“Say what?” Violet said. “That we’re worried about you?”
“You’re worried about me?” My arms fell to my sides.
“Yeah,” Mick said. “We don’t care how you dance—White Snake videos are hot. But that place, Scarlett…it’s seedy.”
“And it’s in a tomb!” Violet added, the fear clear in her eyes. “I know that makes me sound like a Mama Bird, but kids make you see the world like it might be laced with bombs. You eliminate the possibility of danger before you actually meet danger. That place. It’s dangerous.”
“Preach, Mama Bird!” Mick held up a hand.
“If I would’ve known,” Violet continued. “I would’ve never accepted the invitation Nemours gave me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words for Mick and Violet, but more so for Brando. “I should have warned you all.”
“It’s all right, Scarlett,” Violet said. “Just promise me that you won’t go back.”
I looked at Brando. He looked at me.
“I promise.”
He nodded once, as though he had heard the promise before. No, I wouldn’t be going back. He had already made the decision on my behalf; he wouldn’t allow it. Therefore, the promise was useless.
Never had sadness been more apparent on his face then in that moment. He lowered his shield, no desire to hide it from me. Yes, deep sadness came across as gut wrenching as the wounds on his face, but there was something else.
Anger? Regret? Uncertainty?
The other feeling was too far out of my reach. The distance made me feel real fear, the kind that rattles teeth and bones like cold reaching marrow, and I didn’t like it.
“So, are we going to explore Pareeh or what?” Mick asked, looking around. “That’s why we’re here, right? And let’s try not to get robbed again. All right, buddy?”
Emilia waved a hand, settling on the floor with half of a sandwich and seltzer water. Preparing to study her mystery pictures. “Bad luck. It will not happen again.”
“Yeah,” Brando said. His half-open eye was still on me. “It won’t happen again.”
I noticed that he didn’t correct Mick when he used the word robbed again. I also detected the contemptuous tone he used when he said, “It won’t happen again.”
“You up for it?” Violet asked Brando.
“You?” Brando asked me.
“If you are,” I answered, my mind still attempting to figure out the riddle.
“Time to go then,” he said.
Brando and I changed our clothes in silence before meeting Violet and Mick out on the street, neither of us ready for what the other had to say.
Chapter Sixteen
Scarlett
It was hard to look at his face. The reality of how it became that way was a glaring reminder that someone else had done that to him—attackedhim.
For what?
The people of Paris were in no mood to ignore him though. People gaped, leaned in and whispered, nodding ever so subtly in his direction from time to time.
Of course, I was accustomed to the stares. Women had a habit of staring at him wherever we went; some shy about it, others more than aggressive about it. Today he was more formidable than usual. He seemed to be of the strike first, ask questions later mood. It was hard to ignore the fierce aura coming from him.
I wondered if the world at large had sensed it radiating off him too. If he came out of the ordeal looking as he did, how did the other men look after he was finished with them?
