Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Upon the flat stone that had been the front step of my house, I waited, staring down the approaching man.

Detective Dickhead, now Chief Constable Kenney, used to work for my father when he’d been chief of police. Kenney also used to run a sideline in private security, translation: hurting people for cash and body disposal. As far as I knew, the huge man had stopped all extracurricular activities in recent years, barely escaping prosecution after my father went down.

Still, I wouldn’t put it past him to have fingers in many shit pies.

“You’ve been out of the city, I needed to talk to you,” Kenney said.

He’d been to the club. Shade had told me.

“And you found me. Got a tracker on my car?”

He shrugged. “Lucky guess. I assumed you’d gone to McInver’s boys but stopped here first.”

“Don’t call them after their father, none took his name. Besides, you’ll be shot on sight if you go there.” Jamieson had once set fire to Kenney’s prize BMW. He wouldn’t think twice about doing it again.

Kenney tutted. “Making threats against the police?”

I held his gaze, because yes, I fucking was.

“It’s been ten years,” he finally groused.

“You’re insane if you think any of us will forget, Detective.”

“It’s Chief Constable to you.”

I inhaled, my nostrils flared. “Then you’ll address me as Lord Kendrick.”

His eyebrows went up. “Last I checked, your old man was still alive. Rotting in his jail cell but still breathing.”

Dad’s heart still beat only because I enjoyed knowing he suffered. He would meet his end at my hands when I was ready.

I lowered my gaze. “As fun as this is, going to tell me why you came to find me?”

“Your little psychopath has been stalking some of the councillors in Deadwater.”

I held still, giving nothing away. Following Genevieve’s information, Shade was acting on my orders, carrying out investigations into known users of sex workers in Deadwater’s political ranks. Cherry had been expecting a visit from one along with his friend. We were looking into who buddied up to who. Which of their vices we knew about.

“Got proof of that?” I asked.

“He was seen.”

“By…?”

“That’s irrelevant, but I took a call from the goddamned mayor about it. Now listen here, I give you and your whores a lot of leeway in my city. You’ll call your dog to heel⁠—”

I rushed him, snatched his arms behind his back, and smacked him onto the bonnet of his unmarked police car. Once, I’d feared him. He was bigger than me and acted like the cock of the fucking walk. But at twenty years older, he couldn’t match my strength.

“Say that word again.”

“What word?” he choked.

“Whores. When any one of those hard-working women is worth ten of you.”

He shoved me off and whirled around. “Whatever. You can’t fuck with the politicians. Even with the arrangements we have, I’m duty bound to protect them, no matter what.”

Our arrangements served me well and kept my life and the lives of the women who worked with me sweet. But I also had a deal with the mayor, the top politician in Deadwater, something Kenney knew nothing about.

It was a secret only me and Shade shared.

A dark thought swept over me. If Shade’s investigations pointed to the mayor, we had issues. Mayor Makepeace used sex workers, but discreetly. A very limited group of the women attended his office on the regular. It made him a suspect.

As Chief Constable, Kenney was around the politicians a lot, too. Giving updates on crime in the city and providing statistics at council meetings and events. He was the face of the police, and his job was in their hands—they had the power to order him sacked and a new Chief Constable brought in.

I came back to the friend Cherry had mentioned. That could be a councillor, who Shade was watching, Mayor Makepeace, or even Kenney.

Coming to warn me off made sense in all cases.

I curled my lip. “What have they got on you to make you come all the way out here? Or is it more personal?”

Kenney huffed and opened his car door. “None of the above. They’re asking for my help, and it’s message delivered as far as I’m concerned. Keep the fuck in your lane.”

“Before you run,” I said. “The woman who was murdered in North Town, I want her autopsy report.”

“Why? She wasn’t one of yours.”

“Just do it.”

Without a goodbye, he slammed himself in and drove away.

I breathed out, my mental list of murder suspects growing. The urge came over me to tell Genevieve what I’d found, after all, it had been her conversation that clued me in.

A thumbs-up from Jamieson on my phone told me he’d found her in the woods. It also gave me a moment to gather my thoughts. The memories Kenney brought forward had the power to trip me up.

I stepped over a pile of broken stone and glass and entered the ruins of Kendrick Manor.

The dark sky held over my path through the house. Down what had been a corridor, passing on the right a huge entertaining room that my father used to fill with women he’d bus in from all over the country and beyond, many of them trafficked or bought at auction. From the youngest age, I’d witnessed the acts he made them put on. Live sex shows. Women fucking each other. Performing for him.

He didn’t usually let me see him fuck, but exposing me to every other part of it was a feature of making me a man.

I stepped deeper into the bowels of the building. Further along, the footprint of the corridor turned, leading into what had been the staff quarters. I used to hang out there more than anywhere else, learning to read with the help of one of Dad’s women after the tutor he paid to teach me spent more of his time getting his dick sucked.

I’d never gone to school. Or had friends of any kind.

At ten years old, I’d started to become aware that life didn’t look like this for everyone. In the books I read and the stories I heard, women did more than stand around in revealing clothes waiting to be fucked. Still, I assumed my home was normal. The reign of terror my father dealt out on everyone around me, including my young self, typical for other people.

His beatings, screaming, and acts of humiliation were a daily occurrence.

In the rubble under my feet, I trod over a piece of carved stone. Part of the old staircase. Memories rushed. If I answered my father back, I’d be tied to the stairs and left. It was always cold in the manor, and my punishment meant I’d be there for hours, or even days. When I couldn’t control my body anymore, I’d piss myself on the steps.

I’d positioned Genevieve on the stairs in a position of humiliation, just like I was forced to. Either I’d been confronting it, or maybe trying to replace the memory with something better.

For a long moment, I stared at the broken stone, lost in the sense of being trapped. Tied up and in horrible discomfort. No one was allowed to help me for fear of retribution, but they did.

Audrey did. My mother.

I’d had no idea who she was until it was too late. My recollections of her were just as twisted as anything else from my childhood. She’d been a broken woman, conditioned to serve and obedient to a fault. Until she wasn’t. She’d stood up to Dad and lost her life because of it. Not once had she ever told me who she was.

My stomach curdled, and I strode out of the ruin and into the woods I could navigate blindfolded.

Near Audrey’s grave and on silent feet, I stopped, concealing myself in darkness. Then I sent the short message I’d recorded for Jamieson, asking him to bring Genevieve back to the car.

In a minute, they appeared in the darkness, on track to pass me.

“You’re wrong about him,” Genevieve was saying. “He thinks I’m a gang member.”

“Are ye?” Jamieson asked.

“No! I hate the gangs with everything in me.”

“Why?”

They were right next to me now, passing only a couple of metres away. So close, I couldn’t miss the genuine, unhidden hurt in Genevieve’s features.

“They killed my mother.”

Then they were gone, and I slunk to my mother’s grave.

As I always did, I hopped the fence and laid out on the stone, staring at the starry Scottish sky. I spoke to her in my head, never out loud.

Hey, Audrey. Thank you for looking after Genevieve while I was busy. I wonder if you would’ve liked her. Jury’s still out as far as I’m concerned.

Just so you know, Dad’s still in jail. One day, I’ll kill him, and I’ll do it in your name. Sorry you can’t be around to see it.

I wish I could say I loved you, but fuck you for what you did to me. Fuck you for fucking me up just as badly as he ever did.