Page 376 of Wicked Brutal

“Then you probably need all three.” He nods like that’s obvious. “I’d hate for Alexander to go to waste.”

He tells her he likes frogs; she says she gathered, since he’s yelled frog in two languages since he walked in. Then he studies her face.

“You’re pretty.”

Bella’s smile shifts — not awkward, just surprised. “Well, thank you.”

“No. Like really pretty. Princess pretty.”

Her eyes brighten. He offers to make her a crown — pink — and she says she’d wear a pink crown, and then he turns around and drops the grenade.

“Iz. Do you think my new friend Bella is pretty? Because I do.”

Bella’s eyes slide toward Iz. Oh, fuck.

“Doesn’t she look like a princess, Iz?”

Iz looks at Tobias. Then Bella, who crosses one leg over the other and waits. Then back at Tobias. “Yeah. Sure, whatever. She’s pretty.”

“Sure, whatever?” Bella says.

“You wanted an answer.”

“Tobias wanted an answer. You made it sound painful.”

“It was.” She smiles, not sweetly, and his jaw flexes.

Tobias, oblivious, recites a careful line of six-year-old French and lands proudly on “J’aime les grenouilles.”

“Yeah,” Iz says. “J’aime les grenouilles.”

Bella makes a tiny sound — barely there — and his head snaps around. “What?”

“Jesus Christ, Nothing.” He hands Tobias a dollar without looking away from her.

Tobias turns to Bella. "Can you say frog in French?"

Bella nods. "Oui, je peux."

Iz snorts. "Let's hear it then satan."

She smirks, leans forward, and stares down Iz. “Grenouille.”

Low. Slow. Soft enough that I feel like the rest of us aren’t supposed to hear it.

Iz goes completely still. Bella knows exactly what she did — I can tell, because her mouth curves another fraction, and his eyes drop to it. Across the room Kaiden catches my eye. Yeah. He saw it too.

Tobias didn’t. Tobias is just delighted. “Grenouille!”

“Perfect,” Bella tells him.

“I said it like fucking that,” Iz mutters.

“No, you didn’t.”

Another dollar changes hands. Tobias announces he likes Bella — she makes you give me money, and she’s princess pretty — and Bella tells him he’s her favorite person here, much more than Iz, and Iz says “fuck both of you” and pays for it.

Then I say his name. “Toby.”