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His fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed something. ”That was the night we found you, right?”
”Yes.”
He made this hmm sound that indicated he was thinking about it, but before I could ask him about it, Teo gently squeezed my shoulder. ”What happened after that?”
I sighed, my heartbeat pounding my ear. ”Pretty much as soon as I hung up, someone broke into my house. They were wearing all black, their face was covered, but they towered over me. I tried to fight, or maybe hide, honestly, I can't remember. Like I said, it's all a blur. And then I woke up in the storage room of your nightclub and I was pretty fucking sure I was going to die.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: Teo
Icouldfeelmyblood pounding in my ears.
After telling us what she had been through, Sofia sat up straight and looked ahead, past Jace and Victor. I squeezed her shoulder once again and stood up, making a beeline for the balcony.
The day was hot and humid and the sliding door glass was frosted from the heat. I leaned on the railing, taking a breath to calm myself down. I reached for the packet of Marlboro I always kept out there and found it empty.
Fuck.
I didn’t want to go back in; it was going to be easy for her to tell how upset I was and I already knew that was only going to make her feel less safe than she already did. She might’ve landed in our lap under strange circumstances, but I had told her I was going to protect her and I intended to stick by that.
Now that the threat had ramped up, we needed to do something about it. Something else. Clearly, everything that we had done had been absolutely fucking pointless.
I was pacing around the balcony absentmindedly, my fingers aching to hold a cigarette, when Grayson slid the door open and approached me. ”Here,” he said, handing me an unopened packet of Marlboro.
I picked up my head to look at him.
”You only pace this much when you’re out of smokes,” he said, almost cracking a smile.
I grabbed them from him. ”Thank you,” I said.
He leaned against the railing too. He looked pale, older than he ever had. The sparkle in his green eyes dulled, his head tilted. He normally did a better job of at least pretending he wasn’t concerned about me. ”Can I ask you something?”
I nodded, lighting up the cigarette and taking a long drag. ”Sure.”
”Just a week ago you were threatening to kill her,” he said. ”And now, I’m pretty sure you’re going to go on a murderous rampage if you find the person threatening her. So what happened?”
I blew out the smoke, feeling it rush out of my lungs as I thought about my answer. I had never been a sentimental person, and my job had taught me to be practical, to take care of business first and foremost. But something had shifted in me since we had taken Sofia under our wing.
”I don’t know,” I said. ”I guess at first I thought she might be a threat. I was worried about it. I would’ve killed her if I thought she was going to be a problem, but she’s…I don’t think he left her there as a trick. I think the fact that she’s alive is just a lucky break.”
Grayson nodded and we both looked down at the busy street below us.
”But now that she’s here,” I continued, ”I feel responsible for her. We haven’t been able to help so many people and now we might be able to help her. Honestly, the change didn’t feel gradual; once I realized that she wasn’t his associate or something, things instantly changed in my head. I guess I didn’t realize how or why until now, though.”
He considered that for a long moment, standing up and straightening his shoulders as he stretched himself out. ”You went to meet her brother. And he’s a cop.”
”I’m aware. But what was he going to do? Even if he recognized me, was he going to arrest me?” I took another long drag.
”Do you think he recognized you?”
I thought about it. ”Yeah,” I said. ”I would say there’s a seventy percent chance he realized who I was once the date was over.”
”Maybe the killer is escalating because he knows that Sofia is protected now,” Grayson said. ”If her brother made you, it’s absolutely not outside of the realm of possibility that her stalker did as well. Since it’s someone targeting the Blades, they would definitely recognize you, probably right away.”
”I would’ve noticed someone watching us.”
”Right. You definitely would have,” Grayson replied, looking me in the eyes. ”So it stands to reason that there’s one person who wouldn’t have needed to stalk her and who has a vested interest–now even more of a vested interest–in making sure that the gang goes down. One who might want to threaten her but not actually hurt her.”
I turned my body entirely so I could face him. ”Wait. You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”
