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Fine. I wasn’t going to argue.

As bad as I felt for him, I liked my silk pillowcases and Duxiana mattresses more. Sue me.

I was unpacking my toiletries and debating what to order from room service when the inevitable happened.

Vuk tossed his duffel onto the cot and sat.

The frame bowed with an ominous creak.

And, before either of us had time to register what that forebode, the cot promptly collapsed.

CHAPTER4

Vuk

I’d endured torture before.

Knives, burns, shackles—I’d survived it all.

But this? This wasactualfucking torture, and I had no one to blame but myself.

I glared at my laptop, willing myself to focus on my head of security’s debrief instead of the closed bathroom door.

From where I sat in the living room, I had a direct view of that door, as well as the open suitcase filled with silks and lace in the bedroom. It was like she’d left it there on purpose to torment me.

The shower squeaked, followed by the sound of running water.

A muscle jumped in my jaw.

“…beef up our office security measures…” Sean’s voice cut in and out of my thoughts.

I should’ve never agreed to accompany Ayana out here. Being near her in public was bad enough. Now we had to share not only the same room but the same fucking bed.

Due to its full capacity, the Winchester didn’t have an extra cot to spare, so I was left to suffer for the night.

If only I’d found us another hotel earlier.

If only the greedy, selfish part of me—the one that’d foolishly wanted to be closer to her—hadn’t won out.

If only.

“I didn’t want to say anything until it’s confirmed, but we have a lead on the person who started the Vault fire.” Sean’s update finally snapped me out of my escalating spiral.

I straightened, my pulse quickening. The fire was the only thing that could take my mind off Ayana these days, and Sean had just handed me a big fat distraction on a silver platter.

“We found traces of fiber that didn’t belong to any of the workers or logged visitors at the site,” he said. Sean was former Special Ops and had been one of Harper Security’s top employees before I hired him for my personal team five years ago. He had the exact direct, no-nonsense attitude that I valued in my employees. “Given the state of the site after the fire and the bureaucratic red tape, it took us a while to dig through the evidence. Our guys didn’t find the fibers until this morning.”

I typed my reply in the chat. When we couldn’t meet in person, we communicated via a secure encrypted network.

Any DNA evidence?

“No. However, we tracked down this photo from someone who was in the area around the time of the fire.”

A picture popped up onscreen. A twenty-something blonde in a Northwestern sweatshirt grinned into the camera. She was obviously a tourist, but I wasn’t interested in her.

I was interested in the man in the background.

She’d captured her selfie right as he walked by. To the untrained eye, he looked like any other man going for a stroll.