Chapter 39
R iordan
With a savage-edged zombie blade held high, Struan slashed another of the mayor’s suits with a satisfying rip. “So tomorrow begins his big election campaign presentation. Wonder what he’ll be wearing. Not the Armani. Nor the Zegna. Wait, there’s a Ralph Lauren left. Ah, shame. That one cut like butter. Nice material. Makes me almost want to own a suit.”
On the opposite side of the mayor’s dark bedroom, I prised open a heavy watch case and took out the first of two rows, some gaps in the lineup. A Rolex. Shiny, with a little crown symbol and a broad metal strap. I set it down on the bedside table, raised my hammer, then smashed the glass. Next, I dug into the guts with the claw end, enjoying the destruction. Small pieces of the expensive watch’s mechanism went tinkling.
Throughout the course of the evening, I’d laid waste to the mayor’s life. First, Struan and I trashed his Town Hall office, including stealing his laptop and throwing it in the river. Confidential files from his cabinet had been left around town, on benches and in bar bathrooms, secret budget meetings and character assassinations contained within. We’d poured cement powder into the fuel tanks of the two cars he used—those engines would never run again—and had now moved on to his home.
If he thought Cassie’s set of minor tricks were disturbing, wait until he got a load of mine.
“Don’t stop there.” I punctuated my words with a crack to a new watch. “I want him to feel violated and scared, like Everly did when he sold her out to his business partner. Disappointed and despondent, like my mother when he told her to get an abortion. Desperate, like I was when he left me nearly homeless. I want there to be no place of safety left for him.”
Struan took to a shelf of smart sweaters, cutting one right down the middle. “He’ll know by now that Arran’s barring him from the warehouse.”
As we’d readied to leave this evening, Arran had filled us in on his part of bringing down the mayor. He knew the man was booked into the brothel and was allowing it to go ahead to give us space to play. But after, he’d inform him because of his anti-gang policy, his business was no longer welcome.
It meant a fight. From what I understood, Arran’s semi-legal operations had been tolerated by the mayor because the man benefited from them. Cut off, who knew what he’d do. But the mayor had cast the first stone. This was all on him.
We continued with our tasks, destroying every personal possession and leaving them to be discovered.
Struan tossed down the last clothing item. “This is good, but we can do better. My family and I burned every stick of furniture that our father used, but that was for our peace of mind because he was already in the ground. We used the evidence we’d gathered on him to right a few wrongs. Is this helping you, Riot? What else do ye want?”
I shrugged. “That event tomorrow is a family and community seminar. A formal thing for politicians and business leaders. I’ll walk up on stage while he’s speaking and introduce myself as the son he never acknowledged.”
“To what end? Do ye want him to give a fuck about ye?”
I considered it. “No. I want him brought down and disgraced. For all the things he’s done, but more for the fact he’s a bad person.”
“How about killing him?”
My breathing quickened. “I considered it, but I’m not bloodthirsty like your sister.”
He clucked his tongue. “She’ll be happy tonight once she and Shade have taken down the business partner.”
I swore softly. “I knew she’d be out with Shade but I didn’t ask why.”
Nor had she messaged me.
The knowledge tightened my stomach into a ball.
It was unlike Cassie to go long without needing to be in contact with me. I’d got used to her Velcro girlfriend act and had felt just as desperate myself. I needed her, too. At multiple points throughout the evening, I’d expected to see her pretty little face peering through a window, or for her to spring at me from a shadow. To have no contact at all worried me.
Struan prowled deeper into the mayor’s walk-in wardrobe. “I’m just going to say this. Your revenge isn’t enough. He’s scum. He shouldn’t be allowed to breathe for what he did to your sister. I’d end anyone who hurt mine. Think bigger. I don’t want ye to regret not taking the right action when ye had the chance.”
“What I’d really like is to understand the dodgy deals he’s putting in place and expose them. That would be killer. Maybe even send him to prison. But I don’t know shit about financial dealings.”
He gave me a long-suffering look, his eyes in a slash of light from his torch. “As we speak, your girlfriend is hunting down the very person who can be persuaded to give up information. Stop being an island and ask her to help.”
My sister had accused me of the same thing, and yet I’d already confided more in Cassie than any other person alive. She’d do it in a heartbeat, but it meant tying her into my crimes, again, and I’d already put her at risk with the stolen painting. Then again, she was the one doing kidnap and murder tonight. I nearly laughed at the difference in scale.
Slowly, I nodded. “I will.”
“Good man. Do it now or else she might have got stab-happy already.”
I took out my phone, wincing at the lack of a message from her, but texted the request, taking pains to be careful with my words.
No reply immediately came.
Struan rifled through the wardrobe. “If we think he’s up to no good, maybe there’s something here that can help, too.”
He shone his torch into a filing cabinet, hidden in the back. I stared at it then approached and tugged on the top drawer. It was locked, but a sharp pull broke the mechanism.
Inside were stacks of paper. I leafed through then spotted something at the back. Letters. A thing of the past, because who sent handwritten letters anymore? They had to be old. I almost ignored them, but the stack slid.
The third in the pile stopped my breathing.
It was an ivory-coloured envelope, stamped and franked, and addressed to the mayor. But it was the handwriting that pulled me up short. My mother’s.
I knew it instantly. She used to leave me messages to read before school. Her shiftwork at the hospital meant she either worked nights or was gone before my sister and I woke, so every day, little love messages or enthusiastic go-get-them notes waited on the breakfast table to remind us that she cared.
I’d forgotten she used to do that, but I couldn’t be more certain it was in her hand. Pain rebounded inside me. I stuffed the letter into my back pocket.
From downstairs, a door creaked open.
I stilled. Struan did, too. From his pocket, he extracted his phone and unlocked it, then read something on his screen. My partner in crime gave a low chuckle.
“Piers Roache. His hunters aren’t far behind. Shade gives a one-minute ETA.”
My heart pounded.
Throughout the evening, I’d carried out my revenge, my acts of protest with cool execution. But knowing Cassie was here and about to go face to face with a violent man chilled me.
I found my own phone and tracked her. They were a street away, probably going slowly so they could claim their prize.
Still no text from her, despite mine being received, but I couldn’t think of that now.
The rattling of keys followed, presumably as Piers dropped them to the hall table, but the rev of an engine chased it, and the bark of a radio.
My blood chilled.
We’d slipped into the house after watching the security team that patrolled the street head out on a break. The mayor still hadn’t retained his own private security, which made no sense considering my recent break-in.
Carefully, I edged around the heavy curtain and gazed down. On the street, two security guards climbed from a vehicle, a second car with the same insignia pulling up behind. Fuck.
Either Piers had summoned them, or there was another reason they’d closed in.
Regardless, it meant Cassie was walking straight into a trap.
I stepped away and whispered what I’d seen to Struan. On my screen, Cassie’s tracker pinged in the back garden.
“We need to help them.”
In the dark, her brother’s eyes gleamed. “State the outcome.”
“Cassie and Shade capture Roache and get out of here unseen.”
He nodded once, the noises of Piers moving through the house punctuated with a snarl of anger. He’d discovered the trashed Council Chamber. Seconds more, and the security guards could be in the building.
“Which makes us the distraction. We need to lead the boys out front away from Roache. Just realise that if we’re caught, we’re walking away from a pile of destruction. No matter if we persuade the police to let us go, the mayor will know exactly who did this.” He cocked his head. “Daddy dearest might get to meet his boy a day early.”
I didn’t care. I only needed Cassie to be safe.
I sent her a final, fast text.
Riordan: We’re taking care of visitors at the front.
The clock ticked over to midnight. I sucked in a breath and said what I needed to say.
Riordan: I love you, wild girl. Happy birthday. Don’t get caught.
There was nothing more to do but tug up our skeleton bandannas and exit the bedroom.
The light from downstairs flooded the hall. Neither of us hesitated, drumming down the stairs, heading right to the front door exactly as a door crashed open to our left, two figures startling the already wide-eyed city boy who stood dumbfounded with his phone in his hand.
Cassie’s gaze met mine.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to help her, even if she and Shade had it covered.
It took until long after we’d led the security guys away that I realised how deep her silence cut me.
I’d told her I loved her.
This time, she hadn’t said it back.