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9

GUNN

I return to Briar House for dinner and the meeting Luca called for. Him and Carina are waiting under the big portico as their guests arrive.

Pulling in behind Arran’s Rolls-Royce as he steps out of the rear passenger seat, I rev my Ducati’s engine to give him a scare. The roaring sound echoes off the high ceiling and makes him jump. He rewards me with a scowl that makes me laugh.

“Do you ever plan on growing the fuck up?” he asks.

“Not anytime soon.”

“It’s nice to have someone playful. It balances you,” his wife, Skye, says when he helps her out of the car.

On the other side, her moody teenage sister lets herself out and slams the door shut. I think she intends on rushing inside before anyone can greet her, but her jacket gets caught on the door, preventing her escape. “Come on!”

“If you stop tugging it, you could just open the door,” I suggest.

She glares at me with so much annoyance, it makes Arran seem chipper. Then, doing as I said, she opens the door, releases the jacket, and slams it shut again.

“Gunn,” she says coolly as she passes me and enters the house.

“Damn. What’s got her all pissed off like that?” I ask anyone who will listen.

“Ignore her,” Skye says. “She’s just upset that she couldn’t stay behind.”

“Why didn’t you let her? What is she, sixteen?”

“Fifteen,” she corrects.

“That’s old enough to stay home alone.” Fuck, I went everywhere alone by the age of ten.

“Not with her assassin buddy back in town,” Arran chimes in. “And after that phone shit, we can’t take our eyes off her.”

“Scarlet.”

“We can’t trust that she won’t try to contact her again.” Skye’s expression fills with worry as she stares off to the place her little sister disappeared through. “She got rid of that burner phone she used to contact her, which means they know we know.”

“Which means, where we go, so does she,” Arran adds. “So she hates us.”

Maisie might be upset with them, but she’s never warmed up to me either. All because of that hellcat.

That’s when an idea suddenly hits me. Out of everyone in the alliance, there is no one that knows more about Scarlet than that teenager.

“We should head inside,” Carina calls out. “The meeting is about to start. Noah’s already here.”

Ten minutes later and we’re all in the familiar dining room, with Luca and Carina at the head.

Carina, who is obviously still upset that Luca didn’t show her the photos of Sergio and Jorge first, is sitting quietly, her gaze mostly downcast.

Luca begins, “With Rowan and Gavin on Gideon’s side now?—”

“We can’t be sure they’re on his side,” Noah’s girl, Emily, interrupts. Ever since losing part of our alliance team, Carina has insisted that Emily and Skye join the meetings. They’re smart women, both have interacted with Gideon, and have different points of view that could be crucial.

“We must assume.” Luca sighs, something he’s been doing a lot lately. “I will rephrase. We should be ready for anything, including the possibility that Gavin and Rowan are on his side and willing to help him. We should operate under the assumption that he knows everything we do.” He lays out the photographs for all present to study and give their thoughts.

Yes, everyone here has something to add, some insight into what they believe Gideon and Scarlet are up to. But the insight I’m interested in, isn’t in this room.

“Excuse me, I have to use the restroom.” I leave, shutting the pocket doors behind me, and go in search of one of the only person in this house that might be able to answer all my questions.

Maisie.

I find her lounging in an upstairs parlor. She looks extremely out of place on the sofa, one of those antique things that is meant for sitting ramrod straight, not laying on your stomach with your feet resting over an arm, eating chips and drawing.

Luca’s mother is probably rolling over in her grave. Hell, when she was alive, she never let us in here.

“Hey,” I say.

She glances up at me and returns to her drawing. “Hey.”

“What’ya doin’?”

“What’s it look like?”

“Come on, Maze? Are you mad at me or something?” I take a seat on the little coffee table facing her.

She shakes her head. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“You saw Scarlet and me fighting that day at your house.”

“And?” She lifts one shoulder.

And? That day, when she ran away from her sister and headed to their abandoned house, it was Scarlet she called. But she wasn’t the only one that showed up. I did too. I went in to rescue her from the bad guys, only to end up with Maisie throwing herself on me, her skinny arms wrapped tightly around my neck, screaming, “Scarlet, run!”

I’ve let it go. She’s a kid, after all. Our morals are all fucked up at that age. Actually, some of us never seem to get our morals straight.

“You’re friends with her, aren’t you?” Stupid question I know the answer to, but want her to say it.

Her pencil stops for a millisecond over the eye of the character she’s drawing, so fast had I not been paying close attention to all of her movements, I wouldn’t have noticed it. But she doesn’t reply to my question.

I take a peek at what she’s working on. “You’re very talented.”

“Thanks.” She sniffs and huffs. “You’re probably going to get in trouble for not being in the meeting.”

“They’re just going over stuff I already know about. Which means I can hang with you a little longer.”

“Yay me.” Rolling her eyes, she sets her sketchbook on the coffee table and gets up. “I have to use the bathroom.”

I’m not sure what still has her so pissed off with me, but it’s clear by the murder in her eyes as she flicks a glance my way, she hates my guts.

I rub my chin as I watch her walk away. Does she know that the alliance intersected her texts to Scarlet? Better yet, does she know I was sent after her in the French Quarter?

It takes her a few minutes to return, long enough that I help myself to the sketchbook. She’s good. I would have given anything to be able to draw like this when I was a kid.

From what I can tell, they’re comic book heroes. Each one has a title above it. I freeze when I get to one of a woman dressed in all black, with blond hair and emerald eyes. It seems to have been originally titled Rage. But that name was scratched out and beneath it, a new one was added. Scarlet.

“Hey!” She snatches it out of my hand. “That’s personal.”

Shit. I didn’t even hear her come back.

“You drew Scarlet,” I say, pointing at the picture.

“No. I drew Rage.”

“It says Scarlet.”

“Yeah, well.” She shuts the book and begins to walk away.

“I need you to get me in touch with her.”

She whirls back to me. “What?”

“I know about your messages on that burner phone. Arran brought them to the alliance.”

Her eyes narrowed in anger, she takes a few steps closer. I have to admit, for a fifteen-year-old, she’s pretty damn scary. It takes a lot for me not to get off the coffee table and back up several feet.

“Yeah, I figured, so I destroyed it. You people had no right to invade my privacy.”

“You people?” I say, offended.

“The alliance.” She rolls her eyes again. Typical teen.

“Tell me where she is.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I broke the phone and threw it in the trash.”

“But you wouldn’t have done that unless you knew how to reach her,” I toss back.

“Like I’m going to tell the alliance anything. No way in hell I’ll ever give her up to?—”

“It’s not for the alliance,” I cut her off. “It’s for me. I need to know where she is.”

Her gaze goes over me slowly as she tilts her head, her face full of suspicion. “Why?”

“I have reasons that have nothing to do with the alliance,” I say, hoping that reassures her.

“OMG, it was you!” She points to me with sudden excitement. “In New Orleans.”

“She told you?”

Pursing her lips, she asks, “Were you sent to kill her?”

“I was sent to get information from her. Then kill her,” I confess. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

Relief seems to flood her and for the first time since she arrived, the scowl softens. She drops onto the sofa and runs a hand though her dark hair as she smiles. “She’s alive.”

“Yes.”

“So, since she’s alive, I’m guessing you didn’t get what you wanted from her.”

“That's one way of putting it,” I say sarcastically.

She scrutinizes me. “What am I missing?”

“Nothing.”

Obviously, she doesn’t believe me, because she continues to study me to the point it makes me uncomfortable. “You two like each other, don’t you?”

“Pfft. No, we don’t. Why, did she say something?”

“I haven’t talked to her in days.” Letting out a long breath, she sets down her sketchbook. “Besides, I'm fifteen, not stupid. Anyone can see it. What happened in New Orleans?”

“We fought.”

“Did you kiss too?”

My mouth draws up in a smile. I have a feeling a hint of honesty will go a long way with this kid. “Why do you think I need to talk to her. Left me all tied up after she kissed me.” Literally.

“Yes!” She pounds a fist through the air. “I knew it. After watching you two at my dad’s house, I knew you had a thing.”

“Will you please help me?” I practically beg.

She peers down at the drawing of Rage/Scarlet. “It would be betraying her.”

“Maze, if the alliance finds her first, she won’t stand a chance.”

“You want to help her?”

I don’t want to lie, but the truth is too complicated. “Maybe. First, she and I have to talk about things that went down in New Orleans.”

“Like kissing.”

I nod, banking on her romantic notion of what Scarlet and I could be. “Tell me how to reach her.”

“You won’t hurt her?”

“I swear it on my mother’s grave,” I say, lifting two fingers like a cub scout would. Since I don’t know where my mother is buried, nor was I ever a cub scout, I’m not sure it counts.

I don’t envy the mental struggle she’s going through as she debates her next option.

“She has a secret place,” she finally says. “Not even Giddy knows about it. She told me that if shit ever hit the fan, I would be safe there.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Tearing out a piece of paper, she writes down the address. Hesitatingly, she hands it to me. “Promise you won’t kill her.”

Gray eyes stare into mine, and they’re so fucking hopeful, that the words come out of my mouth before I can think of a way around a promise I’m not sure I can keep.

“I promise.”