Page 78 of The Grandest Game
Her voice was oh-so-calm, but Rohan saw the fury buried behind Savannah’s silvery eyes when she said the wordmistakes, like a fire burning inside a vault.
The labyrinth shifted. Savannah was herefor her father, and she was angry about mistakes that were not hers.
Has Sheffield Grayson returned? Is he forcing you to do this? Or is that anger directed toward someone else?Rohan wasn’t sure. Yet.
“You’re angry, love.” Sometimes, instead of manipulating a target’s emotions, all you had to do was leverage what they already felt.
Savannah’s body reacted to his voice and his words: a deeper breath, a slight curl of her fingers, tension in what he could see of her neck. “I’m not angry,” she said, her voice high and clear. “Why would I be?”
“Society isn’t always kind to angry women.” Rohan’s words hit their target.
“I don’t need kindness. I just need everyone else to get out of my way.”
“And I need you,” Rohan replied, “to agree to take the hint. Whatever we’re missing, at this point, we’re just going to keep missing it. We have no direction. We have no plan. We have nothing. Do you enjoy havingnothing, Savvy?” He paused. “Does your father?”
That was a test, an experiment. She didn’t react in any visible way. Savannah’s poker face was a thing to behold, and when she spoke, her tone was just as controlled. “When this part of the game is over, and you and I are no longer a team…” Finally, the real Savannah peeked through:strengthandenduranceandfury. “I am going to destroy you. And I promise, Rohan, I willenjoythat.”
“Is that a yes?” Rohan prompted. “On the hint?”
Savannah turned toward the panel and laid her palm over the red button. “Ishouldagree to take the hint, so I will.” Her voice was higher now, clear and overtly feminine and pleasant. “After all,” she continued, her eyes like knives, “society is kindest to women who do what they should.”
Chapter 58
ROHAN
Diamond Team.” Jameson Hawthorne’s voice was all around them. “You have chosen to take your one and only hint.”
Rohan wondered—briefly—where the game makers’ command center was and what they had been doing to pass the time.
“But as you know,” Jameson continued, “hints in this game must be earned.”
Ledgers must be balanced, levies paid.Everything in Rohan’s life had come at a cost.
“Door number one or door two?” Jameson Hawthorne asked. “Pick your challenge.”
“Two,” Savannah said immediately.
Instants later, there was a sound like the turning of gears, and the game table in the center of the room began to split at the seam they’d found earlier, the two halves of the tabletop pulled apart as if by invisible hands. A Needle In A Haystack and all of its pieces fell to the ground as the two halves of the tabletop flipped outward,rotating a hundred and eighty degrees and disappearing beneath the underside of the table. A second, formerly hidden tabletop stared back at them.Shining hardwood, green felt.
“A poker table,” Rohan commented. Around the rim, holders had been carved into the wood for cards and for chips. The poker chips themselves—all black—were placed at equidistant intervals around the perimeter of the green felt. In the center of the table there were two small stacks of what looked to be playing cards, one set white with gold foiling, the other black with bronze and silver. Positioned next to the cards were three objects: a silver hairbrush, a pearl-handled knife, and a glass rose.
“Behind door number two,” Jameson Hawthorne told them, “is a game. To earn your hint, all the two of you have to do is play it.”
“Poker?” Savannah guessed. Her gaze slid to Rohan’s.
“Not poker.” Avery Grambs was the one who replied. “Truth or Dare—or a version of it, anyway.” Something in the Hawthorne heiress’s voice reminded Rohan that she had promised the players anexperience. And then he thought about Nash’s claim:Our games have heart.
“Working as a team—becominga team—requires cooperation,” Avery continued. “It requires a certain amount of openness. In some cases, it requires risk.”
“Each of the chips on the table in front of you has a word written on the bottom.” Jameson was clearly enjoying this far too much. “Half saytruth. Half saydare. To successfully complete this challenge, you’ll need to collect three from each category.”
“Once you’ve turned over a chip”—Avery took back over—“you’ll draw a card from the corresponding pile: white for truth, black for dare. The person who draws the card issues the challenge. The other person must fulfill it. If, for any reason, after drawing a truthcard, you decide that you would prefer to pose your own question instead of the question written on the card, that is allowed.”
“Presuming, of course,” Jameson interjected, “that said question is just asinterestingas the one we have provided.”
Well, that was ominous.
“You’ll notice that there are three objects on the table.” Avery took back over. “The dare cards don’t specify a dare. They specify an object. Coming up with an appropriate dare using that object is up to you.”
