Page 65 of Glorious Rivals
“How would she know that?”Jameson had an excellent poker face.
Rohan shrugged his bare shoulders, like he didn’t have a care in the world.“I told her.”
Jameson stalked down the long hall toward Rohan.“Why the hell—”
“—did you want her out of the game and gone to begin with?”Rohan cut in.“A valid question, I agree.”He looked Jameson up and down, sizing him up as quickly and neatly as he once had in a fighting ring.“Something has you frazzled, Mr.Hawthorne, and it occurs to me that it might be asecret.”
Rohan was walking a very thin line, but he’d spent a lifetime doing exactly that, and if there was one thing that it had taught him, it was that there was never any harm in securing for oneself a backup plan.He wasgoingto win the Grandest Game and, in doing so, win the Mercy.But if the worst somehow happened, there was potential inthis.
In whatever had Jameson Hawthorne on edge.In his secret.
For that matter, there was potential here even if Rohan won.The Proprietor of the Devil’s Mercy traded in secrets.
“Did you read what I wrote?”Jameson demanded.
You played my game once, Jameson Hawthorne.And to get in, you put up a secret, wrote it down, agreed to forfeit it if you lost.“The Proprietor never would have allowed that,” Rohan assured his mark.“Your secret is safe—from me.”
“I wasn’t in my right mind,” Jameson said.“Back then.”
“Who among us hasn’t gotten a little reckless?”Rohan replied.He studied Jameson for a moment.“It looms large in your mind, doesn’t it?”he asked.“My game.The Mercy.”Rohan reached for the labyrinth, for details stored, if not ever explicitly noted.“I cannot help but notice certain parallels.A lemniscate, like the one laid into the floor of the atrium of the Devil’s Mercy.Ledgers bound in leather.”Rohan slipped on his tuxedo jacket without bothering with the shirt.“This exact shade of purple is the color of theink in which you wrote that horrible secret of yours that I do not know.”
Even if he had known Jameson’s secret, Rohan couldn’t have used it.That was one of the terms of the challenge that had been laid at his feet.He could not use any information obtained while in the Mercy’s employ.But that Jameson Hawthornehada secret—well, that was more of a gray area.
After all, everyone had secrets.
“The music box,” Rohan continued, “and keys, of course, both lifted straight from my game to yours.”
“You hardly invented keys,” Jameson retorted, but Rohan had an unerring sense for when he’d gotten to another person.He was fairly certain that until he’d pointed it out, Jameson very likely had not noticed how much of this game could be traced back to the Mercy, toRohan.
“You have a secret,” Rohan reiterated, letting his upper-crust accent shift to something with a bit more force, “andsomethinghas you shaken.”Rohan used his discarded shirt to wipe sweat from his face and neck, his eyes never leaving Jameson’s.“If you decide you require actual assistance with either of those things once the game is done—there is some possibility that I can be bought.”
And there it was: A net.A backup plan.An offer from one gentleman to another.
“You need money,” Jameson flatly.He did not seem inclined to take Rohan up on his offer.Yet.
“I do,” Rohan confirmed, “andyouare running a race against a ticking clock, because by the time this game is over, by the time I win—I won’t.”
Chapter 48
ROHAN
Armed with the solution to the music box puzzle and bathed in the familiar feeling of having begun to tug certain strings just so, Rohan decided it was time to check in on Savannah—not that she would thank him for it.
But then, she didn’t need to know.
Rohan exited the interior of the yacht, made his way to the starboard side of the ship, and began scaling the outside, stopping only when he reached the very top.Standing on the highest point of the ship, he scanned his surroundings, not caring that it was night.Any light was enough for someone who had spent as much time in darkness as Rohan had.
And Savannah glowed.
Rohan spotted her at the front of the ship, sitting on the helipad, her legs dangling over the edge.She wasn’t alone.Well done, love.Rohan began the climb down.He might have signed off on Savannah’s plan to offer up herfungibleloyalty to Brady Danielsto wring whatever use out of him they could, but Rohan had never promised to trust her.
Trusting other people was always a mistake.
In less than a minute, Rohan had made his way down the side of the yacht andpastthe lowest deck.As a child, there had been days when practicing his grip had made the muscles in Rohan’s fingers and palms cramp so badly that his hands had turned to claws.But nowadays, he could climb anything—vertical or otherwise.
Using raised embellishments on the side of the yacht for holds, Rohan moved swiftly.Close enough to the ocean that he could feel the spray of every individual wave, he took himself to the place in his mind that was beyond pain, beyond thinking or feeling.
He stopped moving only when he was close enough to hear.
