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I swallow. “Vincent told me he saw my picture in the paper on that date.”

“Yes. And it got personal then. He became obsessed with you. He wanted me to set you up. I told him to fuck off. He…he threatened my assistant to scare me.”

My skin prickles with the realization. “The harassment rumors—they weren’t true.”

He shakes his head.

Though I don’t want to feel it, vindication runs through me. I was right not to believe the rumors, even though everything said he’d done it.

Then I realize there’s more. “You came up with that story, didn’t you? It was the only way to get the heat off her, even though you knew it would make you look like shit.”

“My political career was over the minute Creelman walked into my life.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “It’s funny. I got rich on Wall Street because I wanted to see if I could do it on my own. I was sick of people thinking I was some coddled trust-fund kid when Dad treated me like I only existed when I checked off the boxes he wanted. But that didn’t make me feel any better. So I got into politics. I thought I could make a difference. It’s why I wanted to work with Lionel. To champion a project that would help people. But I fucked that up, too.”

Sam looks sideways. His normally perfectly coiffed hair falls across his face. Even though my brother’s deep into his forties, he looks suddenly like the boy I once knew. The hero.

“But I didn’t give a shit, not once he mixed you up in it.”

“What did he say would happen if you set me up on that date?”

“It wasn’t what he said would happen. It was what he said wouldn’t.” He looks up, meeting my eye.

My stomach drops. “He was going to kill you.”

“And take you. He said all he wanted was a single date to let you decide. He promised he wouldn’t do anything against your will. But if he didn’t get that date, he’d ‘incorporate you into his business’ without my assistance.”

Maybe that’s what he thought, but if Griffin hadn’t come to that restaurant…he would have taken me with him right then.

My mouth waters with the need to vomit.

But when I look at Sam, I can see his jaw clenched hard, even under the blood and swelling. His expression is dark with self-loathing. He doesn’t even care that Creelman would have killed him, too. He hates himself for what he did to me.

“Once he got his sights set on you,” he says, “I don’t think he even cared about the info Lionel’s company had on him. All he cared about was you.”

I remember the flash of Vincent’s teeth. The way he tried to set everything up like a date.

Then he laughs again. “There’s no silver lining to this. But if there was, I think his obsession is the reason he’s not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think his bosses knew he was putting their interests at risk.”

“So you think he’s…dead?”

“He hasn’t been seen in weeks.”

“So why’s his guy holding us hostage? What’s the money he’s talking about?”

“I think his guy is trying to save his ass. I think Creelman told him he’d pay him off if he stuck with him. It’s the only reason this asshole stayed with him.”

My mind spins with all this information. I know, theoretically, that Sam could be spinning all of this. That he really did steal money from gangsters and now he’s trying to cover it up. But what’s the point when a beast called Brick is going to kill us anyway?

“What’sBrickgoing to do if he can’t find the money?”

“You mean when he doesn’t find the money. I don’t have suitcases of cash lying around. I wasn’t staying at the motel I told him about. I just sent him on a wild goose chase to buy us time.”

“Where were you staying?”

“Only a few minutes from here. The Rolling Hills.”