Vlad handled the road better than anyone I knew. It made me feel less nervous about being in a car. Without speaking, we stared at the road as a classic tune filled the car. The low, throaty growl of the engine hummed in the background. I could only contain my curiosity for another twenty minutes before it got the better of me.

“Where are we going?” It was dark outside and I couldn’t make out where we were. Not that I would be able to if it was broad daylight, either, considering this was my first time being here and I always had trouble with directions. Ferdinand Magellan could come back to life and teach me about circumnavigation and I would still get lost. I was that bad.

“It’s a secret.” He quickly looked back at the road.

“Oh come on!”

Something fluttered in my stomach, but I was completely sure it wasn’t butterflies. A loud growl erupted from the depths of my belly and I wished I could crawl under the seat and disappear.

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there.” As if my stomach had listened to him, it stopped embarrassing me further.

The road passed by outside the window. Hawke and Lincoln. Who were these people? Then there was the Faction, which Carlo and that woman in jail had mentioned.

“What’s wrong?” Vlad’s thumb reached out for the volume button on his steering wheel and turned the song down.

Not knowing how to answer, I remained quiet. Oddly, even in silence, I did not feel any awkwardness in the air.

Things were definitely changing. I had always considered him as a jerk, but lately I had seen a different side of him—a side that made me reconsider my earlier thought about him. I had thought he was selfish but he wasn’t; he actually cared about other people, not just himself. He cared about me, and he cared about Adrian. He even cared about Althea, Adrian’s maid, from what I had seen the other day.

I made the mistake of turning my head slightly to the right and risking my eyes meeting his. His moss-green eyes, wise and warm, and undeniably perceptive, were focused on mine. For one split second I had a bizarre thought that he somehow knew everything about me—every little bit. Things that not even Kris knew about me. That moment back in Verona Ti Amo, he knew I was trying not to have a breakdown and he swiftly changed the conversation. It seemed, in that moment, that he, more than anyone else in the world, truly knew me. Inside and out. No matter how many walls I had built to prevent that from happening.

It was thrilling.

But more than that, it was terrifying. So I did what I always did best: totally avoid the situation and talk about something entirely unrelated. “Do you know anyone named Hawke and Lincoln?”