Page 8 of Convict's Game

A rush of emotion threatened me again. I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Fuck off with that.”

Arran laughed. It sounded like grief. “You should know the bastards who broke you are dead. Shade ended Bronson, then the fire killed Red. If it hadn’t, I would’ve.”

They were the Four Milers leadership, or had been. Every time I heard a name, it woke up a sleeping part of my mind.

“Good to know. The cop in the hospital mentioned a turf war.”

Shade stiffened. “Ye spoke to the police?”

“One visited me. I gave him nothing.”

Both he and Arran stared.

Tyler leaned in. “Did you get a name, or can you describe the guy?”

I feature-listed the fifty-something cop, the big fucker who’d lurked at my bedside wearing a smug grin. Now I knew why.

Tyler twisted his lips and queried, “Kenney?”

“Got to be.” Arran scowled.

The name jogged my thoughts. “Yeah, that was him.”

Fury descended on Shade’s expression, and his tattooed hand flexed over where I instinctively knew a knife was hidden in a holster at his side. “Chief Constable Kenney came here and told us ye were dead. He didn’t have the DNA evidence to prove it, which makes me think he did it for his own sick pleasure.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him.” Arran braced his hands behind his head and tipped back in his hotel room chair, then came back with resolve in his eyes. “It’s not enough, but I’m going to right all the wrongs you suffered because of my bad decisions. You saved Cassie in that cellar. You nearly lost your life as well. I can’t change that, but I can make up for it as best I can. You have the run of the warehouse and any work you want, when you’re ready. Shade, Tyler, take care of our boy. I’ll be back next week.”

I murmured my gratitude, because no way did he need to make up for anything, but the call was over, and I had two men to convince I was ready for work.

Still, I couldn’t help the nagging sensation that Arran was wrong. I didn’t deserve his respect. I just couldn’t remember why.

It took another two days for Shade and Tyler to agree to discuss tasks with me. Time in which I met a grateful Cassie and her boyfriend, and familiarised myself with the warehouse again, putting more names to faces and sleeping long bouts in my sex-adjacent room. I even managed a shower, binding my arm in plastic so I didn’t have to take off the bandage. The scar on my head was evidence enough of my history. I didn’t want to see ruined tattoos and mangled skin from the burns.

The next afternoon, I was back in the skeleton crew’s office and pleading my case. “I’m dying to get back to work. You’ve gotta give me something.”

Shade sharpened a blade, the edge of it glinting in the light. He swapped a glance with Tyler. “We can’t utilise most of your main skill set, not until that boot is off and you’re fully mobile.”

“What are my main skills?”

“Ye work well undercover, plus breaking and entering, stealing. Not so great at avoiding arrest.”

Heh. That must’ve been how my nickname came about.

I steepled my hands. “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t have anything to offer. Let me earn my keep.”

Shade grumbled but gave in. “I’m partway through organising the next game we’re running. I have a couple of people left to interview.”

I sat back, my heart thumping.

I’d assumed he was going to offer me guard duty with Manny’s team, or something less…compelling.

The game.I remembered it, the dangerous fun we had in our basement. If things were murky going from the buzzingnightclub on one side of the skeleton crew’s building across to the strip club on the other, then upstairs to the brothel with live performances and anything-goes sex, what happened in the basement turned up the dial to an extreme.

The game was a predator-prey chase where we caged men then released them on a siren to hunt women. Everyone who played did so voluntarily, and live cameras displayed the action to paying customers. It was violent, sex-fuelled carnage.

The description stirred my blood more than any naked bodies could’ve. Had I taken part? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I’d wanted to.

“I’ll help.”