Page 71 of The Grandest Game
Brady reached up and squeezed her hand. Gigi squeezed back.
“She was abducted.” Brady’s voice was thick. “Someone took her. I was fifteen. Calla was seventeen. Knox had just turned nineteen. The two of them had been together almost a year at that point.” Brady took a moment and just breathed. “Calla’s family found out about their relationship, about Severin, what we were doing out in the bayou, all of it.” Brady let go of Gigi’s hand. “And we never saw her again.”
“I’m so sorry,” Gigi said.
Brady shook his head, tension clear in the lines of his jaw. “Another two weeks, and Calla would have turned eighteen. She could have left the family fold, told them all to go to hell, but the Thorps weren’t about to let that happen. They played along with the police investigation, but Orion Thorp made it perfectly clear to me—they had her.”
“Orion Thorp?” Dread hit Gigi like a razor-sharp icicle slicing through the pit of her stomach. “Knox’s sponsor?”
Brady didn’t answer that question. “Calla’s name,” he said, his throat tensing against the words, “is Calla Thorp. Orion is herfather.” Jerking his gaze away from Gigi’s, Brady resumed his search of the shelves, going low.
But he didn’t stop talking.
“Last year, Knox showed up at my apartment out of the blue. It had been years since we’d spent any real time together. Since… Calla. But Knox was set on playing the Grandest Game, and he wanted a partner. I guess some part of me wantedusback, so…”
Brady had just saidusthe way Knox had saidwe.
“Last year’s game was a race,” Brady continued, “clue to clue to clue. In the beginning, those clues were virtual, but eventually, they crossed over to the real world, and the race became a physical race—a global one. The game makers provided transportation, but only for the first few players or teams to reach a given clue. Knox and I were in the lead, but on the second-to-last clue, we fell behind and missed our chance at a ride. We would have been out of the competition.” Brady paused. “That was when Knox was approached by Calla’s father.”
“Orion Thorp,” Gigi said.Knox’s sponsor.
“Knox knows what Calla’s family is like. Even before she disappeared, Calla hated it there. Knoxknowsas well as I do: If Calla is still alive, they have her, and if she’s not, they’re the reason why.” Brady’s breath was audibly heavy. “And knowing that, Knox sold me out to Orion Thorp for a ride on a private jet.” The muscles in Brady’s jaw tensed. “He came in second in the game.”
“Here.” Knox’s voice sliced through the air.
“Sounds like he found something.” Brady’s voice was still low. “You go. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Are you—” Gigi started to say.
“I’m sure,” Brady said.
As Gigi crossed the room, she thought about Knox’s first answerwhen she’d asked what made him happy:money. He’d never tried to hide what he was.
“Here,” Knox said again, his tone more impatient this time. He gestured to a wooden panel on the shelf he’d bared. Built into that panel was an ornate magnifying glass. The handle was jeweled with elaborate detailing in silver and gold. A row of tiny diamonds marked the point where the handle met the frame.
As Gigi watched, Knox pulled the magnifying glass from the wood, like the sword from the stone. There was a click, and the floorboards in the center of the room began to move. An entire section of the floor was halved, and from the depths below, something rose up—a new section of floor that clicked into place, replacing the old.
Sitting on top of that new flooring was a dollhouse.
And all Gigi could think was that Knox had never denied that Orion Thorp wasstillhis sponsor.
Chapter 53
ROHAN
Rohan and Savannah met in the middle—the last shelf of games. She went high. He went low, skimming his fingers along the boxes as he registered the title of each and every game.
“Camelot,” Savannah read out loud.
“Knights and a king,” Rohan murmured. “Swords and a crown.” Suddenly, in the place in his mind where mysteries lived to be sorted, there it was: meaning where before there had been none. “What if,” he said, “we weren’t given instructions for this room—this puzzle—because we’d already received them?Each team’s challenge is their own…”
“A crown, a scepter, an empty throne.” Savannah got there in an instant.
Rohan backtracked and began pulling boxes off the shelves. “Kingdoms. Dominion.”
Within a minute, Savannah had pulled five more games. Rohanadded his own stack next to hers on the ground, then they met in the middle once more. She went high. He went low.
“Mastermind,” Savannah said briskly. “Appropriate, but no. Battleship, no. Risk, no. Titan?”
