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He tapped his fingers on the railing rhythmically. ”I’ve been turning it over in my head for a bit, actually,” he said. ”And it’s the only thing that makes sense. Her brother is the only person who’s close to her, he has beef with us because he’s the law, and he doesn’t actually want to kill her. This person--you know, this strangler or whatever–he’s only targeting people who don’t have families, really. She’s his only family. When the article comes out, she’ll bring attention to him, and that’ll be difficult for everyone.”
I opened my mouth to rebuff his points, but found that I didn’t have anything to say. ”He loves her.”
”Hence the not killing her,” he replied. ”I mean, think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The moment he made you or realized who you were he would’ve chased you down and arrested you if he thought Sofia was in danger. Unless…”
”Unless he had something to hide.”
I finished my cigarette and crushed the butt under my shoe. ”Fuck,” I muttered, turning to look back into the apartment. ”We need to find out if her brother is involved in this.”
”She’s not going to like it.”
”She doesn’t like any of this,” I said. ”We kidnapped her, remember?”
The ghost of a smile appeared on his face. ”I don’t know. I feel like she likes some of this.”
”That is…not relevant,” I replied.
”I don’t know. It’s nice to see you happy.”
”She’s not my girlfriend or anything. She’s my prisoner.”
”So ask her,” he replied, shrugging. ”If you want her to be your girlfriend, I’m sure all you have to do is ask.”
”I’m sure that’s something we can talk about once this has all blown over,” I said, though I was sure we would definitelynottalk about this at all when it had blown over.
”Let’s figure out the brother thing first,” I said. ”You might be right, there could be something off about him, and he’s the only one who would know what she was working on other than her editor. Jace said no one had hacked into her devices or anything, so this is what makes most sense.”
”Plus,” Grayson said. ”He said she’s good at her job and how would he know that if he wasn’t familiar with her? She told us her work is the pop culture beat so…”
”Yeah, but that’s not enough evidence,” I replied. ”We need to be sure before we make any accusations.”
”I know,” Grayson said, nodding. ”But we have to do something. We can’t just sit here and wait for the killer to strike again. We have to take action.”
I shook my head. ”Wait,” I said. ”Let me talk to her first. I know you want to protect her too but if we go for her brother too early, this could cause a giant mess for us.”
He leaned over the railing again, standing in between the bars and bending his body to look down. ”Ihatethis,” he said. ”All you have to do is take a quick look at her and see that she’s terrified and honestly, you’re not doing much better.”
I didn’t have to ask him how he was doing. I could see it written all over his face.
”Grayson,” I said, a warning creeping into my voice. ”I need you to let me handle this.”
”If he doesn’t strike again,” Grayson said. ”If he does, you can’t hold me to that.”
Before I could argue, he was slamming the sliding door as he went back inside.
***
Since Sam was the only family Sofia had, I didn’t know exactly how to bring up that we thought her brother might be a serial killer.
I decided to ask the rest of the guys to leave for the night. Jace worked from his place that night, looking into Sam’s internet presence. I sent Victor to follow Sam and see if there was anything suspicious. Grayson insisted on breaking into Sam’s place to investigate, and while I wasn’t against it, I knew that we might get found out, so I sent him to Neon and asked him to do his regular job instead. He knew what Sam looked like and he could easily keep an eye for him at the club. Grayson was an intelligent man, whose insight had often let me stay one step ahead of our enemies, but he could also be impulsive and difficult. He liked risk more than I did and going after Sofia’s brother–he was a cop, he might’ve been a serial killer, he was Sofia’s fucking brother–was a huge risk.
I needed to keep him on a tight leash.
Sofia didn’t really care about what the rest of the guys were doing. She sat on the floor of the living room in HQ, wearing black shorts, her hair up in a messy ponytail that she had put up absentmindedly. I noticed her hands were practically shaking when she did so.
Once they were all gone, I poured both of us a bottle of sangria and brought the box of Scrabble we kept under the coffee table to her.
”I thought you might want a distraction,” I said.
