“Look at him. Our sweet little tragedy queen.”
James didn’t move. “I’ll tragedy-queen you straight into a wall, Jeremy.”
Hades barked a laugh. “He lives.”
Gung Lu paced behind the bar, muttering in Mandarin, hands slicing the air like he was calculating exactly how many bodies he’d need to bury before sunrise.
Jafar leaned a hip against the counter, swirling the melting ice in his glass.
“He warned us. You all remember that, right? He said if that girl ever got herself involved in something shady, he’d burn the whole town down.”
Scar snorted. “This wasn’t burning the town down. This was him lighting a scented candle named ‘Righteous Fury’ and shoving it up someone’s?—”
James threw a pillow at him with sniper accuracy.
The room devolved again—shouting, bickering, overlapping insults.
Noise.
Deflection.
All of it to avoid the real reason they were here.
I said nothing. Stayed planted against the wall, arms crossed, jaw locked so tight a headache throbbed behind my eyes.
I shouldn’t be here.
Belle should’ve texted by now. Or called. Or something.
Every minute I stood in this room, she drifted farther from my reach.
Hades caught my expression. Straightened. “Jones,” he said, low enough for only the room to hear, “you look like you’re about to kill someone.”
James snorted into the throw pillow. “Welcome to the club. Membership has snacks.”
I ignored them all. “How bad was it?”
Hook dragged himself upright, eyes red, hair a disaster. “Bad enough. Her ex-best friend’s daddy thought he could ‘broker a deal’ with some creeps who run their little events.”
Scar whistled. “Classy.”
James pinned me with a look—clearer than before, sharper. “You wanna know the part that pissed me off?”
My chest tightened. “Not particularly.”
He pushed on anyway. “She didn’t even know. They didn’t tell her. They just signed her up like she was property so they could auction off her virginity. Her virginity.”
The air shifted.
Hades stepped back.
Scar’s grin vanished.
Jafar set his glass down with a soft click.
James pointed vaguely at me, eyes narrowing. “That look right there? That’s why we dragged your ass in here before you left. You break a man’s nose, you get an arrest. You break a man’s spine?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Jafar murmured.
