AllFreeNovel
Share Us
”Thanks,” I replied, looking into her eyes. ”It would’ve been really bad if I had to tend to it myself.”
She flashed me a smile. ”You really did look like you were going to faint. Is it like that every time?”
”Without fail,” I said. ”My first girlfriend did not appreciate it.”
She laughed. ”What now?”
I paused for a moment, thinking about the question. I wasn't sure what the answer was, but I knew that I didn't want her to leave just yet. ”Stay with me?” I asked, my voice soft. ”Just for a little while longer.”
Sofia looked surprised, but she didn't object. Instead, she scooted closer to me on the bed, resting her head on my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. We sat there in silence, her head on my shoulder and my arm around her, watching the sunlight creeping through the window.
Then my watch vibrated and I looked down to see Grayson's contact card on the digital screen.
”I need to take this,” I told her.
She nodded, moving away from me. ”Of course.”
”Hello?” I said into my watch. ”You're on speaker.”
A beat. ”Hey. You better get down here. There's been another one. And this one is, uh, bad.”
Sofia looked into my eyes, and before I could ask Grayson what the fuck he meant, the line had gone dead.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Sofia
Teo'sfacehadgonepale as he ended the call. ”Another one?” I asked, my heart racing.
Teo nodded, his expression grim. ”Yeah. And apparently it's worse than the others.”
”What do we do?”
Teo stood up from the bed, his expression hardening. ”We go and investigate. Grayson's waiting for us.”
I followed Teo out of the room, my mind racing. This killer was prolific, but this was bordering on ridiculous. I’d overheard the guys talking; they had floated a bunch of theories, including someone from a rival gang trying to frame them.
But they’d spoken about the Strangler too, as if that was the most likely option. I liked being right, in general, but it turned out that I didn’t particularly love being right about killers.
”I don’t have any clothes here,” I said.
Teo threw me a large shirt. ”Here,” he said. ”You can make this work.”
I didn’t have time to think about it. I threw on the dress I’d worn the night before, put the large white shirt he’d given me over it, and put the same shoes on.
”We’ll go straight to HQ after this,” he said. ”You can get clothes there.”
I nodded, following behind Teo as we made our way to the car. The drive to the crime scene was mostly quiet, tension palpable in the air. I was scared, but Teo's presence next to me made me feel a little bit safer.
”When this first started, we blocked access to the alleyway behind Neon,” Teo said as we took a right turn. ”We only let people we trusted in. We put CCTV up everywhere and a bunch of other security measures. Grayson always sweeps the alleyway in the morning, before anything else.”
I looked at him from the corner of my eye. ”That sounds like a hard job.”
”Oh yeah. It’s brutal,” he replied. ”I mean, sometimes Jace or Victor relieve him, but he likes…well, likes is the wrong word. He prefers to be the one handling the logistics there. I help him, obviously, but only after the first part.”
”Is that why you’ve never found a body?” I asked, then wondered if that might be insensitive. ”I mean, uh, Jace showed me this document…”
”I haven’t found any of the Strangler’s victims,” he said when I trailed off, which definitely meant he’d foundotherbodies. ”My men can be a little protective.”
”Aw,” I said.
