Chapter 45
R iordan
Panic laced my fevered ride across the city. I paid no attention to traffic lights or speed limits, focused only on reaching the brothel and rescuing Cassie. She no longer loved me, but I’d give up my life for her if I had to.
Music played in my helmet’s speakers, automatically connecting to my phone.
‘Death of Peace of Mind’ by Bad Omens had never been more appropriate.
Busting through a junction, I roared past a furniture showroom, red flames licking the exterior with three fire engines fighting the blaze with hoses. A Four Milers’ money laundering front. Cassie had once filled me in on the way dirty money flowed in the city. Legitimate businesses fronted for the various gangs, passing huge sums of cash through the system to line the pockets of those at the top of the pile. Or to grease the palms of those with power.
A mile on, and another fire blazed, this time in a line of garages. An acrid scent filled the air, suggesting it was a drugs store. Arran really had set about destroying Red’s gang.
I begged that Jamieson hadn’t yet reached the brothel in his reign of arson and terror.
Behind me, engines roared and horns blared, Arran and his crew trying to keep up with me. I was faster. My need to reach Cassie was greater.
Speeding down Paignton Place took me past Moniqua’s flat, all the lights on, and deep into the rival gang’s territory. I hit the back alleys, thundering down a narrow lane to emerge on the street with the brothel.
Horror struck me.
The old church building burned. Yellow and orange flames flickered and lit up the early evening. I hit the kerb and half fell off my bike, my stomach gutting out, and my focus locked on to the destruction.
Smoke billowed from the windows. The open front doors revealed devastation inside. I ran up the steps but threw up my arms as the heat beat me back.
It was an inferno.
There was no way anyone could survive it.
“Pretty, isn’t she?”
I twisted to see Jamieson in the shadows, leaning against the wall, and with his Zippo lighter in his hand.
He grinned, the reflected firelight on his skin making him demonic. “Easy, too. I emptied the building with smoke grenades then left each floor burning as I cleared it. The only people left are in the basement at the back. Red and his crew will be cooking nicely.”
I lost it. With an anguished yell, I fell on him and threw a punch at his face, taking him down to the ground. Grappling his shoulders, I slammed his head into the pavement.
He wrestled me. “What the fuck?”
“Cassie’s inside.”
Jamieson’s expression instantly slackened. His shock pierced another hole in me.
“Cassie is inside,” I repeated.
And I was wasting time tackling her brother.
I straightened and staggered away, down the side of the building. Sirens sounded, adding to the discord of the night and the city in crisis. The emergency services hadn’t reached us yet, but they weren’t far behind. Neither were the skeleton crew.
I was the only hope Cassie had.
The only hope of retrieving her body, if that was all that was left.