Glorious Rivals (The Grandest Game, #2) (99)

Discreet. The muscles in Grayson’s throat tightened as he looked back to Avery’s note. The press cannot find out that I am gone. Grayson would have recognized Avery’s handwriting anywhere. “What do we make of the lemniscate?” he asked.

“We don’t make anything of it.” Jameson’s voice was like a beast uncaged. “Avery is none of your concern.” He said Avery’s name like it had been torn from his soul, and Grayson felt Jameson’s statement like a sword through his heart.

Avery was family, and family had always been Grayson’s concern.

“I want Odette’s location,” Grayson told Alisa. Hurting or not, his brain sorted through next moves at warp speed. “She knows something. And where’s Toby?”

“He’s been out looking for Eve for the last couple of hours,” Alisa replied.

“What does he know?” Grayson asked Jameson. “About Alice.”

“Nothing he’s felt like sharing,” Jameson replied, voice taut, jaw hard, eyes hollow. “And he’s not answering our calls. But like I said, brother, this is none of your concern.” Jameson looked from Grayson to Lyra and back again. “You have other concerns now.”

It couldn’t have been more obvious: He blames Lyra for this. He blames me.

“Blame me all you want,” Grayson told his brother. “But est unus ex nobis. Nos defendat eius.” Grayson said the full phrase this time. “Avery is one of us, Jamie. We protect her. We will find her.” Grayson felt the force of that vow in every inch of his body.

“I will find her,” Jameson replied. “Oren and Alisa and their teams will. Nash will. Toby will. But you?” Jameson turned back and looked Grayson dead in the eye. “As far as I’m concerned, you and Lyra can go to hell.”





Chapter 85





ROHAN


Rohan could feel the labyrinth in his mind shifting, remade by a single new piece of information. Avery Grambs, missing. Without the heiress, there might well be no prize money—not immediately, at least. Not soon enough for Rohan to ascertain beyond any shadow of a doubt whether or not Savannah Grayson intended to keep her promise.

Why would she? Rohan did not appreciate being at anyone else’s mercy. He had to find another way.

There was always another way.

The paths laid out before Rohan were many and varied, his opponent crystal clear. This isn’t over, Duchess.

“What the hell is going on?” Savannah said, the first words she’d spoken to Rohan since she’d turned to him back in the final chamber and uttered the phrase the house always wins. “Why did they bring us back here?”

I’m the house, Rohan told himself. There is no other choice. I have to be the house.

“One might conclude,” he told Savannah, “that there is a situation.” Rohan made his way toward the front of the yacht, just to see if she would follow.

She did not.

My terms, Savannah Grayson had told him. No one else’s.

“And when there is a situation of a certain sort…,” Rohan continued, pivoting to face her again, walking backward now. “The first thing you do is lock down every player on the board.”

The helicopter that had brought them here had already taken off again, headed back to the island, no doubt, for Brady Daniels. Even as we speak, there’s a team flushing him out. That was good.

For Rohan’s purposes, Daniels was key.

Were you forbidden from interfering with the game, Duchess? Rohan had the photographs, but those wouldn’t be sufficient to prove Zella’s hand in any of this. Did the Proprietor tell you that if the Grandest Game was called off, you’d be disqualified as a potential heir? Is that why you instructed Brady that the game must go on?

The only real proof that Rohan had of Zella’s involvement was tattooed onto Brady’s arm.

Rohan continued walking backward, willing Savannah to follow—and finally, she did. Not done with me quite yet, love?

“You gave me your dice.” Savannah said those words like an accusation.

Rohan spun again and took up position at the railing on the front of the yacht, fixing his gaze straight ahead. “It was,” he said, “the strategic thing to do.”

“You took me at my word,” Savannah replied.

She really was going to make him say it. Vicious, winter girl. “What choice did I have?” Rohan kept his tone light, and then, despite himself, he turned his head to look at her. “Right from the start, what choice did I have with you?” He added the nickname solely to annoy her. “Savvy.”

“I despise that name, British, so here is my final deal for you.” Savannah Grayson was made for moonlight—that platinum hair, those pale gray eyes, which narrowed at him in the most delightful fashion. “You may call me Savannah, and I will call you Rohan.”

The sound of his name on her tongue really was something else.

“Very well.” Rohan lifted a hand to her jaw—a strong jaw for a merciless woman. “Savannah.”

“Ask me what my plan is now,” she ordered.

“What…” Rohan anticipated the moment that her hand would grab his hair, and she did not disappoint. “… is your plan now?”

Savannah brought her lips very nearly to Rohan’s. “My plan,” she whispered, making certain he could feel that whisper on his lips, “is none of your damn business.” She brought her mouth just a little closer, her lips parting—but she did not kiss him. Instead, Savannah Grayson let Rohan feel all the ways she might have kissed him, and then she pushed him back against the railing.