? How do they know each other?”
I smiled as Alexia shrieked the same question.
“What is this? How do you know this man?”
Eduardo frowned, drawing in two oddly perfect eyebrows. “That’s my father.”
“Plot twist!” I took a shocked breath.
He laughed under his breath. “The woman clearly has a type.”
“Derek is my father, but we were estranged for most of my life,” Eduardo revealed. “He works out of the country, so we’ve only met a few times. I’ll get to see him again when he returns home soon. Why?”
Alexia slid to the floor, digging her fingers into her perfectly styled hair as she whispered to herself. “One month. I ruined my life for one month of him, and it’s cost me everything.” Then she froze and lifted her gaze. “What do you mean ‘Derek’? That isn’t his name.”
Adverts rolled at a break in the show.
A scenario played out in my head, distracting me so I forgot to skip to the next part of the episode. In the telenovela, they’d given their affair a time limit. All the fun but with an expiry date. That brought drama, but only because the scriptwriters had tricks up their sleeves.
I was the author of my own life. I knew what I wanted, and that had narrowed in on two major points. The role I wanted at the warehouse. And Riordan. I wanted him more than I wanted air in my lungs and blood in my veins.
On the coffee table was my stack of papers, my closed notebook on top. Annoyance rippled along the path of my certainty. That summary I’d written told me this wasn’t real. My therapy suggested Riordan was an obsession that would burn out. I hated the idea I could hurt him if this ever got off the ground.
Riordan made a sound of frustration and grabbed the remote, stabbing to pause the TV.
“Aren’t we continuing?” Weakly, I pointed at the screen.
“No.”
I rolled my head on the cushion to stare at him. Words stuck in my mouth.
He worked his jaw. “Tell me you’re not obsessed with me.”
Oh fuck. He’d been thinking about it, too. I swallowed. “I am, but what I feel is fake.”
“Describe it.”
“What?”
“Exactly what you feel for me.”
“Hell no.”
The opposite of fear. The source of all things sweet.
I went to leap up from the sofa. Riordan grabbed me by the waist and hooked me back. I landed next to him with wide-eyed alarm, then braced a hand to his broad chest.
Every small touch was shocking. Every push-and-pull interaction somehow vital.
Slowly I withdrew my hand.
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 realised how 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 been a 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.
He watched me. Leaned in then rocked back.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I couldn’t let him be hurt. I’d also never wanted anything more than to take the pressure between us and break it.
He owed me two more kisses. I wanted more.
“What if we make a deal?” I asked.
“What kind of deal?”
“The game Arran operates in his basement ties couples together for thirty days. That’s based on the amount of time it takes to do two things: To form a habit and to create an emotional bond. That’s why he keeps the winning couples together. Orders them to have sex every day.”
With an inscrutable expression, he waited on me to continue.
“Give me something like that. Ten days.”
“To do what?”
“Help ye get your revenge on the mayor.”
His nostrils flared. “Not exactly what I was hoping you’d say.”
“And,” I interrupted, “we belong to each other for that time. We do anything we like. Be on call for the other and take everything we need.”
A hot rush of desire had me digging my hands into the cushion, wishing he was under me. The core of my body directly over his hardness. Desperation added to my swirling emotions.
His hands formed fists. “There are so many reasons why that isn’t a good idea. I’ve told you mine. You have your own.”
“Because I’m obsessed? From what my therapist taught me, everything I’m feeling will go away if I indulge it. It’s the denial which is driving me insane. That’s the reason I’m the way I am. I want to possess ye. When I do, it’ll stop. Ten days will be enough without risking ye getting hurt.”
His gaze searched mine. “I won’t fall in love with you, wild girl. I can’t.”
My heart hurt. “And I’ll fall out of love with ye.”
Some part of me was about to break. I wasn’t sure what. All I knew was this moment and how locked in I was with Riordan.
A thump rocked the door.
Riordan whirled around then swore and relaxed again when my brother identified himself.
“I’ve brought food. Open the fuck up,” Struan grumbled.
Riordan strode to answer. I was stuck in hope.
Riordan’s revenge was so simple yet shot through with difficulties. That was fine. I was skilled with cutting through the noise and taking action. Yet there was conflict in it for me, too. In murdering the mayor of Deadwater, I’d be acting against the wishes of Arran and his crew, damaging the trust I was earning in the place I wanted to call my second home. All for the sake of a man I’d temporarily decided was mine.
What I couldn’t be sure about was which side of the issue I’d regret.
My musings were cut short as the door swung open. And my brother pulled a gun on Riordan.