I turned around slowly. I looked at the detective. Then I looked past him, through the glass window of the room, at Victor and his seven sons. They were talking to each other, laughing. Mason, the youngest, was showing something on his phone to Kyle.
“A robbery,” I repeated.
“Yes, sir. We found signs of forced entry at the back door.”
I looked back at Tessa. I gently lifted her arm, the one that wasn’t in a cast. I looked at her fingernails. They were clean.
“Detective,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “My wife is a fighter. She takes kickboxing classes three times a week. If a stranger broke into our home and attacked her, she would have clawed his eyes out. There would be skin under her nails. There would be defensive wounds on her forearms.” I pointed to her smooth arms. “She didn’t fight back. Which means she knew the person. She let them get close. Or she was held down.”
The detective’s eyes flickered toward the window, toward Victor. It was a micro-expression, a tiny split-second of fear. I caught it.
“We are investigating all leads,” Miller said, sweating now. “But the father, Mr. Victor… he has been very helpful. He hired a private security team to watch the house now.”
“I bet he did,” I said.
I walked out of the room. The seven brothers stopped talking as I approached. Victor looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
“Tragedy,” Victor said flatly. “But we will take care of her. Hunter, you have done your duty. You can go back to your base. We have the best doctors money can buy.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
“She’s my daughter!” Victor snapped, his voice rising. “And you are just a husband who is never there. You weren’t there to protect her. I’m handling this.”
I stepped close to him. I was three inches taller than him and carried fifty pounds more muscle than his security guards.
“That’s the problem, Victor,” I whispered so only he could hear. “You’re handling it too well. You don’t look sad. You look inconvenienced.”
Victor’s eye twitched. I looked at the brothers. Seven strong, capable men, yet not a single scratch on any of them. But I noticed something else. Mason. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the floor. His hands were shaking. He was holding a coffee cup, and the liquid inside was rippling.
