Page 66 of Arran's Obsession
“I don’t run a gang.” At my astonished stare, he explained. “I call my team of people a crew. We act like a gang in that we defend our territory by any means, including by violence, but I don’t share any other gang aspirations.”
I pulled my lip between my teeth, chewing it. “Because you formed around running the club and protecting women.”
“Exactly. Now back to you.”
“I didn’t grow up in Deadwater,” I said slowly. “Though I was born here. My parents were a couple for the few years it took to have me and my brother, then they split. Mum raised us, then when I was ten and Riordan thirteen, our father wanted access to us again. We came back to Deadwater, where he’d stayed, and visited with him for weekends. Neither of us wanted to be there. He’d never paid maintenance, and we’d watched Mum struggle to make ends meet as a single parent. She did her best and even managed to complete a degree in nursing in that time. Her mother took care of us but died unexpectedly. Then when I was fifteen, Mum’s life was ended.”
“How?”
I gripped the sides of my seat, suddenly hot. “She helped a woman who was knocked up by a member of a gang, I think raped, but Mum didn’t specifically say, probably because I was so young. The pregnant lady wanted to give birth in secret because she was scared of the baby’s father and knew he’dnever let them go, so Mum faked paperwork to say she’d lost the pregnancy. The woman moved far away and had the baby without the father knowing.”
“But he found out,” Arran said quietly.
“He suspected something after she vanished. He’d escorted her to appointments so knew where to go to find Mum. He intimidated her and made threats.”
My beautiful, confident mother had been afraid. She’d tried to change her working location. Anything to escape him.
“Did he kill her?”
“No,” I spluttered. “Not directly. Mum died in a car crash. She left work in a rainstorm and drove home too fast, ending up skidding onto the wrong side of the road and in front of a lorry. She was forty-three. Healthy despite her hard life. The stress and fear caused her panic, I’m certain.”
“So there was no consequence for him.”
I leaned my too-warm forehead against the glass. “No. Nothing happened to him at all. There wasn’t even any proof he was there. My world disintegrated, and that bastard walked away without a care.”
Lost in my own thoughts, I barely noticed that Arran had asked a question.
“His name, Genevieve,” he repeated.
My mouth rejected the words, but I spat them out. “Jordan Peters. We lived in?—”
“Newcastle. I know. Before that, London, and Manchester for a while. Then you moved in with your dad. Did you ever see Peters yourself?”
“Never, though Mum described him.”
“Tell me what she said.”
I cast my mind back. I’d told the police this but with precisely zero effect. “He was thin and wiry. Not tall but bigger than herand obviously strong. He had a bird tattoo by his eye and dots around it. Why?”
He didn’t reply. I returned to thoughts of my mother. Then Arran’s mother. I wondered if he’d ever want to talk about her.
“There are three main gangs in Deadwater and other nearby cities,” he said abruptly. “The Four Milers, which your brother and father are linked to.”
“They’re absolutely not.” I sniffed.
Arran shot me a look. “The Zombies are the second, my crew is the final one, if you insist on including us in the lineup. The Four Milers run drugs, the Zombies handle weapons. Our territory is sex work. Outside of that, there are small gangs that appear and disappear. I don’t give a fuck about the others or what they do unless they encroach on my turf.”
“So if any try to run sex workers?”
“I eliminate them. Used to be that women were trafficked here, but we shut down the routes. All those who wanted to come work in the warehouse did. Others we extended help and protection to while they got their lives back.”
“If you’re not a gang, why the masks? Why the big reputation?” As I said the words, I worked it through. “Because you’re showing them what you want them to see, so no one tries to, what was the word you used, encroach?”
Arran nodded, his smile fleeting but almost pleased, or approving. A little piece of happiness chased away some of my blues.
Jesus. What the hell was that? I locked down the emotion.
I was not going to fall for my skeleton-masked captor. Not even the tiniest bit.