I was too panicked to ask what he meant by gone.
“He ran after whoever was in the car, the lone driver. I think he shot whoever it was. Donato sent a few men after him.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. I knew, without so much as a shadow of a doubt, Stone would be rolling up not long afterward.
“Pick one,” Brando said to me. “Ettore or Nemours.”
“Both.”
“Thought or feeling?”
“Thought—my feelings are scrambled at the moment.” In fact, because of the nonstop action as of late, all I knew was that dread was starting to take over every other emotion.
“That makes sense. Nemours wants Stone around. Just to grate on me enough that I’ll go back to jail.”
“Which youwon’t.” I fixed him with a grim eye.
He ignored this, still thinking about the situation, attempting to work it out.
“Nemours is using Stone to get to me. If I go to jail and he thinks you are unprotected—” He refused to finish. “On the flip side, Ettore doesn’t want Stone around. Nemours inadvertently started another war among the people who want me killed and you abducted.”
He stood up again and disappeared into the dark hallway.
He had the bottle in his hand when he returned a few minutes later. He held up a rose that must’ve been buried deep inside, toe tag dangling. No explosion needed, message received loud and clear. He stuffed it back in so that I would stop staring at it. A few petals drifted to the floor, around my feet, and he knocked them around with his foot so they wouldn’t touch me.
Jet, only daunted for a second, went into attack mode. She was never a cat to cower. She felt anger after being afraid. It lingered. Let one of the men try to touch her tail for a couple of days afterward, and she’d go in for the kill swipe. All of her rage was concentrated on the petals.
“I never thought I’d say this.” Brando sighed. “I’m actually looking forward to Paris.”
Chapter Thirteen
Scarlett
Brando decided that we were going to leave New York earlier than planned and head to Vegas. Europe came after.
Guido had returned before we left, only sparing enough time to retrieve the emergency suitcase he kept packed and stashed aside. All of the men had them. He also brought with him Lourdes Maria Goretti, who seemed to be hissing and striking. They both looked worn out and shredded. Clothes included. Guido needed three stitches where hairline met flesh, on the left side of his head.
After he had charged off into the night, he followed Nemours all the way to Lou’s shop. As the rat started to crawl toward it, he leaned out and threw another cocktail through her window.
It ignited—the others he threw into other windows along the street had, too—and as soon as Guido was about to shoot through the rat’s car window, Ettore showed up and slammed into Guido’s car with his.
Nemours fled, and Ettore had probably been creeping around after the war on the street. Guido entered into the hair salon like some Italian caveman (Lou’s description, not mine) and then swooped her up and forced her to leave. Guido had been close to Ettore on more than one occasion—Nemours too—and they both had unresolved revenge issues with him.
So, here we all were, rolling up to the gates ofParadisoin a limo, to the high-roller villas on the property. They were separate, almost like a little town within a vast city. Only a few us stayed in the villas. The rest of our entourage stayed in the hotel section of the actual casino. The boxing match was scheduled at the MGM Grand.
Despite all that we had been through over the last couple of days, I could tell Brando was out to make the experience pleasurable. Over the next couple of days, we enjoyed the property’s heated swimming pool, took in plenty of shows, and during some extra downtime, Brando, his brothers, Uncle Tito, and my father golfed in our “backyard” while the women enjoyed spa treatments.
Rosaria was big on those and demanded we all take part. I didn’t mind so much, since Lou had come along. Juliette had said more than once that Lou reminded her of someone, and being in her presence only increased the curiosity. She did—but the golden question was—who?
She had wavy chestnut hair, darker than mine, more on the brown side, and a slight gap between her two front teeth that gave her character. Her eyes were almond-shaped and blue. Her eyebrows were bold, and so was the cut of her oval-shaped face. A beauty mark dotted her upper lip. She was the kind of woman who could go blonde if she wanted to.
The resemblance towhoeverwas so strong that strangers on the street would stop to ask her if they had met before, or to bluntly state that she reminded them of someone but they couldn’t figure out who.
I think she knew, but she refused to say.
Our groups’ attention had shifted from all that could go wrong to Lou and Guido’s love story. Lou adamantly denied that any love was going on, and she insisted she was being held against her will.
She hadn’t asked us to help her escape, and she didn’t take us up on our offers when we offered, so I assumed that she was putting up a fuss to teach Guido a lesson, or to irritate him enough that her life wouldn’t be worth protecting.
