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A genuine smile blossomed across my face. “I will. Thank you. And remember, your birthday party is foryou. Not Sebastian.”

“It’s not for him. It’s for beating him.” Maya huffed. “Anyway, I really have to run, or my father will kill me. Talk later!”

She hurried out.

After she left, I finished the rest of the cookies and returned to the couch. My phone kept buzzing with notifications. It was incredible how many acquaintances crawled out of the woodwork when they heard you were involved in a tragedy.

Some of those messages were probably important. I’d avoided my inbox like it was contagious all week. Sloane had called me on Monday, more as a friend than a publicist. She’d escaped outside by the time the shooting started, but I could tell she was shaken by what happened. Now that she’d had time to regroup, she was likely in full PR mode.

Honestly, I didn’t care about the press. The public’s interest in the church attack was already fading. The news organizations and Internet would do what they do. I couldn’t control them; I could only control my reaction.

My gaze drifted to the window again.

It really was a beautiful day. Why was I inside when I should be out there? I hadn’t survived a brush with death to sit on my couch and knit all day.

But every time I pictured myself leaving the building, I heard the echo of gunshots. The sickly metallic scent of blood clogged my nostrils, and I became painfully aware of the fact that had Vuk been a second too slow, or I’d moved an inch too far to the left, I would be dead.

Every corner hid an assassin waiting to finish the job; every rooftop bristled with snipers tracking me in their scopes.

It wasn’t rational, but fear rarely was.

I bit my lip. Vuk was giving me space like I’d asked him to, and my incredulity over his story was starting to fade. Most people would flee from him considering he used to, you know,concoct poisonsfor an organization of professional killers.

I saw things differently. Like me, he’d been caught in a situation with no other way out. He hadn’t taken pleasure in what he did. It was an act of loyalty and survival, not malice.

Did I think he always kept to the right side of the law? No. I didn’t know what he’d done to Wentworth, but I bet it wouldn’t please the courts. He didn’t kill him though, and the law wasn’t always right either. Look at how many innocents had been jailed, or how many violent offenders had walked free.

Vuk’s morals blurred the lines between black and white, but they always bent toward justice.

Either that, or you’re twisting yourself into knots trying to justify his actions because you like him, and he saved your life.

Fine. So what if I was? That didn’t make my justifications any less true.

I closed my eyes, remembering the solid strength of his body covering mine. He’d literally thrown himself in front of a bullet for me.

I would always be grateful to him for that, but a chill slipped beneath my skin at the thought of Vuk getting hurt. He was smart, powerful, and capable, but he wasn’t invincible. He was flesh and blood like the rest of us, and he could’ve died saving me.

The chill sank deeper, frosting my bones and lungs.

During the shootout, I’d been the proverbial damsel in distress. I never wanted to feel that helpless again. I wanted to go outside and protectmyselfif I needed to.

The kernels of a plan formed in my head. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my coat, put on my favorite pair of heels, and left my house for the first time in two days.

CHAPTER31

Vuk

“It could’ve been worse, all things considered.” Roman sat across from me, his expression bored. He’d healed from the bullet I put through his shoulder, but his movements were careful as we went over the events of the past week.

“Jordan is in a coma,” I said flatly.

“But he’s not dead.” The other man gave me a cool smile. “I held up my end of the deal. I gave you all the information I had at the time—which puts me in a dangerous position, by the way. If Shepherd so much as suspects I was the one who leaked advance notice of the hit, he’d put an unofficial bounty on my head. Again.”

He said it like that was my problem. I was grateful for his heads-up, but it was up to him to be careful.

It was Thursday, almost a week after the wedding disaster. Roman and I were meeting at the same warehouse where we’d kept Wentworth, who had since wisely disappeared to an island in the Caribbean.

My team was still hunting the escaped Brother, but we were getting close. Someone matching his description had been spotted on a traffic camera near Philadelphia.