Noor jumped up and down while screaming for joy as Mal stood in the open doorway holding two Louis Vuitton suitcases.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She clapped her hands together like an excited little girl on Christmas morning. "You have no idea how happy you've made me. I could just kiss you!" she exclaimed.

Reine could tell she was using all of her willpower to avoid following through on her offer. Meanwhile, Mal stood motionless – as serious as ever – trying to make sense of the scene in front of him. Finally, he held up the bags. "Where do you want these?" he asked morosely.

After adjusting her head scarf, Noor led the way. "My room's upstairs. First door on the left. But how were you able to get in my house? Are you a burglar or something? No, wait! I have a feeling it's better if I didn't even know. It doesn't matter, anyway. The important thing is that you are awesome."

"Noor," Reine said as she gestured for the girl to return to the living room. "Don't even think about getting involved with him."

"Why not? Just because you drove away your boyfriend doesn't mean I have to be alone, too." The girl pursed her lips.

Reine sighed. "You're twenty-one years old. There is a lot more time for you to find someone. Someone definitely better than him," she said.

Noor crossed her arms. "No offense, and I really appreciate you letting me stay here, but I'll make that decision, thank you very much."

Reine had to use the last weapon in her arsenal against what was about to happen. She couldn't let Noor fall for an immortal. "What would your parents think?"

"Think about what?" Mal asked, reappearing once again.

Noor didn't answer, but instead asked a question of her own. "Are you Muslim, Malik?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Case closed."

Noor wasn't joking. Her stubborn declaration led her spending increasing amounts of time with Mal while he headed the investigation into her bureaucratic problems. This meant she had less time for Reine, who now had plenty of it to think about her own romantic situation.

In the end, no matter which way she analyzed things, she always came to the conclusion that the only way she could ever be with Max was to become part of his world, his life, and his rules.

With Gabe, she was confident she could live on her own terms. Based on this, the answer to his – and therefore ultimately her own – question seemed obvious.

Once she made up her mind, she couldn't wait to let him know. Almost two and a half weeks after last seeing him, she texted Gabe a brief message: Tomorrow 7 pm my house.

* * *

Reine looked at the kitchen clock. Five after seven. He was right on time.

She enthusiastically opened the door, but her smile faded when she saw Max standing on her porch.

"Expecting someone else?" he asked.

Annoyed by the unfortunate timing of his unannounced visit, she sought to get to the point. "What are you doing here?" she snapped.

He smirked, obviously relishing his effect on her. "Lovely to see you, too, my darling. Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"I'm actually quite busy, so if you can just say what you need to, I'd really appreciate it."

"Very well," he said, holding out a set of keys toward her.

She flinched. "What are these?"

"Your friend can go back to her home now. All's been taken care of," he said.

She took the keys, but deliberately avoided Max's touch. "Really? That's great. Noor's going to be very happy when I give her these. What caused this mess, anyway? Was it just a mix-up?"

He slowly shook his head. "There's a fine line between innocence and naiveté, but frankly, neither suits you," he said.

She crossed her arms. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're going to have to ask Miss Hamad that yourself," he said matter-of-factly, just as Gabe's car pulled up to the curb.

Reine tried to momentarily ignore the newcomer. "Is that why you've had Mal spend every waking minute with her lately?"

"Well, I can't deny that's been rather convenient, but that wasn't my doing. He's chosen to do that himself. By the way, Amara wanted me to tell you she says 'hi'."

Reine felt bittersweet emotion at hearing the little girl's name. They had spent many hours together over the few days she was at Max's mansion, but she left Amara just as quickly as she'd arrived.

She sighed. "How is she?"

"She misses you. We all do."

Reine gasped, taken aback by the admission. Her eyes, however, darted to the figure still sitting in the parked car.

"Well, thank you again for the news. And for sorting everything out." She tried to urge Max's departure. The last thing she wanted was any type of confrontation between the two men. Remembering the way they last parted, she had no idea how that would end.

But Max wasn't ready to leave.

"There is a reason that I came personally," he began, answering an unspoken question she first had when he appeared on her doorstep. "I haven't been totally truthful with you, Reine."

The words made her furrow her brows, and she silently waited for him to continue.

"The thing is . . . I didn't send Sylvana away from my house just so she wouldn't be in our way. It was because that morning, I found out she did something unimaginable." He paused and she held her breath for him to continue. "She's the one who hurt you, Reine. She was supposed to just keep an eye on you, but I guess her jealousy was already manifesting."

"So she's the reason I died?" Reine shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "What did she do to me?"

"I don't know. That, she didn't divulge." Max leaned one arm on the door frame. "Apparently Mal left you two alone, so he didn't have a clue about what was happening. From the way you reacted to the reawakening, it could very well have been a Romani curse."

"You're kidding. You think I've been cursed? Is that why everyone tiptoes around her? They're afraid of . . . of gypsy witchcraft?" She almost laughed at how absurd it all sounded. "If she's so dangerous, why did you just let her go and why for God's sake didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"I didn't just let her go. Not without making arrangements, at any rate."

"What sort of arrangements?" she asked.

He straightened up again and stuck his hands in his pockets. "She's been reported to the confraternity's Council. The members meet once a month, but they couldn't take her case immediately. She's scheduled for a hearing in May, though."

Reine scoffed. "And you expected her to just be a good girl and turn herself in to your little immortal panel of arbiters?"

"That's usually how it happens, yes." He nodded. "There's a certain code of conduct among immortals the majority freely follow. Most don't want to risk avoiding their due judgment because sooner or later, they'll run into one of us, and it'll all catch up with them. And the punishment for that is much more severe than if they had just accepted their fate from the beginning."

"But Sylvana's not one to follow rules, I imagine," she said with a frown.

"My guys had been following her. Until yesterday, that is. We're pretty sure she's hopped the pond back to Europe, but I felt like I had no other choice, but to tell you now that it's gone this far."

She shrugged her shoulders. "And if she comes after me? What then?"

"You'll feel her before you see her. We have access to some good old pagan conjuring ourselves. If she were to get within one hundred feet of one of us, we'd sense a type of internal alarm. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but if you do feel it, run."

"You've got to be shitting me!" she exclaimed, hoping he'd eventually tell her this was all a big joke. Of course she'd heard tales of witches and gypsies over her many years of existence, but she'd never had any personal experiences with them and just chalked them up to myth.

"Listen to your instincts," he said while rubbing the stubble on his chin.

"If Sylvana was responsible for everything all along, then Jameela Singh had nothing to do with Venice, right?" she asked.

"No, she didn't." He shook his head. "I think she was just using the opportunity Sylvana created to get to me. Or rather her boss was."

"You're going to make me ask who her boss is, aren't you?" she asked with a sigh. "Okay, I give up. Who's her boss?"

Max paused and looked at the ground. "His name's Lord Wescott. He's the head of the Order. I think I've mentioned them to you. We have some unresolved business."

"So if Sylvana's gone, I don't have anything to worry about anymore?"

"No, you don't. You can go back to living your life." He finished, turning to walk to his vehicle. She silently watched as he got farther away from her, finally getting to the end of the walkway where Gabe was now standing.

He had exited his car and extended his hand to Max. The two men silently shook hands and then went in opposite directions.

This was an important moment, and if Reine didn't act on it, she'd most likely fall back into uncertainty and self-doubt regarding the decision she thought she'd finally reached. So before Gabe had a chance to get to her, she ran down to meet him halfway. "I missed you."

Even though she whispered, three sets of ears heard her sparse, but powerful words. And to add emphasis, she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him.

The perfectly timed slam of a car door and the subsequent roar of the engine indicated Max had witnessed the stunt. There was no going back now, and Reine's actions prevented her from any later emotional flip-flopping. While that knowledge brought her a certain type of closure, the look on Max's face as he drove away filled her with unexpected guilt.

Gabe didn't try to hide his contempt. "Why was he here?" he asked bitterly.

"Honestly? You'd think I was nuts if I told you," she said.

She was already feeling all of the anxiety and frustration that Max's unexpected news brought forth bubbling to the surface. She didn't trust herself to be able to coherently relay – much less make sense of – the information that she just heard. On top of everything else, being back in Gabe's arms again seemingly reduced her to a pile of mush.

"Are you crying?" He wiped a rogue tear from the corner of her eye.

"What? No!" She cleared her throat. "Come on in, we have to talk."

No sooner had they sat down in the living room that Noor arrived with two full sacks of groceries.

"Can you believe how domesticated I've become since living with you, Rennie? I swear you're a good influence on me." Ignoring Gabe completely, she walked to the kitchen and set the bags on counter.

Reine followed the girl into the other room, holding up the house keys she'd gotten from Max. "Well, now you can continue to practice these good habits in your own house."

The girl's eyes widened. "Seriously? I got my life back?"

"Seriously." Reine nodded.

Noor took the keys. "I wonder why Malik didn't tell me. I just saw him," she said.

Reine took a deep breath before starting what she feared would be an awkward conversation. "His boss wanted to tell me first. He also wanted me to ask you what you knew about all of this."

Noor looked toward the living room to make sure Gabe wasn't listening. Content to see he'd turned on the television and was watching a basketball game, she answered. "You know I have no idea what's been going on. That's why I needed your help."

Reine sighed. "Noor, listen to me. I could easily find out everything, but I'm giving you the courtesy of letting you tell me yourself. Now, I've know you for years. We've been like sisters. You're the closest thing I've had to a family until . . . well, for a while. Please, tell me the truth."

The girl momentarily buried her face in her hands. When she lowered them, tears were flowing down her cheeks. "There's something you need to know, but I'm not sure you'd want to hear it."

"What are you getting at?" she asked.

Noor sniffled. "My parents are still alive."

It took Reine a few seconds to understand the impact of the words, and she balled her fist so hard her knuckles turned white. "They can't be. The state troopers came to my class to tell you about the accident. I was at their funeral for God's sakes!"

"It was all a lie." The girl frowned. "A large set-up. It wasn't my idea. They made me do it! They arranged for mum and dad to be recruited to work in a UN research lab in Geneva. They paid off our house in full at the same time, so I knew the bank couldn't have wanted to take it."

Reine plopped on a nearby stool in disbelief. Only one word was able to leave her mouth: "Why?"

The girl continued to sob. "I was being blackmailed. I had no choice. You have to believe that Rennie."

"Who are these people? What did they want?"

"You." The girl sniffled again. "They wanted information about you."

Reine's jaw dropped. "What?"

"This Indian woman contacted me a few weeks after I started my first semester in school. She told me that I had to give them any and all information I could get about you. Otherwise she'd frame my parents as terrorists and ruin our lives."

Noor could only have been referring to Jameela Singh. "And you believed her?"

"Of course not. Not at first. So I told her she was crazy and to stop harassing me. But within a few days, two scientists in that Swiss lab died under still unsolved circumstances, and my parents were immediately offered the jobs. It was too weird to be a coincidence, and it turned out it wasn't. The next week, I told them I'd do it, thinking that there wasn't anything to report on anyway. In order to sell the lie, they faked my parents' deaths in the accident. And that's when I knew things were serious."

Reine covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh my God."

"I'm so sorry, Reine. I really am. I wish I would have told you sooner. And I did try to get out of it. I finally told them a few weeks ago that I'd had enough, and I wasn't going to spy on you anymore. Not like there was much to tell anyway. But that's when they pulled the plug on my life and here we are." She shrugged despondently.

"Is everything okay in here?" Gabe asked, checking in on them.

Reine rubbed her temples. "No, it's not. You're going to have to leave, Noor."

The girl sighed, but she didn't object.

Reine waited until the she'd walked away before addressing Gabe. "And we're going to need to reschedule because I can't think right now."

"Of course. Just tell me one thing. Are we cool, then?" He pointed to the two of them.

Reine had hoped to have a more in-depth conversation about the status of their relationship, including how he'd practically called her inhuman the last time they saw each other. The current situation with Noor totally threw her for a loop, and she no longer had the motivation to deal with trivial matters of the heart.

She swallowed her pride and decided to just forget that those words were ever spoken. He'd probably already done so anyway.

"Yes, we're cool."

"Good. Then I know exactly what we should do. Make sure you're free all weekend and I'll see you Friday afternoon."