The Behavioral Analysis Unit had seen its fair share of troubled youth—victims, runaways, and even young offenders whose lives had veered into dangerous territory. But the first time a police report landed on Hotch’s desk with the name Gideon in bold print, it had sent a ripple of unease through the team.

“Jason, this can’t be your—”

“It is.”

No explanations. No excuses. Just the quiet resignation of a father who had already been through this conversation too many times before.

Grand theft auto. Breaking and entering. Joyriding. Shoplifting. Petty theft. The list was long, too long, and growing. There had been more than a few raised eyebrows when local law enforcement ran the name through the system and saw who the kid belonged to. Some officers had let them off with a warning out of deference to Gideon’s reputation. Others had been less lenient, insisting that the law applied to everyone, even the child of one of the FBI’s top profilers.

“Your kid’s a menace, Gideon,” a particularly gruff detective had said after yet another arrest. “You profiling them yet? See where this road leads?”

Jason had clenched his jaw, the weight of the words pressing down on him. Of course he had thought about it. How could he not? He spent every day analyzing criminals, piecing together patterns, trying to understand what led people to violence, destruction, and ruin.

He refused to believe his own child could become one of those cases.

Emily Prentiss had been the one to ask the question outright, the one no one wanted to say aloud.

“If we saw this profile without the name attached… would we be considering them as a suspect?”

Silence had followed. Uneasy, heavy silence.

The truth was, the answer wasn’t simple. There was no clear pattern to the behavior, no escalation to violence, no malicious intent behind the crimes. But there was recklessness. Risk-taking. A willingness to break the law without fear of consequences. And it didn’t matter that they weren’t hurting people—yet.