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“A beach is fine if it’s deserted.”

“What do you have against people?”

Vuk gave me a sardonic look.Right.Stupid question. People had shot at him, killed his brother, and tried to kill him too. That wasn’t counting all the strangers who gawked at his scars like he was a zoo animal. No wonder he hated leaving the house.

“Never mind. Deserted beach or deserted mountain. Noted.” My teeth dug into my bottom lip. There was another question I wanted to ask, but…Screw it.We had over an hour left on our drive, and I was finally comfortable enough to broach a topic that had been on my mind for a while. “After my bachelorette, you started talking to me verbally. What changed that night?”

“Besides the fact that you tried to kiss me?” Vuk’s cool drawl brought a flush of heat to my neck and chest.

“Besides that,” I said.

I didn’t care how Vuk expressed himself as long as he was comfortable. Verbal or ASL, what mattered most was how he felt. However, he’d only used ASL with me until I tried to kiss him. I thought that was a one-off due to his shock, but we’d been having verbal conversations almost exclusively for weeks.

He didn’t even talk this much with Jordan, and Jordan had known him before the fire.

“It felt right,” Vuk said simply. “You’re the only person I talk to this much besides Willow.”

Something green hissed through my veins. “Who’s Willow?” The name sounded familiar. I pictured some leggy, faceless beauty and frowned.

“My former assistant.”

“Hmm. How old is she?” I asked casually.

Vuk glanced at me, one eyebrow cocked. “She was my mother’s best friend, so she’s in her fifties. She took me in after my parents died. She retired earlier this year and moved to Oregon. We don’t talk as much as we used to given the distance, but I’m planning to visit her in a few months.”

“Oh.” Now that he mentioned it, I vaguely remembered a frighteningly competent older woman who’d been at his side at my engagement party.

Dark amusement coasted through his gaze. “Jealous,srce moje?”

“Yeah, right.” Heat singed my cheeks. “Well, I’m honored to be one of the two chosen ones. Really.” Sincerity softened the last word.

A quick smile flashed over Vuk’s mouth before it disappeared. He returned his attention to the highway. After a short pause, he asked, “Did Jordan tell you why I stopped speaking?”

I shook my head. “He said it wasn’t his story to tell.”

“He would say that.” A twinge of melancholy colored Vuk’s voice. Despite our easy conversation, Jordan’s current condition never strayed far from our minds.

There was another, longer pause before Vuk spoke again. “The night Lazar died was the night everything changed. One of the Brothers who broke into my house tried to choke me with a rope. When that didn’t work, he set the end of the rope on fire. I managed to free myself in time, but the incident left me with this.” He gestured at his neck. “The doctors said it was a miracle my vocal cords weren’t destroyed. Even so, it took a lot of surgeries and voice therapy before I could talk normally again. For months, it hurt to say a single word, so I didn’t. I let people think it was a random break-in gone wrong. Jordan knew I was involved with a shady crowd, but even he didn’t know the extent of what happened.”

The music segued into a new song. I turned it off, my heart in my throat. I’d guessed something like that had happened to give him his scars, but the truth was even worse than I’d imagined.

“I got used to not speaking,” Vuk said without taking his eyes off the road. The hint of emotion behind his words betrayed his stoic expression. “I learned ASL and used that to communicate instead. But even after I healed, I’d feel a phantom pain when I talked. It reminded me too much of that night. Injuries aside, I was also pissed at the world and myself. I only left my house if I had to for work. Being quiet was…easier. Preference became habit, and habit became the new normal.”

A deep ache formed behind my ribcage.

He’d been so young then. The guilt and loneliness must’ve been unbearable. His twin brother had died, and he couldn’t tell anyone what really happened. He’d had to live in a world of half-truths.

I didn’t have personal experience with hitmen or murder, but I understood what it was like to feel alone in a crowd. To hold secrets close to my chest, and to be surrounded by people yet have no one to confide in.

“Sometimes I have no choice but to speak,” Vuk said. “Those situations are rare. I don’t like wasting my words on people unless…”

My heart rate picked up. “Unless?”

“Unless they’re special to me.” His eyes remained on the road, but his voice was softer than I’d ever heard it.

My breath stalled in my lungs. Honeyed warmth curled through me, its silken tendrils soothing the ache that had blossomed earlier.

I couldn’t find the right words to describe the sentiment, so I reached for his hand instead. It rested on the center console between us, and his skin was warm and rough when I laced my fingers through his.