12 Scarlett #3
“It gets better,” Zariah says dryly. She sets her fork down again.
“Celeste absolutely lost her mind over it.”
Declan leans forward slightly. “Tantrum?”
“Full meltdown.”
Harper looks delighted already.
“Oh, I need details.”
Zariah smirks faintly.
“She started screaming at one of the guards because he wouldn’t let her into the east corridor.”
Declan snorts.
“She threw a champagne glass at the wall,” Zariah continues casually. “Then accused half the security team of treating her like a child.”
My stomach twists uneasily.
“Why was she so upset about extra security?”
“That,” Zariah says quietly, “is the interesting part. She kept demanding to know what they were hiding from her.”
Asher’s eyes narrow immediately.
“And?”
Zariah leans back in her chair slowly.
“One of the guards slipped.”
Roman’s expression sharpens.
“What did he say?” Zariah’s gaze flicks toward me briefly before returning to the others.
“He told her the security measures weren’t about keeping people out.”
A cold chill slides down my spine. Harper notices first and then Asher. He places his hand on my leg and takes a hold of my hand squeezing just slightly for comfort.
“Then what were they for?” Silence hangs heavily for one second too long.
Then Zariah says quietly:
“They were to keep something in.”
Keep something in. The words echo through my chest in a way that makes me feel cold from the inside out.
For a second, nobody speaks, I barely hear the silence, because my brain is suddenly too loud.
My fingers tighten slowly around my fork while the conversation around me starts fading into background noise.
I can feel Asher watching me from beside me.
Roman too probably. But I can’t look at either of them right now because something uncomfortable is clawing its way loose inside my head.
Not a thought, but a memory. It is faint almost broken apart at first, but then all of a sudden, it is there.
The dining room around me slowly blurs at the edges as another room pushes forward in my mind.
Warm golden lighting, crystal chandeliers, soft violin music drifting through enormous marble hallways. I’m younger, maybe five or six.
A dinner party.
Women in gowns and men in dark suits carrying glasses of champagne while laughter echoes through the house. My mother’s hand rests lightly against my back as she guides me through the crowd.
“You stay close tonight, sweetheart,” she whispers softly. I remember the smell of her perfume; I can smell it like she is right here with me now. Vanilla and jasmine.
The memory shifts suddenly. I’m wandering now.
The adults had all disappeared into smaller groups while I snuck down the long hallway towards what I remember being my grandfather’s office because I knew he kept candy hidden inside the bottom desk drawer.
The office door isn’t fully closed and voices drift through the crack.
My mother is inside with my grandfather.
I can’t see them fully from where I stand hidden in the hallway, but I remember the fear in my mother’s voice immediately.
“He can never find out.” The memory sharpens.
My grandfather answers quietly, firmly.
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” my mother snaps back. “Thomas is already asking questions.”
Thomas.
My father.
The sound of ice clinking against a glass. Then my grandfather again.
“He needs to believe everything we’ve told him.”
A long silence follows. Then the words that suddenly make my stomach turn even now.
“If he even suspects for one second that she isn’t his…” My mother’s voice breaks slightly.
“…she could be in danger.”
My entire body goes cold. The memory flickers harder now. I remember pressing closer to the doorway. Confused. Not understanding.
“She’s a child,” my mother whispered. “None of this is her fault.”
“She was born into this whether we wanted it or not,” my grandfather answered heavily.
Another silence.
“We should’ve disappeared when we had the chance.” The memory snaps violently apart after that. Back in the present, my fork slips from my fingers and clatters loudly against the plate. Everyone at the island immediately looks at me. My breathing turns uneven and Asher is the first one to move.
“Scarlett.”
I barely hear him because my pulse is roaring too loudly in my ears, suddenly I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head. If he even suspects for one second that she isn’t his… she could be in danger. A cold wave of nausea twists through my stomach.
My father.
Thomas.
He wasn’t my biological father.
The realization hits so hard it almost knocks the air from my lungs.
And somehow… Somehow the most terrifying part isn’t that my mother lied.
It’s that she sounded afraid of what would happen if anyone found out the truth.
I don’t know what’s worse anymore—that people want me dead…
or that other people are willing to kill to keep me alive.
Nobody protects something this hard unless it matters.
Normal girls don’t need armed men, hidden compounds, and underground training rooms just to survive dinner.
The realization settles heavily into my chest.
I don’t think my life was ever normal, but what does this mean?