“None. Consensus seems to be that this guy is a slippery bastard.”
As long as Grayson made sure that stayed the consensus, Avery would be fine. “Do you have anything else for me?” Grayson asked.
Zabrowski reached into his car and then handed a file to Grayson, who flipped it open to see a familiar face staring back. Dark eyes. That scar through the eyebrow.
“Mattias Slater,” Zabrowski said. “Goes by Slate. Record is squeaky-clean, but his father’s isn’t—long list of charges, but only one set ever stuck.”
Grayson skimmed through the file. “Expensive defense counsel,” he noted.
“Until,” Zabrowski said with a significant look, “that last set of felony charges.”
The ones that stuck, Grayson thought. He wondered if Mattias Slater’s father had worked for the Blake family—for Vincent Blake. If so, that would explain the expensive lawyers. Until he ran afoul of the boss?
“What do we know about Mattias?” Grayson asked. “Personally?”
Zabrowski’s eyes narrowed. “In a day? Not much. His father’s dead. Mother filed medical bankruptcy last year.”
Grayson thought back to his confrontation with Eve’s spy. You don’t want to know, Mattias Slater had said, what I’ve done.
“You want me to keep looking?” Zabrowski asked.
Grayson closed the file. “Prioritize the trust paperwork,” he told Zabrowski. “But yes.”
Grayson opened the door to the hotel lobby to find a very un-Haywood-Astyria scene in progress.
Gigi was standing on a wingback chair having a discussion with hotel security. “About yea tall,” she was saying, “prone to eyebrow arching, very fond of imperative sentences, blond and broody.”
“As you have already been informed by multiple parties, madam, we cannot provide information about guests.”
“Would it help if I described his super sharp cheekbones or did a comedic impression of some kind?” Gigi asked winningly.
Grayson decided to intervene. “No,” he said, striding to stand between Gigi and the guard. “That would not help. Please get down from that chair.”
“Eyebrow arch,” Gigi told the security guard in a deep, dramatic voice. “Followed by an imperative sentence.”
Grayson could not help noticing the way the security guard’s lips twitched. “I’ll take it from here,” he told the man.
Gigi hopped off the chair and grinned. “Ask me what I’m doing here, Grayson.”
“What are you doing here?”
She rose up on her tiptoes. “We’re in!”
“The files?” Grayson didn’t show a hint of the surprise he felt. “The passwords?” He’d changed the passwords. She shouldn’t have gotten anywhere with those files.
“Useless!” Gigi replied happily. “I spent the whole day on them and got nowhere. Buuuuuuut.…” Gigi’s grin was broad enough to break her face. “Savannah found a fake ID hidden behind the electrical panel in the gym!” She practically vibrated with energy. “We know the name he used to open the box. We have the key. Next stop: the bank!”
Grayson thought about the duplicate key in his pocket and eyed the one around her neck. The clock was ticking now. He had to find a way to make the switch.
CHAPTER 39
JAMESON
The ring at the Devil’s Mercy was smaller than a modern boxing ring and marked off with coarse, fraying ropes that whispered of another time.
“You shouldn’t stay for this,” Jameson told Avery as he clocked the way the first two fighters climbed up onto the platform: bare-chested, no shoes, no gloves.
“On the contrary.” Rohan appeared beside them, dressed in black. The tuxedo should have looked formal, but he wore no tie, and the first four buttons on his shirt were undone. “She should stay.” His dark eyes met Avery’s. “Place a bet or two.”
“Wouldn’t I be wagering against the house?” Avery asked. Tonight was the third night, and she still had nearly two hundred thousand pounds to lose on the tables, per their deal.
“Consider your fee paid in full.” Rohan smiled, his expression far too relaxed for Jameson’s liking. “The third night was really more of an insurance policy on my part.”
In other words: Whatever fish the Factotum had been after had already taken the bait. Paid the levy, Jameson thought, the words snaking their way through his brain. Joined the club.
And now, Rohan’s concentration was elsewhere. On the Game.