Tank's hand tightens again, cutting off the lie before it can fully form. Adam's eyes bug even more and his hands claw uselessly at Tank's wrist.
"Let's try that again," I say, moving closer. "Sophia Norton. Twenty-two years old. Works at Daily Grind Coffee on Twenty-Second Street. Lives in a studio apartment on Eaton Avenue. Drives a 2015 Honda Civic with a dent on the left of her rear bumper."
Each detail makes Adam go a little paler. Good. He should be scared.
"But you'd know all of that, wouldn't you, Adam? You've been following her for six months," I continue. "Taking pictures through her windows. Sending her little 'gifts.' Love letters written in what I'm guessing is your own blood, because you're just that fucking cliche."
Jinx has been moving around the apartment while I talk, and now he reappears with a cardboard box. He sets it on the coffee table and opens it, revealing stacks of photographs. Allof Sophia. Some taken from across the street. Some from much closer. Some that could only have been taken from inside her apartment. And some of a far more intimate nature that she could only have sent him, thinking she was talking to someone else entirely.
No one's sending pussy pics tothisfreak, that's for damn sure.
"Damn," Jinx breathes, flipping through the photos with a look of pure disgust. "This is fucked up."
My lighter stops clicking. The rage that's always simmering just under my skin starts to boil over.
"Tank, put him in the chair."
Tank drags Adam to the expensive leather recliner in the center of the living room, shoving him down hard enough to rattle his teeth. Adam tries to get up, but Tank's hand squeezing his shoulder keeps him pinned.
"Jinx, explain to our friend here exactly what's going to happen if he ever goes near Sophia again."
Jinx perches on Adam's lap like some kind of psychotic cat, taking the other man's chin in his grasp. The rings stacked on each of his fingers tink against each other with the effort. "Oh, Adam. Sweet, stupid Adam. You havenoidea how much trouble you're in."
He picks up one of the photographs—Sophia getting out of her car, unaware she's being watched—and holds it up.
"See, the thing is, we knoweverythingabout you. We know you convinced dear old Dad to lend you another million when you burned through your trust fund in record time. We know you spend your days trading stocks and your nights jerking off topictures of women who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. And we know you've done this before. There was that girl in Seattle, wasn't there? And another one in Portland?"
Adam's face goes white.
We've done our homework, dug into every corner of his pathetic existence. Cyrus is thorough like that.
"But here's what you don't know," Jinx continues, his voice dropping to a whisper. "We're not the cops. We're not bound by laws or procedures or the need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. We're somethingmuchworse."
He leans forward, close enough that Adam can probably smell his overpriced cologne, and licks the sweat beading down the side of Adam's face all the way up to his forehead before whispering, "We're justice."
Nasty.
But Jinx always has been a bona fide freak.
That's why he fits in with us.
I take the box of photographs from the table, feeling their weight in my hands. Hundreds of pictures. Hundreds of violations. Hundreds of moments when Sophia thought she was safe.
"Cy, you find anything else we should know about?" I ask.
"Oh yeah," Cyrus's smug voice comes through the comm. "Our boy's got a whole digital collection too. Hidden partition on his hard drive. Videos, more photos, even some charming audio recordings of him whacking it while describing what he wants to do to her. From her closet."
The lighter in my hand clicks open, and this time I don't close it. The flame dances in the dim light and the shadows make everything look like it's already burning.
"Adam," I say, my voice deadly calm. "I want you to understand something. We could kill you tonight. Right here, right now. Make it look like an accident, or a robbery gone wrong, or just let you disappear completely. No one would miss you. No one would even look very hard. Not like you've clocked in to a nine to five in years. And your social life?" I hiss a breath through my teeth. "Yikes."
The flame from my lighter reflects in his terrified eyes.
"But we're not going to do that. Because death would be too easy. Instead, we're going to give you a choice."
I hold up the box of photographs with one hand, the lighter with the other.
"Option one. You disappear. Tonight. You pack a bag, get in your car, and drive until you run out of continent. You never come back to this city. You never contact Sophia again. You never even think her name. And in return, we let you live your sad, pathetic life somewhere else."
