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I needed to talk to her. I needed…fuck. I neededher. I shouldn’t have walked away from her at the hotel. I should’ve stayed and worked it out somehow. Convinced her that this arrangement with Jordan wasn’t worth it.

Regret twisted inside me.

I checked the clock again. I still had a little time before the ceremony started.

I strode out into the hall and toward the elevators, my pulse pumping with adrenaline. I made it halfway when my burner phone rang. It was the one I used specifically to communicate with Roman.

Dammit. His was the one call I couldn’t afford to ignore.

“What?” I resumed my walk toward the elevators.

“We have a problem.”

Mental alarm bells clanged at his grim tone. “What kind of problem?”

“Our friend has reprioritized.”

Translation: the distractions that’d kept the Brotherhood factions at bay had cleared up.

“Is he coming home?” In other words, were they actively targeting me again?

“Yes.” Roman sounded tense. “I suspect he’s…unhappy with me. I’m out in the cold in regards to details.”

I swallowed a curse. The development couldn’t have come at a worse time. “When?”

“I’m not sure, but it’ll be soon. Knowing him, he’ll choose a time when your guard is down and you’re least able to retaliate.”

My guard was never down. Even now, I scanned the hall, my ears cocked for the slightest hint of trouble. As for retaliation, the only times I couldn’t really fight back were when I was asleep or…

My blood turned to ice. The gears in my head whirred and landed on one inevitable conclusion.

Fuck.

I hung up without a word and immediately called Sean from my other phone. He picked up on the first ring.

I bypassed the pleasantries. “The wedding has been compromised.”

After a millisecond of audible shock, he recovered and immediately snapped into professional mode. Thank God I’d had the foresight to bring three of my men to the wedding despite the Fords’ protests.

“Understood,” he said. He hung up.

I checked my watch. The ceremony started in ten minutes, which meant Jordan and the guests were already inside. Ayana would be nearby.

I hoped I was wrong, but my gut screamed otherwise.

The Brotherhood wasn’t operating by their old rules anymore. The fire at the Vault proved that. It didn’t matter that this was a high-profile wedding when they usually operated in the shadows. And my absence from the church wouldn’t deter them; it would embolden them to use people I cared about to get to me.

They’d done it before.

My heart crawled into my throat; I felt like I was going to be sick.

The elevator arrived. I jabbed at the button for the lobby, my body wired with so much tension I might explode before I got out.

Twenty floors.

Nineteen.

Eighteen.