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The flight attendant approaches, interrupting my train of thought. "Can I get you two anything before we take off?" she asks.

Julian orders himself a glass of wine, and I get a seltzer…"Wait," I say. The woman turns, her elegantly arched brow raised. "I'll take a brandy, too.”

“I have a nice cognac.” She leans toward me a little. “Basically the same thing,” she almost whispers.What a fantastic cap to this day.Clearly Isobelong here. The flight attendant moves off and Julian gives me a smile. The rumble of the engine vibrates up through my seat.

I may not know the difference between cognac and brandy but I survived.

Drink in hand, I begin to relax as the plane speeds down the runway and lifts into the sky.This wasn’t a nightmare. This happened.An assassin attacked me, and I killed her. Jack attacked me, and I killed him.I’m the one who lives.

The apartment isempty when I get home, everything is where I left it, as far as I can tell. Archie is at Mary’s, and I'll pick him up later, but right now I need a shower. Dropping my bags on the bed, I move through to my bathroom and strip.

Holy crap.

A fresh layer of makeup and the dim light in the plane had kept the darkening of my chin hidden on the flight home. Now, in full daylight, I can see it clearly under the foundation. It's going to be a bitch to cover up as it changes color and will take weeks to fade.

The press rollout for the film is done, but I'm sure Mary will want me at meetings. Maybe I can tell her I need a vacation. That sounds so nice…just going away. Archie and me in a convertible, a scarf fluttering behind me as we race up the California Coast.

My hip is a mottled storm cloud of bruising. And as I peel off the bandaging on my shoulder, I discover red swollen skin around the stitching.

I still have the pen.

What am I supposed to do with that? And what is stopping Red’s friends—whoever they are--from coming after me? Should I go stay in a hotel? I need to reach Temperance.

Steam from the shower curls around me, fogging the mirror and hiding my reflection behind misty gauze. My grandmother, holding a broom, reaching onto her tiptoes to knock down a spider web—the delicate artistry clumping around the worn wood handle—flashes across my mind

A sound in my bedroom shoots adrenaline into my system.There is someone in here.

Stepping silently to the bathroom door, I turn the lock, tensing at the sound. “Angela.” It’s Temperance calling out to me. My shoulders relax, but the adrenaline is still spiraling. His footsteps reach the closed door. “Angela,” he calls louder. “I’ve been knocking."

“You should wait outside until someone answers,” I try to put bite into my words but they come out shaky.Crap, I can do better than this.“I was about to get in the shower.” That’s closer—higher octaves, steadier tone. “Give me two minutes."

“I’ll wait in the living room,” he says.

Turning off the water, I grab a robe and wrap it around my naked body, slipping on a pair of clean panties as I move through the bedroom.

Temperance is waiting on my couch, all relaxed male, legs wide, phone in his hand. He’s wearing a sport coat over a T-shirt and dark jeans. “Are you okay?" he asks, those tiger eyes of his locking on to the bruise on my face.

"I survived," I say, indignation starting to bubble. "But I did get attacked. What the hell, Temperance? How did that woman know who I was or what I was carrying? I don't even know what I was carrying!"

Temperance is unfazed by the sudden hysteria creeping into my voice. "Give me the pen,” he says, slipping his phone into his jacket pocket.

“That’s all you have to say to me?” Now there are tears in my voice.Great.“I killed her.” The words come out on a whisper—almost an accusation.He made me kill her.

His gaze remains even, tempered… his mother named him well. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds bored. Like murder is nothing to him.

But it’s not nothing to me.“And Vladimir?”Is it really three?

Temperance stands, moving slowly, like I’m an injured animal he hit with his car that he doesn’t want to frighten further—I might hurt myself trying to escape from him. “Where is the pen?”

I gesture back to the bedroom where I dropped my purse on the duvet. He gives a small wave of his hand, indicating I should go get it. Temperance follows me and watches as I unzip my purse and reach into the interior pocket, pulling the slim, black pen from inside. Anger rises in me again.

"Here's your stupid pen," I say, allI'm an angry toddler.

He takes it from me and slips it into an interior pocket. "You were injured?"

"Yes." I pull my robe aside, exposing the puckered, stitched wound.

His eyes narrow, and he leans closer, his breath not quite hitting the wound, but the nearness of him raising goosebumps none the less. "Not that bad," he says.