Page 74 of Brother's Keeper

She looked wary as she shifted side to side. “And, if we do these things, you’ll let my dad go?”

“I’ll wrap him up with a bow on top,” I replied. “But, before that, we have to take care of Grimm.”

“Gladly.”

A sigh eased out of me. “Then he’ll be gone, Donnie and Rip will be safe, and your father will be restored to power.”

“And you?”

The silence following that question felt cavernous. I could only ask for so much, and I knew when I’d reached my limit.

I glanced aside. “I will be at your mercy.” Admittedly guilty of a slew of crimes she had already named. That didn’t keep the investigator from reminding me of the stakes.

“Are you sure you want that?” she asked. “By rights, you are owed a lengthy prison sentence, and that’s assuming my father doesn’t demand your head for all this.”

Frightening as it was, that reality also came with a measure of relief. I’d been raised by a cop, after all—taught the differences between right and wrong—and I knew that everything about my life with the Bloody Hex was very, very wrong.

“I deserve it, don’t you think?” I asked to her quiet. “Can’t run from fate forever.”

Another long stretch of silence preceded her reply. “I’ll talk to the team. Tomorrow. You’ll be there, too.”

It wasn’t a question.

After Holland left thedocks, I called Donovan home. He went straight to bed without a word, which suited me just fine since I wouldn’t have any updates for him until Holland revealed her plan for getting him out of the city. I heard nothing further from Ripley’s captors, but my phone rang with back-to-back calls from Nash that I sent to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message, but he did fire off a text around midnight.

What was that about? You ok?

I didn’t have any updates for him either, so I left him on read and got a few hours of restless sleep.

Holland woke me with a 6AM phone call. She peppered me with questions about all the details I’d omitted from my late-night confession. I told her everything I knew and forwarded the link to the camera feed that showed Ripley in captivity. The sales pitch, in my mind at least, was that we needed Ripley to take down Grimm. That was critical consideringRipley was an escaped convict himself, and I saw no point in rescuing him only to deliver him into the Capitol’s custody.

After an hour on the call, Holland hung up to get ready for work. I dragged my ass through getting dressed and a stop at the nearest convenience store where I shotgunned an energy drink then polished off a bag of pork rinds on the way to the Capitol building.

A depressed mood hung over the Investigative Department—at least our corner of it. Tobin and Vesper were listless, and even cheery Felix was in a full-blown funk. I couldn’t decide if I could celebrate yesterday’s victories or not, seeing that everything I’d won was balanced heavily by the loss of every secret I’d worked so hard to keep.

Holland, in contrast, showed up in rare form. She called us all into her office where we had some measure of privacy. Tobin and Vesper sat in the padded guest chairs and Felix leaned against the side wall, leaving me posted up beside the door, poised for a quick exit.

“Since we are no longer working the missing persons case…” Holland’s opening statement was greeted with a chorus of groans. “We will be devoting our energies to a single kidnapping victim.”

She opened her desk drawer to produce a large yellow envelope. From it, she pulled a mugshot that she set on the desk for all to see.

Ripley stood in the frame, stone-faced and scrawny, and holding a card printed with his name and an inmate ID number as unremarkable as mine had been.

“Ripley Vaughn,” Holland announced. “Bloody Hex member and an associate of Mister Farrow’s.”

“Sorry, did you say we’rerescuingthis guy?” Tobin chimed.

If I’d had any hopes about him changing after our heart-to-heart at Holland’s birthday party, they were dashed.

“He’s just a kid.” Felix leaned in to scrutinize the photo.

“Mister Vaughn is nearly three hundred years old,” Holland corrected—a detail even I didn’t know. “And he’s being held for ransom by the shapeshifter Jaxon Rhodes.”

“What kind of ransom?” Vesper asked between smacks on a wad of gum.

“And why do we care?” Tobin asked.

“Fitch is the ransom,” Holland gestured to me, “along with his brother, Donovan. Mister Rhodes and his associates intend to kill Fitch and Donnie for clout. The same reason that spurred the attack you all witnessed in the interrogation room last week.

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