Chapter Four

Iroll up the cuffs of my black shirt to my elbows as I sit in the metal chair and wait on the other side of the plexiglass window for my idiot twin. What the fuck was he thinking?

He didn’t tell me much.

Last night, I got a phone call from him saying that he got arrested at the corner of Thompson and 47th at 1:15 a.m. I knew what he was saying without saying it. So I pulled up the street cams and wiped the footage of his attack, made it look like a technical glitch, and erased my footprints in case they dove deeper into the issue.

The question is, what the hell was he doing?

For the last few months, there has been something off about him. Don’t get me wrong, there was always something off about my brother. We lived the same life but dealt with the events of that life in two totally different ways. I internalize and only allow out what is absolutely necessary, where Zayden feels everything. He feels so deeply and so wildly that he jumps over the line of crazy and lives in full-on psycho town. It’s a miracle he hasn’t gone all Jack the Ripper on the world these days. I think our line of work keeps the demons inside him at least semi-satiated, so I make sure the work is steady and the plans are iron-tight.

Which is why I still can’t, for the life of me, figure out why a highly skilled killing machine could make such a reckless and careless attack on some random drug addict that came out of nowhere. The video didn’t make sense to me the first time I watched it, but it only took one rewind for everything to become much clearer.

It was her. Something about that girl set him off. The man was obviously about to harm her in some way, and I watched my brother intervene, no, annihilate the guy before the girl even had a chance to look over her shoulder.

I’ve seen my brother’s control slip. His irrational actions take over from time to time, but never like this. Never to the point where he got arrested. Because of what we do, it’s important we maintain perfect records, that way we are never suspects. Well, pair that bullshit lie about a cop being onto us, a cop who doesn’t even exist, might I add, with my brother’s idiocy, and I’ve had enough of this shitty week.

The door in the back buzzes before it opens, allowing several guards to escort inmates to various phones. The last inmate is the tallest, with inky black hair to match my own, two arms filled with tattoos differentiating us, and an entirely too-casual demeanor for being where he is at this moment. Zayden towers over his guard by at least a half-foot, and the guard looks far more intimidated by Zayden than he should.

If only he knew how scared he really should be.

Zayden plops down into the chair across from me, picking up the phone while I do the same. I raise an unimpressed eyebrow at him, which only causes him to roll his eyes and lean back into his chair.

“What?”

“What?” I parrot. “How about, what were you possibly thinking?”

“He attacked me. It was self-defense.” He shrugs.

I let out a humorless laugh as I shake my head.

“Yeah, self-defense would have ended before you gouged the man’s eyes out and stabbed him in the kidney.”

“He pulled a knife on me, what was I supposed to do?” Zayden asks, his face serious, but a flicker of mirth only I seem to be able to detect in his ice-blue eyes.

Seriously, does he really expect anyone to believe that he was the victim in this scuffle? I guess it’s the only angle he has to work at the moment, and he’s milking it for all it’s worth.

“So, when do I get out?” Zayden asks.

“You don’t.”

The mirth in his eyes evaporates instantly as a flicker of the cold-blooded killer he is comes to light.

“What?”

“You’ve been denied bail. The official report is that you appear to be too mentally unstable to be trusted. You’re a flight risk. So, no bail until your hearing.”

“Who said I was unstable?” he practically snarls. “It was that little bitch detective, right?”

“Easy,” I say in a way that seems to snag his attention.

His eyes are filled with fury, but he understands what I’m saying. Not here, not like this.

“I’ve contacted the best defense attorney in the state, and he’s agreed to represent you. He’s working on getting you a hearing in three months.”

“Three MONTHS?” he shouts before closing his eyes and shaking his head.

“I can’t be in here for three months. I need to get out, now,” he says, a dangerous look filling his eyes that has my head cocking.

“What’s going on in there? Everything okay?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not about in here, it’s out there. I need to…” He pauses for a moment, sinking his teeth into his lower lip.

“I can’t be in here for that long. I…” He trails off again before clenching his jaw tight. “If I’m going to be in here for that long, I need you to do something for me.”

I nod as I let him continue.

He glances over his shoulder at the security guard, who is obviously eavesdropping but pretending not to be.

“There is something I need you to watch over for me at Hooked Sinker. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Time’s up!” one of the guards shouts to the room.

Inmates begin lining up as their loved ones say goodbye and walk away until it’s just Zayden and me on the phone.

“Promise me,” Zayden demands, a strange note of desperation in his tone that has me nodding my head.

He exhales, but it doesn’t look like it’s in relief, per se. His eyes flick up at me once more as I go to stand, still gripping the phone.

“Take care of my angel, brother, or I’ll end you.”

With that, he walks away and lines up, giving me a lethal look on his way out the door. My interest is officially piqued. We’ve never kept each other in the dark about anything before, ever. Whatever or whoever this “angel” is has somehow been able to turn Zayden into their own personal guard dog, and based on the way he was following her before she was attacked, I’d bet my life she doesn’t have a clue.