Page 56 of The Hitman's Prince

“Caspian says he knows who it was,” I told Vince.

“Stay inside and lock the doors.”

“The front window is gone,” I told him. “The doors are pointless.”

“Call—”

“Harris,” I interrupted, scrubbing my uninjured hand down my face. “Please remember I’ve done this for years…Sir.”

“Right.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper, and I knew we were both thinking about the ways I’d attended and served his father.

“I just mean I know who to call. I know what to do.”

“Am I on speaker?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Who did it, Caspian?”

Jacob was the one who answered, “Vanessa Scoretta.”

“Why?” Vince asked next.

Hushed words were exchanged between the two of them in the other room, and I didn’t need to see their faces to know they were arguing, or Vince’s to know he was annoyed.

“Because I didn’t,” Caspian finally answered.

All four of us went quiet, and then the call disconnected.

Chapter 41

Jacob

Iwas on the floor of the bathroom, in the middle of stitching Orion’s palm up, when Vince got home. The way his expression morphed from anger to confusion to worry and then finally to relief when he saw all three of us together in the bathroom was something I’d remember for the rest of my life.

“What happened?” he asked, stopping himself in the doorway.

“Caspian is too queasy for this life,” Orion said, his head tipped back against the wall and his eyes closed.

“He was shot,” Vince reminded him.

“He was grazed,” Orion countered, jerking his chin toward the closed toilet where Caspian sat, his leg bandaged.

“And you were taken out by a mug?” Caspian shot back.

“Enough,” Vince warned, voice steady and still.

“I called Harris. They’re on the way,” Orion said, changing the subject.

“They’re already here.”

“Who’s Harris?” I asked pulling the final suture through Orion’s palm and knotting it off. It had been years since I’d had to stitch up a wound of any variety, and I was glad muscle memory turned out to be a real thing.

“A cleaner of sorts,” Orion answered. He looked down at my handiwork and then tested the flex of his fingers. “Thank you for playing nurse.”

I nodded, because it was one thing I knew how to do.

Orion climbed to his feet and went to Vince in the doorway, and they embraced like two men in love who’d had far too many close calls for comfort. Orion’s injured hand hung limp at his side and he wrapped his other arm around Vince’s waist, pressing his forehead into Vince’s shoulder. Vince was quick to return the embrace—with both arms. He kissed the side of Orion’s head, nodding quickly at some murmured words meant only for his ears.