I whirl on Perry, heart thunking along like it’s lost the rhythm it’s always held. “You lied? You said you had nothing to do with his disappearance.”

“No!” Perry shoots to his feet. “I didn’t. I’ve never seen your brother.” His wild eyes fling back to Arlie. “I was hired to kill St. Clare.”

“Yes,” she says, but he’s already shaking his head.

“Reilly St. Clare. Him.” He thrusts a hand my way like I haven’t just confirmed my name.

Arlie’s expression morphs from its usual disinterest into pure pity. “No, honey. You weren’t.”

The thunking in my chest gets harder and faster. “He wasn’t?”

Tommy breaks out into cackles, and Lars starts forward, but Ever raises his hands and diverts my attention.

“Hold on. Perry, are you meaning to tell me you tried to kill the wrong brother?”

It takes way too long for me to process what’s happening here.

The wrong brother?

It was never me?

Perry goes pale, and I’m not sure I don’t look the same. “I … I …”

Lars turns a glare on Arlie. “How sure are you?”

“Ah … one thousand percent. Reilly hasn’t been mentioned once.”

His wide eyes meet mine. “You’re not in danger?”

“I’m not?” I whip back to Perry’s shell-shocked expression, and I’m smacked in the face with a thought. “You shot my ear off for nothing?”

“Well …” He looks at the ceiling like it might help him. “Not for nothing, exactly. And I still maintain it’s better than, you know, accidentally killing you for nothing, which I didn’t do⁠—”

“How do you go after someone and not be absolutely certain you have the right person?”

“I was absolutely certain! But I was also, apparently, wrong.”

“Perry …”

He scrambles over the coffee table to get to me. “Mistakes happen sometimes.”

“This is a big mistake.”

“Agreed. Obviously. But hear me out: if it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have met.”

“At this moment in time, I’m not convinced that wouldn’t be a good thing.” Except then his face falls even more, and the twist in my chest hates it. I want to reassure him. Him. The man who tried to kill me, turned my life upside down, has had me terrified about dying for days, and it was all a fucking misunderstanding.

“If it helps, I feel really bad about this,” he says, voice cracking.

“I promise you that I feel worse.”

“Seems unlikely.”

“Which of us is missing a body part, Perry?”

He sighs. “Okay, I’ll concede that you’re feeling a little worse. Even if I feel downright shitty.”