“Pantry. If we have cocoa powder, it’ll be in there, too.”

“I want to watch,” Sera called over her shoulder as she dug in the small pantry, and for a second, I thought we were still talking about sleeping, and guns, and innuendo neither of us was likely to admit to. But that couldn’t be right.

“Watch what?”

All noise from the pantry ceased, and her shoulders tensed. “I want to watch him die. I want to be there when the life fades from his eyes and he bleeds out on the floor.”

“That might not be...” Healthy. It might not give her the closure she obviously needed. “Safe.”

“Screw safe.” She turned with an unopened bag of sugar tucked under her left arm and a yellow plastic canister of cocoa powder in her right hand. “My parents and my sister were ‘safe’ in their own home, behind locked doors, and look where that got them.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Safety is an illusion, even in the best of times. The only true defense is vigilance, but that wasn’t something a daughter/sister in mourning needed to hear. Yet I wasn’t going to insult her with polite platitudes, either. Those hadn’t helped me when my parents died.

“How are you going to find him?” She set the ingredients next to the stove, then pulled a pot from beneath the counter.

“Do the police have a description?”

Sera ripped open the bag of sugar, and thousands of tiny grains spilled onto the counter. “I can get you one.”

“How? Was there a witness? Did the police take a statement? Because Van can get into their records, no problem, and you won’t have to—”

“There was a witness, but her statement won’t help.” Sera lowered her head, and I knew her eyes were closed, though I couldn’t see them with her back to me. “She told the police she couldn’t remember anything. But that was a lie.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.” She pulled the blue plastic cap off the milk carton and set it in a scattering of sugar on the counter. “The witness lied because she was scared.” Sera poured milk into the pot, but her hand shook, and some sloshed over the side. And that’s when I made the connection.

“Oh, damn, Sera, I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot.” I stood, but she wouldn’t look at me. She just scooped sugar into a measuring cup she’d found in a drawer I’d never even noticed before. “You were there, weren’t you? You saw what happened to them....” I reached for her because I’d never seen anyone in more desperate need of a hug, but she pulled away from me as if my hands were on fire, and that vicious ache was back in my chest, like it had been every time I’d failed to help someone I cared about.

“Do you like mint?” She dumped sugar into the pot, and it took me a second to make the mental jump. We were talking about cocoa again. “I saw some mint extract in the pantry...”

“Sera. Put down the whisk and talk to me. Please.”

I didn’t think she’d do it. But then Sera set the whisk in the pan and turned to stare up at me. She looked as if the world had just crumbled beneath her feet and a step in either direction would send her tumbling into that void along with everything else she’d ever cared about. With the life she’d lost when her family was murdered.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” But what I really meant was, Why didn’t you tell me?

“Why didn’t I tell you?” Her voice was sharp, but her eyes were sad. “Why didn’t I tell the guy who kidnapped me at gunpoint that I saw my parents and sister murdered in our own home?”

I closed my eyes and made a silent wish that would never come true, and when I opened them again, she’d turned back to the counter, measuring cocoa powder this time with stiff, precise movements. I wanted to touch her so badly my hands actually ached for the feel of her skin, and for just a moment, that ache was enough to overwhelm logic and common sense, both of which were telling me that I couldn’t get involved with Sera.

Not while she was still grieving.

Sera was wounded and fragile, beneath a tough, knife-wielding exterior, and while she certainly needed and deserved comfort, she wasn’t in the proper state of mind to make decisions about her personal life. At least, not the kind of decisions intended to last beyond the closure she hoped to find with vigilante justice.

I didn’t want her to associate me with such a sad, dangerous part of her life, because when she put that all behind her, she’d want to put me behind her, too. I would remind her of the painful past.

“My biggest regret in the world right now—other than failing Kenley—is how we met.” Too late, I realized that sounded like a confession.

It was a confession. I was practically admitting that I wanted things from her that I couldn’t have. That she couldn’t afford to give me, with so much grief in her heart.

Sera dumped cocoa into the sugar and milk mixture and began to stir with the whisk. “You saved my life, remember?”

“No, I nearly got you killed.” I forced a smile I couldn’t truly feel as I fed her own words back to her. “Remember?”

“That wasn’t your...” She bit off the end of her sentence and I got the feeling it had veered from her original intent. When she turned to me again, there was something new behind her eyes. Something sad, and strong, and...resigned. “You didn’t fail Kenley. It sounds like she rushed into an unknown situation, and we all know you’d do anything to get her back. And you will get her back. We will. Then we’ll track down the bastard who took everything from me and gut him like the animal he is.”