Rohan didn’t plan on spending more than four of the twelve hours between phase one and phase two of the game sleeping. He’d never needed as much sleep as other people, and years at the Mercy had honed his body and mind to operate on even less.
There were better uses for his time—such as determining his next move. Five players left. Another challenge incoming. With Savannah on his side, at least for the moment, Rohan could practically taste victory.
Stepping into the shower, he offered his face up to the spray, then began drawing on the steamed-up glass—with his finger this time, instead of a knife.
Knox Landry, the knight—gone. Same for Odette Morales, bishop, and Gigi Grayson, pawn. There was, however, a player to be added. Grayson Hawthorne.
Rohan’s instincts said that Grayson was not a piece to be played but a player. A threat. Rohan settled on the infinity symbol to represent the Hawthorne in the game, then considered what he knew of Lyra Kane.
There was something there besides the way she looked at Grayson and the way Grayson looked right back at her, something raw and maybe even desperate. Something that could prove useful, once Rohan pinpointed exactly what it was. Her father? Those notes she found.
That just left Brady Daniels. What is his game? Rohan meditated for a moment on that. How will he play?
Brady Daniels.
Grayson Hawthorne.
Lyra Kane.
Eventually, Rohan’s mind went to Savannah. Their alliance was, without question, his best chance of neutralizing Grayson and thereby Lyra.
There was just one matter to be settled between Savannah Grayson and Rohan first.
 |
“I know you’re there, British.” Savannah spoke through the thick wooden door.
Rohan dragged a finger lightly around the ornate bronze keyhole on that door—the door to Savannah’s room in this glass puzzle house. “You only know I’m here because I didn’t bother masking my approach.”
The door opened, and there she was, no longer wearing the ice-blue gown. Savannah’s hair was wet, her body wrapped in a towel the same frosty shade as the gown.
Careful, boy. It was not often that Rohan heard the Proprietor’s voice in his head, but he heard it now. You know quite well how to recognize a trap.
“The Hawthorne heiress.” Rohan ignored the towel. “Avery Grambs.”
“You think you’ve figured something out, do you?” Towel-clad, wet- haired Savannah could not have sounded any less impressed.
“Almost all of it,” Rohan murmured.
Savannah stepped back, allowing him entry to her room. Rohan walked past her, well aware that, alliance or not, he was in enemy territory.
“I almost turned on you, down at the dock,” Savannah said behind him. “It would have been easy enough.” Rohan heard her lift her hand, most likely to touch the jagged ends of her hair. “It was a dare,” Savannah said, not specifying that she was the one who’d issued that dare. “He did it—with a knife.”
“No lies there,” Rohan commented dryly.
“Grayson fancies himself my protector,” Savannah said. “He would have put you down in a heartbeat.”
Rohan shrugged. “He would have been welcome to try.”
“The other Hawthornes would have broken up the fight—or possibly joined in—and that’s when I would have pinned the power outages on you, too.”
“But you didn’t,” Rohan noted dispassionately.
“Unlike some people, I have honor.” Savannah Grayson was a woman of her word—and that some people hadn’t been referring to him.
“It’s not time to destroy me,” Rohan said, his smile slow and a little jagged. “Yet.”
Savannah stepped right up behind him. “Yet,” she agreed.
Rohan turned, bringing them face-to-face. “Avery Grambs.” Rohan said the name, then looked to her jaw. “And there’s your tell, Savvy.”
He brought one hand to the telltale muscle along her jawline, skimming her skin.
“It occurred to me,” Rohan said calmly, “that the winner of the Grandest Game is crowned on a livestream with half the world watching.”
Savannah didn’t so much as blink.
Rohan leaned toward her, bringing his face even with hers. “Is that what you need for revenge?”
With no warning, Savannah drove her hands through his hair, curling her fingers, angling his head backward—and this time, she wasn’t attacking. She also wasn’t gentle. “What I need,” she whispered, her lips very close to his, “is none of your concern.”
Turnaround was fair play—his hands in her hair. Could she feel his breath on her neck, right below the place where her jawbone met her ear?
“Tell me, Savvy. What did the Hawthorne heiress do? What are you planning?”
She surged toward him, capturing his lips with hers. Some kisses were just kisses. Some kisses were torture. Some were necessary, the way breathing was.
Some kisses made a point.
Savannah Grayson was brutal. And she cannot be trusted. Rohan knew that. He relished it, pulling back, reining in the desire to devour her whole and allow himself to be devoured in return.
“Savvy. You’re up to something.”
“So what if I am? You’ll use me. I’ll use you. That’s the deal.” She touched him, and the power of that touch exploded through Rohan’s body
like fireworks, like fire, like the snapping of bone.
“Don’t forget the part about destroying each other,” Rohan whispered. “I’m looking forward to that.”
“Do I strike you as a person who forgets anything, British?”
“Tell me,” Rohan murmured into her lips. “What are you going to do if you win?”
“When I win,” Savannah corrected.
“When you win.” You aren’t going to win, love. Sooner or later, I’ll be forced to flip the switch.
Savannah stared at him and into him, like she could sense the darkness, like she wanted to see it. “When I win, I’m going to use the moment I claim the prize to let the world know exactly who Avery Grambs is. Exactly who they are.”
“The Hawthornes,” Rohan said.
“Without their army of lawyers to back them up. Without a PR machine. Without time to craft the perfect denial.” Savannah grabbed Rohan’s silk shirt in her hand. “They don’t know that I know.”
“Know what, Savvy?”
Savannah smiled, a tight-lipped, too-controlled smile that Rohan felt like fingernails down his back.
“Avery Grambs killed my father.”
