Jameson rolled that around in his mind. “So, by my count, all I need to do is get invited to join the world’s most exclusive secret gambling club.…” He lifted one finger with those words, then a second as he continued. “Then somehow persuade its leader to invite me to an even more exclusive private game, which”—a third finger—“I’ll then need to win.”
“Give the boy a prize,” Ian said.
Jameson’s eyes narrowed. “That leads us back to the start. How exactly am I supposed to get invited to join the Devil’s Mercy?”
“Do they even let Americans in?” Avery asked. “Or teenagers?”
“Historically,” Ian said, “no. Membership is only extended to those in the highest echelons of British society, based on a combination of power, status, and wealth.”
“So why,” Jameson said shrewdly, “would the Devil’s Mercy be interested in me?” He was an American teenager who used to be rich, but the power, the connections, the knowledge, the influence, the institutional backing—those had never been his.
Unlike Grayson, he hadn’t been raised to assume they ever would be.
Maybe that was what let Jameson answer his own question. “They wouldn’t.”
Ian had said that Jameson was more useful to him as his son than as a Hawthorne, but Jameson saw now that wasn’t the whole truth. He knows who Avery is. Maybe it hadn’t mattered that Jameson was a Hawthorne, but the fact that he was in a relationship with the Hawthorne heiress?
He suspected that mattered very much.
“You wanted me to bring her in on this,” Jameson accused. “She’s the one you were after.” He refused to let that hurt.
“You’re my player, Jameson,” Ian replied. “But she’s your way in. Draw the Proprietor’s attention. Make yourself a package deal.”
“No.” Jameson’s muscles turned to stone. He could feel the explosion coming.
“Jameson.” Avery laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m not using you, Heiress.”
“You said it yourself on the roof: You’re not doing this. We are.” Avery looked past him to Ian. “If we start asking around about the Mercy, will that draw the Proprietor’s attention?”
“One way or another,” Ian replied.
Jameson didn’t like the sound of that.
“Think about it, Hawthorne.” Avery stepped closer toward him. “I’m one of the most famous and infamous people in the world.”
“Powerful,” Jameson said, looking at her and only her. “And rich. Through your multi-billion-dollar foundation, very connected. And you and I—we can make a lot of noise.”
“Which,” Ian added, “the Devil’s Mercy does not want.”
Jameson turned back toward Ian and channeled the formidable Tobias Hawthorne at his most terrifying. “You played me. It won’t happen again.”
Ian placed a fatherly hand on Jameson’s shoulder. “I’d be disappointed if it did.”
CHAPTER 13
JAMESON
Slowly, the sound of Ian’s footsteps receded. Oren appeared in the doorway and gave Avery a nod. They were alone. Jameson looked up at the crypt’s soaring ceilings, allowing his mind to sort through potential next moves. Then he looked back at Avery. “Feel up to making a call?”
Avery knew exactly which call he meant. They exited the crypt, and she pulled the trigger. “Alisa? You know that event you were trying to talk me into? I’ve had a change of heart. It would be good for the foundation for me to see and be seen while I’m in London.”
Alisa Ortega was Avery’s lawyer—and the foundation’s. In reality, Alisa’s services extended far beyond legal matters. She was part publicist, part fixer, wholly terrifying.
When Avery hung up the phone, Jameson brought his gaze to hers. “Dare I even ask?”
If Alisa had a social event she wanted Avery to attend, it was sure to be a prominent one. The kind, Jameson thought, that attracts the rich, the powerful, the connected, the famous.
Avery sauntered up to Jameson, a distinctly heads or tails look in her eye—and then she brushed past him. “Come on, Hawthorne,” she called back over her shoulder. “What’s life without surprise?”
Wherever they were going, it apparently had a dress code. A very formal one. Jameson put on the long-tailed navy morning jacket Alisa’s people had provided and examined the fit of his pale-green waistcoat. Turning his attention to the three top hats he’d been given to choose from, Jameson felt a familiar buzz of energy humming beneath his skin.