Page 36 of Unholy Bonds

“I still stand by what I said, Patel.”

He gave me a mutinous look. “And I stand by what I said. She’s an investigative reporter like you. Her podcast has won a few journalism awards.”

I scoffed. Like me!? That’s doubtful.

“And nobody knows who she is. She’s not a reporter. She’s just a little girl playing with…”

“Oh, fuck it, Sinclair. Don’t be that guy. You know it’s not a good color on men like you. K.Y. Wolff is a legend.”

“Because she has a porn star voice?” I asked with a smirk, and he shook his head with a huff, looking indignant.

“I’m single and I’m allowed to have my fantasy, Sinclair, but she’s a legend because she knows what she’s doing,” he said as he emptied his coffee and poured another. “Do you want more?”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t put myself through the torture of that coffee again. “Fantasy is not jacking off to some woman talking about death.”

“Pfft, I never jack off when I’m listening to her. In my fantasy, she isn’t talking about death. She’s talking about my throbbing cock.”

“Fuck. Too much information, Patel,” I grunted with a glare in his direction, and he laughed, amused by himself. I wasn’t. “Too much.”

“That’s what you get for harassing me this early on a Sunday. I’m going back to bed, listening to K.Y.”

“Tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“You won’t stop even if I say no, will you? Come back tomorrow,” he said with a slight frown.

“Don’t forget the autopsy report. And if it’s possible, I’d love to talk with the ME who performed it.”

“Arey Rama! The things I do for you,” he grumbled and opened the door. “Of course, I won’t forget. You know the medical examiner.”

“Who?”

“Yara West.”

“Ah, Doctor West. I’ve seen her around a few times,” I said, thinking about the redhead. “I saw her the other day when I was coming out of my meeting with Detective Rosario.”

“Meeting with Rosario?” Rishi scoffed. “Doctor West is good at what she does.” Rishi had a small smile, his eyes dreamy. The detective certainly had a crush on Doctor Redhead.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said as he walked me toward the door and slammed it shut behind me. I stared at the closed door for a few seconds before taking the elevator to the ground floor. As I drove through the lazy streets, I felt it once again, the red haze slowly rising.

Everything in me burned for a release, but I knew I couldn’t kill now. I had too much at stake.

So, I did what I told Patel I wouldn’t do. I found the podcast. Hunters and Preys.

The first one was Thirteen.

Victor’s story was Unholy Verdicts.

“Men hide behind masks of holy saints. When the masks break, they leave behind the trace of who they are: animals. This is the story of two predators, preying on helpless women. They say killing a man is a crime, but is it a crime to hunt a rabid animal and put it down?”

Raspy, soft, angry.

The voice evoked so many emotions in me, but the most potent one was shock and surprise.

I knew that voice. The blonde. Here she was. K.Y. Fucking Wolff. I stiffened in my seat, my hands tightening around the steering wheel until my fingers turned white.

Parking the car on the side of the road, I concentrated on her words.

There was a familiarity in the way she talked, as if she knew Victor personally, as if she wasn’t just sharing something she heard from the others—I knew the difference between the articles I wrote on other killers and the ones I wrote on the murders I’d committed.

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