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Thatcher gave me a guilty look. At least he had the decency to look ashamed.

“I received a package. Anonymous. It had the girls’ details, and a detailed picture of the tattoo.”

I gritted my teeth. The room felt smaller, tighter, and wherever I turned, I only saw what Thatcher had done.

“He wanted exactly this, and you gave it to him. You gave him a fucking stage,” I spat.

Thatcher swallowed. “I reported it. Everyone deserves to know the truth.”

“Fuck it. Like you care about truth,” I said, curling my fist around his shirt. He struggled against my grip, his face turning pale.

“Ryden, let go,” a calm voice ordered.

I whirled around to glare at Natalia.

“Did you see this? Did you allow him to print this garbage?”

She flinched.

“This is a hack job,” I said. “This isn’t… journalism.” I pushed Thatcher with a grunt, and he stumbled back, looking shaken, face pale. With a huff, he walked away, or more like ran.

For months, I had been chasing this bastard, and Thatcher was the one who introduced him to the world, and hell, was it an introduction!

“This is a fucking disgrace.”

“I know.”

Thatcher turned this psychopath into a brand. The world loved their sick bastards.

Natalia looked tired.

“What the hell were you doing, Nat?”

I knew it wasn’t fully her fault, but I had no one else to blame.

“I didn’t know,” she murmured, shaking her head. “He pulled some strings. By the time I saw it, it was already approved, posted online, printed. It was fucking everywhere.”

Thatcher Perry was a bottom-feeding ballyhoo artist, and his father was rich enough to break whatever barriers he had to cross to get him where he wanted.

Thatcher knew how to use his father’s money.

I shook my head. “Pulled some strings? Nat, he turned this into a gory commercial.” I threw the crumpled paper down. “This isn’t just bad journalism. It’s fucking dangerous.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Come in. Let’s talk in my room.”

I looked around at the faces that watched us. They pretended to work, but no one was working.

Nodding, I followed her. She closed the door and pulled the blinds down.

“Sit.”

“Nat, he wrote about it like it was a masterpiece.”

“Thatcher went over my head—straight to the top,” she said, her voice tight. “The board signed off on it before I even knew what was happening. They only care about sales. And this one? It crashed our website. Physical copies sold out in hours. They’re already scheduling a second print run.”

“Of course,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand down my face.

“He’s turned this into a fucking spotlight for the killer,” I said. “The bastard who did this is probably enjoying the show, getting high from it, and will kill more for more attention now.”