Stalked By Raiden (4R Ink #1)

Prologue

Raiden

Five Years Ago

I’m not shocked.

I’ve been circling this decision for months. Signing the papers took ten minutes. Now, it’s time to bring in my best friend. The phone rings twice before River picks up.

“What?”

I snort. “Nice to hear your voice too.”

“You’re calling me in the middle of my nap. Somebody better be dead.”

“Not yet.”

He goes silent. “That sounds ominous.”

“I got fired.”

River barks out a laugh. “Bullshit.”

“I wish.”

“You’ve spent the last five years kissing the district attorney’s ass and collecting convictions like baseball cards. What the hell happened?” he asks.

I stare across the street at the elementary school. A police cruiser crawls past the building before disappearing around the corner. Two boys stand on the sidewalk arguing while their mothers wait near the school gate.

Even from here, I see the gang tags spray-painted across the brick wall behind them. Wrong place for kids. Wrong place for anyone.

“A repeat offender. Serial rapist. The judge dismissed the case. Said the fucker wasn’t in his right mind,” I mutter, my anger brewing all over again. “And I told the judge exactly what I thought of him.”

River groans. “Tell me you didn’t call him corrupt.”

I shrug despite knowing he can’t see it. “I may have called him a spineless piece of shit.”

A choking sound comes through the phone. “Jesus Christ.”

“He deserved it,” I reply.

I’d made up my mind before I opened my mouth. He’s a top judge, and I weighed my career against the satisfaction for all of two few seconds. I didn’t give a shit then, and I still don’t know that my career is over.

“He sure did,” River says as he laughs again.

I push away from the rusted railing I’ve been leaning against. “I need you to meet me somewhere.”

“Where?”

I give him the address.

“The hell are you doing there?”

“Just get over here.”

“Fine. Give me twenty minutes.”

The line disconnects. I slip my phone back into my pocket and look up at the building. It isn’t much to look at. Two stories. Old enough that the mortar is beginning to crumble in places. The windows need replacing. The roof definitely needs work. But it has good bones.

Most importantly, it has a basement. A large one. This neighborhood is one of the roughest in Atlanta. Most people with any sense avoid it. For what I have planned, I prefer it that way.

Across the street is the neighborhood elementary school. Kids walk through these streets every day surrounded by drug dealers, gang members, and predators.

Meanwhile, judges let criminals walk free because of technicalities. Prosecutors cut deals. Police departments bury evidence. The system is broken.

As an ADA, I’ve spent those years trying to fix it from the inside. All it has done is make me hate it.

???

A motorcycle rumbles to a stop beside the curb, close to where I stand. River pulls off his helmet and frowns at me.

“You sounded like hell on the phone.”

“I’ve had better days.”

“No shit.” His gaze sweeps over the abandoned building. “Why here?”

I toss him a ring of keys, and he catches them one-handed. “What are these?”

“I own the place.”

His eyebrows climb. “You bought a condemned building?”

“I bought an opportunity.”

River shifts his gaze from the building to me. “I’ve known you twelve years, Raid. That look on your face usually ends with someone regretting their life choices,” he says pointedly.

“It should.”

He folds his arms. “So, talk.”

I look across the street again. A little girl chases bubbles while her teacher laughs from the playground gate.

“They go to school in the middle of a war zone.”

River follows my gaze. “I know.”

“No…” I shake my head. “You know because you’re a cop, Detective Rainiere.”

He snorts. “Suspended detective.”

“Exactly.”

His expression darkens. Neither of us mentions why. He’d exposed corruption inside the department. The department had repaid him with unpaid leave and a disciplinary hearing. Justice. Same disease, but different building. I turn back to the empty structure.

“I’ve spent my whole career trying to beat criminals inside a courtroom,” I say after a few seconds of silence.

“And?” River prompts.

“I’m done asking permission.”

River studies me for a long moment. “What are you saying?”

“I’m opening a tattoo shop.”

He blinks. “…Come again?”

“And you’re quitting the force.”

River’s jaw works, but he doesn’t argue. That tells me everything. He’s hated that badge since the day they handed him a suspension and called it justice.

“We were damn good artists in college.”

A slow grin tugs at one corner of his mouth. “I remember.”

“We took the licensing exams so we could work to pay tuition. I kept my license current the whole time I sat in the DA’s office.”

River raises an eyebrow at that. I don’t have an answer for him. Some part of me always knew I’d need it.

“We make the shop successful. And then it becomes a front,” I explain.

River goes completely still, and a dangerous look enters his dark brown eyes. I can tell that he understands what I’m trying to say even before I finish.

“We find the predators the law can’t touch.” I let the words settle between us. “We make damn sure they never hurt anyone again.”

For several seconds, only distant traffic fills the silence. River doesn’t laugh and doesn’t question whether I am serious.

“You’ve thought this through,” he finally says. His tone even and thoughtful.

“For years,” I admit.

With that new information, his gaze sharpens. “Who’s first?” he asks.

He already knows the answer. There’s one name I’ve carried since I was sixteen years old. Since a gang shooting took my brother, and the man who ordered it walked out of a courtroom a free man. I spent my whole adult life believing I’d get him with the law.

No hesitation. No doubt. “Drake Krane.”

River’s expression turns murderous. “Yeah. I thought so too,” he says, and that’s all the acknowledgment I need.

“We bring those motherfuckers down,” I say quietly. “Starting with Drake.”

He doesn’t ask for details. Instead, he looks back across the street toward the school. “When do we start?”

A smile I hadn’t felt in years finally surfaces. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

He rolls the keys across his knuckles. “We’ll need Roman and Royal. The four of us again.”

“The four of us,” I agreed, thinking back to how well the four of us worked together in college.

River and I met first. We shared a class with Royal and Roman, and we’ve been friends ever since.

Royal comes from a family whose name opens doors all over this city, and a father he’d rather not owe anything to.

He’s also the most gifted man with a keyboard I’ve ever met, not that he advertises it.

Roman came home from the Navy a year ago with the look of a man who left something unfinished overseas.

Neither of them will ask me for details before they say yes.

Life pulled the four of us in different directions, but we’ve always stood by one another. The time is now.

We’ve all spent years cursing the same broken system. Now, we can finally do something about it. For the first time in a long time, I feel something other than anger.

Hope.

Not for the system. That ship has sailed. But for what comes next.

The justice system fired me.

It has no idea what it just created.