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She hesitated for a moment. ”What I told you,” she replied. ”I haven’t gleaned anything else in the short time I’ve been here.”
”Alright. If you don’t know how you ended up here, will you at least tell us who you work for?”
”I work for the Sentinel,” she replied.
I cocked an eyebrow as I looked right at her. ”You work…for a newspaper?”
”Yes,” she replied softly. ”Covering the pop culture beat. So unless you want to know where your favorite telenovela star was last weekend, you should probably let me go. Besides, you can read all about it this Sunday…”
I edged my chair closer to her. It scraped along the floor as I did. ”Look, you’re clearly brave.”
She stared at me, saying nothing.
”But I think it might be in your best interest if you talk,” I said. ”We didn’t bring you here, I can promise you that. So if you’re not lying to us, and you really were kidnapped by a shadowy figure that you don’t recognize, then we might be able to help you.”
She cocked her head, her brown eyes flashing as she looked between the four of us. My men were standing behind me, and I could see their reflections in the window behind Sofia. They all had their arms crossed, but they were all leaning forward, every single one of them clearly interested. ”Why would you help me?” she asked.
”Because…”
She interrupted me before I could finish my sentence. ”I know who you are,” she said. ”You’re Mateo Costa and that’s Victor Sinclair, Jace Roman and Grayson Santiago.”
I raised my eyebrows. The mood shifted in the room; there had been some jovial camaraderie before, despite the weirdness of the situation. I was sure we were all relieved that this wasn’t another dead body.
But as soon as she said our names, it changed. We were aware people knew who we were; we weren’t stupid. We tried our best to make our businesses look totally legit, but the law had caught up to us a couple of times, and we’d managed to get them off our backs through the help of excellent lawyers and a few well-placed bribes.
She was a reporter. She knew all our names. What had started as a mystery we all wanted to solve could’ve just turned into a serious threat.
She sighed, looking away from me, her voice almost breaking. ”Look, I absolutely never meant to get in the crosshairs of any gang dealings. What the Mercy Drive Blades do is honestly none of my fucking business, and I wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually come into your territory. I might have sent you an email or given you a call. I…I’m still trying to piece this together.”
”Let’s say I believe you,” I said. I reached out to tuck a strand of wavy brown hair behind her ear. She followed my fingers with her gaze and I could tell she was trying her best not to recoil. Her adrenaline had to be pumping, but she kept herself upright and steady. ”If that’s the case, why is someone breaking into your house and kidnapping you?”
”Because,” she said, her brown eyes fixed on mine. ”I’ve been looking into the Orchid Strangler. And I think he found out.”
Chapter Seven: Sofia
Teowasimposing,evenwhen he got down on my level, a chair between the two of us. I slid my gaze down his body. He had his arms wrapped around the back of it, a dark tattoo of a blooming flower with thorns coiled around his sun-kissed skin. The intricate design ended on his shoulder, a large skull biting into a blade with sharp teeth.
”And you thought he was in our club?” Teo asked. I looked at his face to find an amused look on it. He clearly felt my gaze on him and he was probably used to women staring at him like this. The pain, which had ceded for a moment, suddenly returned. The sharpness in my head made focusing on what he was saying practically impossible and I instinctively went to put my hand up by my temple.
I couldn’t, of course; both my hands were tied to the barstool under me and my range of motion was extremely limited. I told myself to get a grip and turned my gaze back on Teo, despite the headache that threatened to split my skull open.
I told myself I wasn’t just looking at him because he was hot–though that certainly was one reason I was looking at him. I was looking at him because there was no way for me to know where I stood exactly with him, and if he was telling me the truth about none of them being involved with my abduction.
I knew that I would have to play my cards close to my chest. I’d heard about this gang, of course–everyone in Orlando had heard about the Mercy Drive Blades. I’d seen them in the news and I’d heard Sam mention them more than once. In front of me, every single one of them was more imposing, terrifying, and weirdly, handsome, than I had ever expected. The leader, Teo, looked at me, quietly waiting for me to respond to his question. I wiggled my hand in the zip tie as I looked him in the eye. ”I can think a lot better when I’m not tied up.”
He cocked his head, considering this. ”It's going to be difficult for me to let you go, when I don't know what your allegiances are.”
”My allegiances don't matter. Here are the facts. You’re much bigger than me, all of you. There’s four of you and there’s one of me. I’m in an apartment in a place I’ve never been before and I have no phone, no wallet, nothing. I'm not stupid. I want to stay alive. I'm not going to go anywhere. My head throbs, my stomach hurts, and this is just adding insult to injury. So I’m just being reasonable. What am I going to do? Slap you?”
He flashed me a lopsided smile, his canines surprisingly sharp. His eyes caught a glint of the dim electric light in the apartment and shone honeygold. ”Tell me what you want, Sofia,” he said.
My name sounded like sugar on his lips. He spoke slowly, softly. I didn’t expect the leader of a gang to be soft-spoken. His voice sent a shiver down my spine.
I told myself to pry my gaze away from those sharp canines, from the stubble on his sharp jawline. ”Please let me go,” I said. I was fully prepared to beg if reasoning didn’t work with him.
But he nodded after a beat. We locked on each other’s eyes for what felt like minutes, but must only have been a few seconds. Teo cocked his head before he turned to look at Victor.
He must have given his men that look a lot because Victor quickly approached me and cut the zip tie with a wickedly sharp knife I hadn’t known he was holding.
