“Cute?” I scoffed, looking away from her so I wouldn’t laugh. “I haven’t been cute since I was twelve.”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes and nudged my chair with her foot. “Ruggedly handsome with a hint of danger. Better?”
“Much.” I slid my chair closer, unfolding my arms as hers opened up for me.
She wrapped me in a slow, fierce hug that reminded me of all the times we’d held each other through tragedies: whenever her father’s imprisonment made the news, my grandmother’s death, the year we both thought Noah had died. The moment we watched his car careen off the bridge. “Did you want to tell me the full story?”
“No.”
She chuckled, loosening her grip on me. “Then get your shit together, Rav. I need you focused for as long as they’re here.”
I pushed back in my chair and shook my head. Some days, it was as if she could read my thoughts before I’d fully formed them.
“I know this look,” she said, twirling her finger toward my face. “Don’t you dare shut down on me. Whatever history you have with Dr. McAllister, you need to compartmentalize it for now.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
But I had.
Her phone buzzed before I could protest any further. When she checked the screen, her expression shifted from friendly concern to sharp focus.
“It’s Noah,” she said, already accepting the call and activating speaker mode.
“Scarlett.” Noah’s voice was hushed, urgent, with the sound of wind and traffic in the background. “I don’t have much time.”
Noah was always smooth, controlled—the consummate manipulator. This anxious tone was so unlike him that my tactical instincts immediately flagged it.
“What’s wrong?” The concern in her voice worried me more than Noah’s words. Scarlett controlled her emotions better than anyone I’d ever met, but somehow, this man continued to get under her skin. And instead of controlling herself now, she was serving up her worry on a platter. Something he could twist.
“Your virus—Brie’s, I’m assuming—did a lot of damage.” His words tumbled out rapidly, almost breathless. “You need to back off. Now.”
Noah never showed vulnerability. Even before he vanished on us, he was never soft. If he couldn’t control his reaction to something, he’d lash out before he admitted the hurt. This panicked delivery was obviously calculated, designed to trigger an emotional response rather than critical thinking.
“Since when do you care about our safety?” Unlike them, I didn’t bother to hide the contempt in my voice.
A moment of silence, then: “Rav? Scar, you swore this line was secure. How many people are listening to this?”
“Answer the question,” I said.
“They’re accelerating everything.” A muffled sound came through the phone, as if he was moving positions. “They’re not ready. It’s reckless. People are going to die if they rush this.”
Scarlett’s face pinched. She was buying it. Every fucking second of it. “Where are you? We can help you get out.”
“I can’t leave now. Just stay away.”
“From where, Noah? Naples?”
“Stop fucking around with me, Scar, and call off your attack dogs. The Carabinieri didn’t find anything.”
The Carabinieri? We hadn’t contacted them. That had to be Pendragon’s doing. But we hadn’t told Pendragon about Naples until Brooke and Percival arrived.
Were they hiding information from us?
“What exactly are they accelerating?” I asked, leaning closer to the phone.
“The demonstration wasn’t supposed to happen for two more months. Now they’re talking days.” The sound of a car horn blared through the connection. “Look, you can’t?—”
