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I stiffened. My former agent looked the same as always, all slicked-back hair and spray-tanned skin. However, dark shadows smudged his eyes, and his hand trembled as he brought the cigarette to his mouth.

I remembered what Emmanuelle had said about Vuk threatening him. Perhaps I wasn’t that good of a person after all because, while I couldn’t stomach torture, the mental image of Hank cowering before Vuk gave me an immense sense of satisfaction.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He took a drag of his cigarette before he spoke again. “We never got the chance to say goodbye. Six years of partnership down the drain.” Hank shook his head. “You really pissed Emmanuelle off.”

“By asking for what I waslegallydue?” My grip tightened around my cup. “And when you say six years of partnership, you really mean six years of exploitation.”

“Exploitation?” He scoffed. “You’d still be a nobody in D.C. if it weren’t for me. I gave you a career. Fame. Money. Even if you take your agency fees into account, you’ve earned more with me than you ever would’ve doing…what? Toiling away in some chemistry lab somewhere?” Hank’s eyes glinted. “You think you would’ve ever met men like Jordan Ford or Vuk Markovic if it weren’t for me?”

“I never asked for any of those things,” I snapped. Anger was good. Anger kept me from dwelling on the sharp pang of hearing Vuk’s name. “I just wanted enough money to pay my father’s medical bills. I didn’t want to be famous, and I definitely didn’t want to be locked into your sham of a contract.”

“Maybe not, but here we are.” Hank gave me a thin smile. “At least you won’t have to worry about your contract any longer. Just a lawsuit.”

“The lawsuit is bullshit, and everyone knows it.”

“Sure, but by the time it’s over, you won’t be the untarnished golden girl of fashion anymore, will you?” Hank stubbed out his cigarette. “Emmanuelle knows what she’s doing. You may have Markovic on your side, but she’s not someone you want to cross. Ever.”

I suppressed a flinch at his second mention of Vuk. “I’m not afraid of her,” I said. “Not anymore.”

What else could she do to me that she hadn’t already done?

“That’s too bad.” Something flickered in Hank’s eyes. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

Screw this. I’d wasted enough time on him. He wasn’t my agent anymore, and I had no reason to indulge his attempts to get in my head.

I left without another glance, but his words followed me like a putrid scent.

Did Emmanuelle have something else up her sleeve or another motive to target me besides one semi-heated phone call? I’d been Beaumont’s top-earning model, and she was a shrewd businesswoman. Her decision to drop me didn’t make practical sense.

Then again, ego had a way of making people act against their best interests. Two years ago, an up-and-coming fashion designer ignored his friends’ advice and sank a million dollars of his own money into a last-minute event to spite his rival, who was hosting his own event that night. The whole thing had been a disaster, and the designer never recovered socially or financially.

So yes, I believed Emmanuelle was really that petty.

I turned the corner onto a side street. It was one of those empty lanes that served no real purpose other than as a conduit from one major thoroughfare to the next.

I spotted the gleam of a familiar café across the way. I was almost finished with my tea, so it was perfect timing. Instead of running around downtown, I was going to order another drink, park myself in a corner booth, and browse the latest posts from my favorite perfume blog. No emails, no texts, no checking social media, andnothinking about Vuk. Once I cleared my head,thenI could decide what to do next.

Resolve quickened my steps, but I’d only made it halfway down the street when a sharp pain pierced my neck.

At first, I thought I’d been stung by a bee. My hand flew up to swat it away, and that was when the world tilted. My cup fell from my other hand and rolled across the ground. The lid popped off, and the remnants of my tea seeped into the concrete like a dark stain.

Tightness seized my lungs. I stumbled, my breaths coming out in short, shallow bursts. The last thing I heard was the slam of a car door before iron hands grabbed me, and the world went black.

CHAPTER46

Vuk

Icouldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t work. Shooting held no satisfaction when the range reminded me so much of Ayana, so the day after she showed me the photos, and my world fell to pieces, I did something I never did: I went to the boxing gym.

I could count on one hand the number of times I’d entered the gym since I joined Valhalla. Boxing wasn’t my sport of choice, but when it came to venting frustrations, nothing beat an old-fashioned round in the ring.

“So, tell me,” Dante said. “Who the hell pissed you off?”

I dodged his fist and countered with an uppercut. I didn’t answer his question.

It wasn’t his first time trying to pry information out of me. I was lucky Dante had been at the gym when I arrived so I didn’t have to look for a sparring partner, but I wasn’t here to talk. If I told someone what happened with Ayana, that would make it real, and if it was real—if she was really gone for good—then I would want to tear this building apart with my bare fucking hands.