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Jace sighed. “Can we focus on what we’re actually here for?” he asked, grabbing his backpack from the backseat. “We need to get to work.”
Victor rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything else as Jace led us up to his apartment. It was very much like it had been the first time we were here. The studio was still gorgeous, floor-to-ceiling windows that let sunlight stream into the place. The polished concrete floors gleamed under us, a sectional gray sofa that now had things on it. Jace’s apartment was no longer something that could be found in a design magazine. There were too many things strewn around.
I could tell Jace was the least tidy of all the men. As Jace started setting up his equipment, I wandered around the apartment, taking in the different elements. It was odd, being there without Grayson and Teo, the two men who had always been by my side. Without them, I felt a little adrift.
It wasn’t like Jace and Victor hadn’t talked to me. We made conversation, sure, but Grayson was by far my closest friend, and Teo was...well, he was Teo.
Jace tucked his long blond hair behind his ear as he moved toward his workstation.
Victor sat beside me on the couch, his leg brushing against mine as he watched Jace work. I could feel his eyes on me, and even though I tried to ignore it, my skin prickled with desire.
“So what’s our plan?” I asked, trying to distract myself from Victor’s presence.
Jace paused momentarily before answering. “Well, first we need to figure out who’s behind all of this,” he said, tapping away at his computer. “And then we need to shut them down.”
“Did you have any luck going through Olivier’s text messages?” I asked him.
Jace turned his swivel chair around to look at us. “Yes,” he said. “But nothing concrete.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “It’s not like we have to check our sources, right? We’re not publishing an article or anything.”
Jace’s smile widened into a grin. “Bingo,” he said. He turned around for a second to bring something up on his screen and suddenly the TV set in front of us came to live. It took me a second to realize he was casting from his TV. “Okay, so she gets a lot of fan messages. A lot of people that reach out to her to give her information that never makes it into her videos or shows.”
Jace scrolled through what looked like thousands of messages. He did so very quickly, to the point where I couldn’t see anything.
“But there’s only a few people she seems to be in constant communication with,” he continued.
Victor leaned in closer to the TV. “Who are they?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“A couple of adoring fans,” Jace said. “And then there’s this. She’s talking to someone called Sara. At least that’s what they call themselves. I didn’t find anything about this person, by the way. They’re using dummy IPs every single time they message Miranda and the name is common enough that it’s not searchable online.”
“What’s the name?” I asked.
“Sara Garcia,” Jace said. “She’s--”
He was saying something else but my vision felt like it was fading.
She might’ve been unsearchable, but that was my mother’s name.
Chapter Nine: Jace
IhadseenSofiain vulnerable situations before.
I had seen her tied up, bruised, fucking spanked and fingered in front of me.
But I had never seen her faint, and the fact that she had made me feel sick to my stomach. Her body slumping as her eyes rolled back in her head landed on Victor’s shoulder was enough to get me to fly out of my chair and run over to her.
“Sof?” I asked, leaning down so I could look at her face.
Her eyes fluttered as they began to open, but I wasn’t going to just leave her there.
“We should put her on the bed,” Victor said as if he was reading my mind. “And raise her legs above her head.”
I nodded. Victor got out of the way. I thought he was going to lift her, but I did so first, cradling her body against mine, careful not to hurt her. Her eyes fluttered open for a second, then she buried her face in my chest.
“Sofia,” I repeated.
Victor straightened the bed up for her.
