Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

The five of us took over Arran’s office, Riordan and me at the big desk, and Jamieson leading Cassie to a sofa that had miraculously appeared at the back of the room, a new lamp lighting the corner.

My heart melted. I’d mentioned to Arran how austere his office was, and now this.

From the doorway, Shade pointed a finger between us. “Stay. Here. None of ye move while I secure the building. There will be a guard on the door, and cameras are watching. If ye, brother dearest, make one wrong move then Jamieson will escort your arse outside and set ye on fire. Got me?”

To mark the point, Jamieson flicked his lighter wheel. Riordan swivelled his cuffed hands behind his back to stick a middle finger up to Shade.

“Can you at least remove the handcuffs?” I asked him.

“Your brother is a member of a rival gang. So no.”

Riordan snorted. “Fuck that.”

“Yeah, well, Arran will want to meet you all the same. You broke into his club and tried to take his woman.”

“She’s my sister and is owed my protection. Plus I walked straight in the front door. If you really thought I was a gang member, your security is shit.”

Cassie gave a happy sigh, her head on her hands, her gaze never leaving him.

“Whatever. My word stands. Cuffs on and under watch until Arran returns. He can decide what to do with his new brother-in-law.” The enforcer left us.

Jamieson turned back to his sister. “Cass, help me out here. Start with what the fuck you were doing with that attention-seeking bullshit. You’ve scared us all shitless.”

Riordan tapped my foot with his. “Are you okay?”

“Of course. Are you?”

“You’re the one in this place. What happened?”

“I’m here because I want to be. I wasn’t kidnapped.”

He studied me, looking so much like our mother, it almost hurt. The fact he was over six foot and she had been my height made no difference when he shared her green eyes. They crinkled around the edges in concern.

“What was I supposed to think? You were seen with these people, and you told me you were staying with friends, which was an obvious lie. We needed the money so we didn’t lose the flat, and there was only one conclusion I could reach.”

“That I’d sold myself?”

His worried gaze soaked me in. “Did you?”

“No. I am staying here, though, but because I’m dating the man who runs it.”

Riordan’s concern shifted to outrage. “Arran Daniels? Are you insane?”

“I’m not going to get your blessing, then.”

“Don’t even joke. That man’s reputation⁠—”

“Is well earned,” Jamieson quipped from the sofa. “Don’t mess with his woman, whatever her relationship to you.”

My brother cut him a glare then came back to me, dropping his voice even further. “We’ll return to that later. I found a way to get the money we need to save the flat.”

My heart sank. There was only one route to that amount of cash, and it wasn’t working long hours on a building site. “Please, Rio, don’t do anything stupid.”

He poked his tongue into his cheek. “Like you haven’t?”

I’d done so many idiotic things and missteps I’d lost count. That wasn’t a debate for now.

I took a deep breath, centring my thoughts. “I’ll use the university fund. I know you’re going to argue, but it’s my choice.”

Riordan’s expression faded from concerned to bleak. “If only you’d answered my calls. The money is gone.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I went back yesterday to check the mail. All the landlord would say over the phone was that the debt wasn’t theirs anymore, which made no sense, so I assumed something else had happened. I found the door open and the place turned over. The cubby in your bedroom was emptied. The prospectus gone, including the envelope with the bank card.”

The university prospectus had contained my savings account details. The only people in the world who knew about it were my little family. Three of us including me.

“That doesn’t mean the money’s gone.” But as I said the words, I found my phone from the pocket of my hot-pink dress and logged in to the bank account I rarely checked but had added to for years.

The balance was nil.

“What was your PIN?” Riordan asked.

I breathed the answer. “Mum’s birthday.”

“Dad took it. I can’t think of another answer.”

I sank in Arran’s leather seat, heartsick. Of all the things Dad could’ve done, the disappearing, the lack of contact, this was a low blow.

“Was much else taken?” I whispered.

“No. He did a sloppy job of staging it.”

We shared a look of horror, and of absolute defeat.

My brother exhaled hard. “This whole time, I feared the worst. I thought he’d crossed the wrong person or got himself into something he couldn’t undo. I pictured him dead.”

I pressed both hands to my lips. “I had, too. We’d be orphans.”

“Exactly. I was more worried about the effect on you than me, but now I think he’s up to something else, but I have absolutely no idea what.”

Heaving a sigh, I told him what I knew about Dad’s interactions with the Four Milers, including how yesterday one of the members had implied he was on a job.

I gazed at my brother. “Are you a member?”

That same outraged expression returned. “How can you even ask?”

“Because of Moniqua. Her family are deep in it.”

“Her cousin is. They don’t have any other family. She’s not a member, and anyway, I wouldn’t join a gang just because I’m fucking some woman.”

“You were paying her rent, and she came here tonight wearing a stolen uniform so she could sneak in.”

“Because she needed help and owed me a favour, not because we’re that tight. I needed someone else to walk into the strip club because if I’d seen you on the stage, I don’t know how I could’ve handled that.”

He cringed. I hid my relief. Riordan didn’t lie to me. As kids, he’d always spoken the truth even if it got him in trouble. If he loved Moniqua, he’d wear it proudly.

“Did her cousin come with her?” I asked.

“No. She told me she hasn’t seen that piece of shit in over a week, thank fuck. Something happened with him, and he’s been off Moniqua’s back.”

Good for her.

“Dad talked a lot recently about missing Mum,” my brother suddenly said. “I keep coming back to that, but I don’t know why. How does that link him to a gang? What does it mean?”

The door clicked open, Shade returning. “Alisha and the dancers have been released. They’re home and safe.”

I exhaled in relief. “What about Arran?”

“No news yet. The warehouse is locked up tight. It could be a long night, so I suggest we go upstairs to wait it out.”

Cassie bounced to her feet. “I’m starving. Is there food?”

Together, we took the lift up to the eighth floor. I’d insisted on my brother accompanying us, and Shade had blindfolded him as a precautionary measure. In Arran’s apartment, I opened the fridge, making myself at home. It was surprisingly well-stocked, perhaps for my benefit considering how he’d populated a wardrobe for me already. Cassie and Jamieson had obviously been here before, because both settled straight in, Jamieson making a call, watching the city out of the arched window. Cassie grabbed a blanket from a spare bedroom and made a nest in a corner of the sofa, her heels kicked off by the door.

She pointed to the big TV on the brick wall. “Can anyone see the remote control? There’s an ice hockey match I want to watch. The Colorado Titans versus the New York Guardians.”

Shit. The remote.

Without lowering the phone, Jamieson remarked, “Since when are ye into sports?”

She poked out her tongue. “Since I saw how hot the men are. Church, my favourite player, had a lower body injury, but he’s back. Boy is fine.” She cocked her head. “Do you think lower body means his dick? I hope not.”

Riordan chuckled then coughed to hide it.

Hurrying over with a bowl of chicken wings and dip, I sought out the remote and found the channel for her. Arran’s perverted game had taken that device out of action for anyone else. I hid it in the breadbin then did a circuit of the room, collecting up anything else we’d abused.

With the violent sport giving us something to focus on, we snacked and waited, the big arched window stealing my attention from the hockey boys fighting. Somewhere out there, Arran was in a police station.

My brother, still blindfolded, refused food and sat on the rug, resting back against the sofa, only the lower half of his face visible. Cassie alternated her watch of the screen with tracing her gaze along his unshaven jawline. When his breathing slowed, I knew my tough older brother had fallen asleep. It was four in the morning, and he started work every day at dawn.

I gestured to Shade. “I’m going to offer him one of the spare beds here.”

He’d taken calls, pacing the hallway for much of our wait. “Not here, ye won’t. I’ll take him over to my place. I have a bedroom with an external lock.”

A locked room? I wasn’t going to touch that thought with a bargepole.

Gently, I shook my brother awake, and Shade led him out of the door and across to his place.

Then I, too, claimed a blanket and curled up in a seat.

Finally, darkness stole over me. I shouldn’t have been as tired as I was, but a power nap took me under, the stress making unconsciousness seem like the better option.

Until the door softly snicked open.

A tiny sound that barely pierced my sleepy state. The opposite was true for Shade and Jamieson. Both men leapt up with sudden alertness, ghosting across the dark room in silent speed to intercept the incomer.

I snapped on the lamp.

Shade’s knife flashed in the light.

Arran was home.