I Am the Wild (The Night Firm #1)- Karpov Kinrade Page 0,54

back onto the case.

"He wouldn't," Sebastian says, gritting his teeth and clenching his fist.

"You don't think… you don't think Liam is the letter writer, do you?" I ask.

"I do not know. For the sake of this case, my brother, and everyone involved, I certainly hope to gods not."

It's a tense drive back once we've finished our drinks, and Sebastian stalks into the castle. I brace myself for the confrontation I know is about to happen.

We find Liam in his personal quarters, head bent over his desk as he writes in a journal. He slams it shut when we enter, then curses as he knocks over a vial of ink onto a stack of papers. "What do you want?" he growls, avoiding eye contact with me.

Sebastian doesn't say anything, but instead pulls out the crystal and projects the memory of the cat. "Those are your shoes," he says, pointing to Liam's feet. Sure enough, the shoes match.

"So?" he asks.

"So, this memory occurred inside Mary Dracule's bedroom. What the hell were you thinking, Liam? Were you having an affair with our sire's wife?"

Liam stiffens, then stands. I step back, not wanting to get in between two vampire brothers, but not wanting to miss anything important either. A flash tingles in my mind and flows down my body like electricity. Something is happening.

"What I do is my business, not yours," Liam hisses, his face inches away from his brother's.

Sebastian laughs mockingly. "Really? Because this sure as hell looks like it's all our business now!"

"What's all our business?" Derek asks, walking in with Elijah by his side.

"Private meeting. Go away," says Liam.

"Is that any way to greet your brother?" Derek asks with a charming smile, not the least bit put off by Liam's attitude. "I came to find out if you tracked down anything about who might have it in for our beloved sire, but it seems I've walked into something much juicier. Pray tell."

Liam jerks his head at Elijah. "And what are you doing here?" he asks, ignoring Derek's question.

Elijah holds up a journal. "Research. I needed to borrow a book and happened to arrive at the same time as Derek."

"How convenient," he says, then glares at me as if it's my fault. "What did you do?"

"Me? Nothing. What could I do?" I ask.

He scoffs. "As if you don't know."

Now everyone in the room is confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Did you think you could hide the truth from us?" Liam asks.

He shifts positions and stalks to me. The other brothers step closer, presumably to protect me if hothead here loses his shit again.

Sebastian glances at me, then grabs Liam's arm. "Stop trying to change the subject. It's just as well everyone is here so I don't have to repeat it." He turns to address Derek and Elijah. "Liam, here, has been paying visits to Mary behind Vlad's back. We also found love letters she had hidden, signed by the letter L. I'm trying to determine if he was having an affair with her."

"I wasn't," Liam says.

"But you were visiting her?" Derek asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

There’s a long pause, and it’s clear Liam is debating how much of the truth to tell us.

“Let me remind you,” Sebastian says, “we have evidence you were at their house.”

“What kind of evidence?” Derek asks.

“A memory,” Sebastian says.

Liam scoffs. “Those are easily tampered with and you know it.”

“It was the memory of a cat,” I say, speaking for the first time. “Unless cats on this world are something quite newsworthy, I doubt it’s been tampered with.”

“Show me,” Derek says, frowning and glancing suspiciously at Liam.

Sebastian plays the memory, pausing at Liam’s shoes.

Derek and Elijah lean in, studying the frozen projection.

“Your penchant for custom clothing might be your undoing after all,” Elijah says dryly to his fuming brother.

Liam finally nods curtly. “Yes, I was there. Okay? I was there. But not for the reasons you think.”

"Why, then?” Derek asks. “What could possibly justify you going against our sire like that?”

Liam steps back and paces in front of his fireplace. "It's not what it looks like. Mary reached out to me. She needed help and didn't know who else to ask."

"What did she need help with?" I ask.

Liam glares at me again. "Her baby. She was worried about her pregnancy and needed a healer. So she called me."

"You're a healer?" I ask, the astonishment clear in my voice.

"I was," he says. "Before the curse. She thought that since I'm a vampire who was a healer, I