Glorious Rivals (The Grandest Game, #2) (97)

Chapter 83





LYRA


Something is wrong. Grayson’s words hung in the air. Lyra should have been thinking about the fact that she’d lost, about Mile’s End, but all she could actually think about, as she stared at the game makers’ empty chairs on that screen, was calla lilies floating on water.

So many of them.

“Why would something be wrong?” Savannah said, her voice high and clear and sharp and jagged all at once. “Even when I come in first, I lose.” Grayson’s sister looked to the person who’d been her partner in this game, the one who’d given up his dice so she could win. “The house always wins, right, Rohan?” Savannah said.

The house. Lyra couldn’t shake the question bubbling up inside of her like an ominous sense of premonition.

What if the game makers aren’t the house?

Beside Lyra, Grayson was typing something on his watch, but before he could finish, all four of their watches buzzed with what Lyra could only assume were four identical messages.

REPORT TO HELIPAD FOR EXTRACTION.





“Something is very wrong,” Grayson reiterated directly into Lyra’s right ear as a military-style chopper touched down on the helipad. His assessment was immediately confirmed when one of the helicopter doors opened, and two passengers climbed out.

Men. Neither of them Hawthornes. It was obvious, just by looking at them, what these men were. Security.

“There were supposed to be five of you,” one of them yelled over the sound of the chopper’s blades.

“Brady Daniels,” Grayson called back. He strode toward the men. “He must still be out on the island somewhere. Now, which one of you gentlemen is going to tell me what precisely happened?”

Something did, Lyra thought. Something happened. The Grandest Game was not a game that had been designed to go out with a whimper. This wasn’t just about Savannah and Eve and their agenda, whatever it was.

Calla lilies on the water. The house always wins.

“You four,” one of the men barked, ignoring Grayson’s question and taking his life into his own hands, “in the chopper!”

“Allow me to rephrase,” Grayson said. “Which one of you would prefer I not devote considerable time and resources going forward to making you regret not answering my question?”

The man on the right broke first. “We were told to secure all of the players and get you back to the yacht. Oren’s orders. The heiress is AWOL.”

A change came over Grayson’s body, and Lyra felt a shiver crawl down her own spine.

“What do you mean,” Grayson said, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt, “the heiress is AWOL?”





Chapter 84





GRAYSON


Avery. Completely off the grid. No sign of foul play—but missing. That was all Grayson had been able to extract from Oren’s men. Now those men were searching the island for Brady Daniels, and Grayson and the rest of the players were en route to the yacht.

Grayson zeroed in on the helicopter pilot—also one of Oren’s—and attempted to extract more information, but the pilot didn’t know more.

Because, Grayson thought, Oren’s men don’t know about Alice.

Grayson wanted to believe that he was getting ahead of himself, that Avery’s sudden disappearance might have nothing to do with Alice, but then Grayson thought about Prague—ash on Jameson’s skin, cuts on his neck.

Threats were issued.

Grayson didn’t even wait for the helicopter to touch down on the yacht before he leapt out of it. Two seconds later, Lyra landed a foot behind him, the result of her own leap from the chopper. It took everything Grayson had not to shut down and shut her out, but he knew from experience that he wouldn’t do anyone any good like that—that he wouldn’t do Avery any good like that.

This time, I will not freeze. Worst-case scenarios flashed through his mind, and Grayson let them come.

“We need to find Jameson,” he told Lyra. “Or John Oren, Avery’s head of security.” Behind them, the helicopter had finished landing. Rohan and Savannah were climbing out of it.

And there’s no one here to meet us. Grayson held Lyra’s gaze for a fraction of a second, and then he took off, tearing through the yacht, knowing damn well that Lyra could and would match his pace. Jameson and Avery’s suite was empty. Grayson wasn’t certain where on the yacht security was being headquartered, so he went for the next best thing.

Alisa’s office.

Grayson didn’t bother knocking before throwing open the door. Inside, Alisa and Jameson stood huddled over Alisa’s phone.

“And that’s all?” Jameson was saying, his voice unrecognizable, his eyes locked on the phone like it was the only thing that mattered in the world. “That is, word for word, everything the Woman in Red said?”

The Woman in Red. Grayson filed that phrase away as the voice on the other end of the call replied: “Yes.”

Grayson knew that voice. “Gigi.”

Alisa glanced up at him. “Knox has her. She’s safe and on her way here.”

Gigi was safe, but Grayson knew just by looking at Jameson: Avery isn’t.

Grayson went to his brother but addressed his next words to Alisa’s phone: “Gigi. It’s me. What do you know?”