hina'

llion dollars for smelled like s

e building's doorman had given me an odd lookwasn't I supposed to be at my wedding?*-

r was u

leather couch was shoved crooked against the wall. Someone had knocked over the floor lamp I'd found at tha

ting charts, menu tastings, flower arrangements. Ripped apart. Pages scatte

ike a trophy. She was wearing my diamond tennis bracelet-the one I'd le

oked up when

lla s

ic di

round her waist, possessive and casual. "Thought you'd be at the venu

going to be

me eyebrow I'd kissed a hund

on the screen-Dominic on his knee, ring ex

t for a second. Then it was bac

ted his head, studying me the way you'd study a broken appliance-mildly inconvenienced, already mentall

ne dropping into still water. Ripples o

y of it

ad that thing where you'd laugh at everything I said like I was the funniest guy in the room." He shrugged. "Then you got comfortable. Started talking about flower a

d them flat against my thighs,

y thousand I put into your first shipment. The ten I gav

ic la

the belly, the laugh of a man who'd ju

to the wall safe, spun the dial with practiced

door sw

epped

ghting. Where the velvet box of my grandmother's jewelry should have been. Where the deed to my hal

t gentle. The voice he used when he was

ughter. Marco's laugh was the loudest. I'd picked Marco up from the emerge

cheap plastic. At the man I'd

't known was still alive-gave a smal

ed to

e edge of the gl

rystalline explosion that silenced the laughter. I went down hard,

omewhere behind my eyes. Blood welled between my fingers-so much blood, impo

kind of quiet that mean

palm. At the blood running down my wrist, soaki

ed at

in his jaw, a brief crack in the mask. Surprise, maybe. Or the firs

" His voice was flat. Clinical.

ingertips. I looked at him-really looked, the way you look at a door you're w

steadier than I'd expected. "U

lked

to let me pass. Down the elevator. Through the lobby. Out into the freezing night where the wind cut through my sweater and th

was waiting

d when they saw my hand-years of training cracking fo

er one's voice was tig

out of

leather cold against my skin, and the door closed

tinted window. The SUV accelera

't loo