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The car stopped, the engine cut out, and two doors opened: the front passenger and the left rear. Schuyler and James exited, leaving Bram behind the wheel and Ilsa beside me.
She straddled me at once and removed my sunglasses to run her hands through my hair. “Ooh, you’re so pretty, Prince Noah,” she cooed. Her hips undulated, grinding against me. “Let’s speak beautiful French together, and then you pay me, ja? For giving you such a good time.”
From the front seat, Bram lit a cigarette. James and Schuyler were outside the car somewhere, standing guard I supposed, wherever the hell we were.
I sighed.
My high had been blown away by the severity of this situation, but these four didn’t know that this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d been mugged in Queens, after subway surfing, and again in Hell’s Kitchen, where Charlotte lost her violin. Moreover, this journey had worn me down to the quick. I was all out of fucks to give.
Ilsa’s hands were on the fly of my jeans, trying to work down the zipper. I grabbed both her wrists hard enough to make her yelp and tossed her off my lap. I heard her head hit the passenger window as I made a dash for the other door.
“Aiii! Bastaard!”
She kicked at me while I fumbled the door open, keeping a tight grip on my cane.
“Bram! James! Hij mi pijn!”
I scrambled out of the cab, heard shuffling feet over concrete, and then a fist connected with my right eye socket. It felt like a sledgehammer and ten times stronger, since I couldn’t see it coming. But my apathy of earlier was a weapon now. The pain seemed distant. Meaningless. I brought my cane up and felt it connect with someone’s groin to satisfying effect. Schuyler, judging by the little weasel’s pained squeak. Good.
I dodged a blow I felt coming and moved left to keep myself from being pinned between my newfriendsand the car. But Bram was on me before I could take a step.
“You touched Ilsa?” he asked, grabbing me and holding me by my jacket lapels.
“He did,” Ilsa shrieked. “His hands were all over me, and when I said he’d have to pay, he knocked my head!”
I couldn’t imagine for whose benefit this little charade was for, but the ridiculousness of it made me laugh. “Fucking hell, I didn’t mean to hurt you—”
“You think it’s funny?” Ilsa’s slap struck my cheek—a crashing cymbal of stinging pain that radiated up my face and left it burning.
“Oh, Ilsa.” I chuckled tiredly. “I knew you were a slapper.”
I don’t remember much after that.
I put up a good fight, but I was outnumbered and out-sighted. I got a few good ones in on James and Schuyler, but Bram was a boulder rolling down a hill, and I was crushed underneath.
They took both wallets—thief bait and real—my watch, my damnsunglasses, my cane, and—worst of all—my bag that had my phone and all my lifelines. Thank God I’d had enough sense to leave my passport and some emergency cash in the hotel.
They left me, curled and bleeding, on a street somewhere. I heard the squeal of tires and then all was quiet. No other cars, near or far. The only sound was the buzz of some overhead streetlight. I smelled brackish water and my own blood, leaking from my nose, mouth, and chin.
For a long while, I just lay on the pavement, my head reeling, the ground spinning under me. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt my consciousness fade in and out, like a bad radio signal.
“Just go out,” I muttered, and I finally did.
chapter forty-six
“Where to tonight?” Klaus asked as a bunch of us took a walk around Amsterdam the evening of our first day there. Our first cellist looked eager. “We have the whole night off and Amsterdam awaits.”
“Red-light district,obviously,” said Jason, waggling his brows.
“We should go to a club,” Annalie said. “Blow off some steam.”
I noticed she was looking at me with a scrutinizing eye. Over the last few weeks, she’d learned to read me like a book, and I was sinking. I trusted in Noah and believed in him, but it had been more than ten days since his last communication, and our separation was starting to wear on me. I could take it so long as there was something waiting at the end of it. Something good. But not hearing his voice reassure me that we were still on track was getting harder and harder.
“I don’t think clubbing is Charlotte’s thing,” Jason said dubiously. “Allow me to suggest, again, the red-light district—”
“I’ll go,” I said suddenly. “I’ll go to a club.”
The others were surprised, but I was so damn tired of being stressed all the time. I poured my feelings into the violin, but some nights I was afraid I’d break some strings on my Cuypers. I needed to cut loose and relax. Maybe things would look better in the morning.
