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Sam chuckled. ”Yeah, you're probably right.”
We fell into a comfortable silence, the sound of the TV and the occasional car passing outside the only noise. I couldn't help but think about the Orchid Strangler, about the victims and their families, about the fear that gripped the city. I had to do something, even if it was just to give them a voice.
”You're sleeping over, right?” he asked. ”You're too drunk to drive.”
”I'm sleeping over,” I said. ”I need to finish all your wine.”
”Good,” he replied, standing up as he did so. ”Okay. What do you want to watch next?”
He walked away before I could answer, and I sat there for a moment longer, my mind racing with ideas and possibilities. I couldn't let this go.
My brother put himself in danger all the time. I was smart, capable. And I would finally be writing something that mattered, rather than a puff piece about a celebrity appearance at another downtown nightclub. Maybe I would finally be able to make a name for myself.
”What about Scream?” I called after him. ”I need a palate cleanser.”
”Sof,” he replied, laughing. ”You have to stop watching movies about serial killers.”
Chapter One: Teo
Mystomachtwistedintoa tight knot as Grayson approached me after he knocked on my door. He didn’t have to, all my men had access to my house whenever they wanted it, but not one of them dared walk in without knocking first.
This time, however, he didn’t even wait for me to call out that it was okay to come in. That was enough to make me worry.
It was early in the morning during a hot October day and I was drinking the last of my coffee, sitting on a barstool at my kitchen island. In general, my men knew not to approach me before breakfast. I knew they found me much more reasonable after ten o’clock in the morning, after I’d had some time to shake off the night’s events and maybe, if I was lucky, get some sleep. Grayson’s hair stuck to his forehead from sweat. His plain white t-shirt and jeans told me that he’d had to get up and deal with an emergency in the morning; I hadn’t seen him in anything other than a suit in years. His face was white as a sheet and he struggled to meet my gaze.
He didn’t have to say anything. I already knew what he was going to tell me. I put my unfinished coffee down as he walked up to me, his throat working when he swallowed.
I already knew what he had to say, so I held my hand up as he opened his mouth.
”Another body?” I asked.
He nodded. ”Yes, boss,” he said. ”I’m sorry.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. ”And you’re sure it wasn’t one of our guys?”
”It wasn’t one of our guys,” Grayson replied, crossing his arms over his chest. ”They know better than to dump a body behind Neon.”
He was right; our men weren’t stupid, and they knew better than to implicate us in whatever it was they were doing. As a rule, they also knew I much preferred it when theydidn’tkill people. Over time, I’d learnt that there was a hierarchy of crimes, not just when it came to punishment but when it came to cleaning up after them.
A street fight? Easy. Bribe a cop on the beat to look the other way or pay the target’s family a large lump sum. A murder was much more complex. I didn’t have time to cover it up.
And this one…fuck, this one was the third in amonth.
I stood up from the stool and took a deep breath. ”Alright. Let’s go have a look at the scene.”
Grayson nodded, relief evident in his eyes that he didn’t have to face my wrath alone. We both knew what was at stake here. We couldn’t afford to be linked to these murders. It would ruin everything we’d worked for.
We made our way to Neon, one of our nightclubs in the city. It was closed during the day, but the back alley was always busy with deliveries and pickups. Grayson drove us there. We weren’t far, we could’ve walked, but we wanted to get there as soon as possible.
He parked his black Mercedes in a spot around the corner and he began to brief me as we walked out of the car, not sparing any details on what they’d found.
”She’s a young woman, early twenties,” he said, his voice flat. ”Same M.O. as the other two. Strangled, left in an alleyway.”
”Analleyway?” I asked. He wouldn’t meet my gaze when he spoke again.
”Our alleyway,” he said, running a hand through his hair. Grayson had been my right hand man for years, and he knew that my temper ran hot, but he also knew that I wasn’t going to turn against him for something that wasn’t his fault. Still, I couldn’t fault him for this. None of us wanted this to be happening onouralleyway.
”Right. Anything else happen to her?”
