CHAPTER 4 ROHAN
ROHAN
R ohan never slept deeply. He hadn’t since he was a child. Memories lingered in deep sleep, like shadows with a mind and hunger of their own, so Rohan slept lightly—always aware, always listening, always on guard.
And yet…
He woke in Savannah Grayson’s bed to find himself alone. Let your guard down, did you, boy? the Proprietor’s voice said somewhere in his mind. The formidable Ms. Grayson was nowhere to be seen—and neither was Rohan’s room key.
He knew immediately what Savannah was up to. The sword.
The weapon in question was a longsword with words etched along its silver blade: From every trap be free, for every lock a key.
Each team in phase one had been given its own sword—just one.
Rohan had made a point the night before of keeping possession of the one he and Savannah had been given.
They might have been allies, but theirs was an alliance with a ticking clock.
Ultimately, the Grandest Game could have only one winner, and for Rohan, everything was on the line. He would win. Savannah just hadn’t realized it yet. She’d doubtless stolen his key to search his room for the sword and claim it as her own.
Propping himself up on his elbows, Rohan smiled wolfishly.
Good luck with that, love. He decided to return the favor, searching Savannah’s room while she was gone.
With skilled hands, he tested every floorboard, pressed at every molding with fingers both dexterous and strong, removed pillows from their cases, sheets from the bed.
He flipped the mattress, searching it for slits.
When that turned up nothing, Rohan made his way into the attached bathroom.
Sitting on the marble counter was a mask made of swirling, silvery blue metal.
Three teardrop diamonds hung from the corner of each eye.
The design had suited Savannah at the masquerade ball the prior evening.
Rohan ran the pad of his index finger over the delicate strings of diamonds. Precious gemstones, frozen tears.
But Rohan knew: Savannah Grayson didn’t cry.
Wondering how long it would take her to admit defeat in his room, Rohan turned on Savannah’s shower. While the water heated up, he gathered his clothes from the floor of the bedroom and slipped a pair of glass dice out of his pocket.
The indomitable Ms. Grayson had a lot to learn. If she’d been playing long games for as many years as Rohan had, she would have stolen his dice and then gone to look for the sword.
Stepping into the shower, Rohan laid his red dice on a marble shelf and gave his body up to the scalding spray. Rohan had never minded heat. The cold was a different matter—cold water, especially.
The past will drown you if you let it, boy. The Proprietor’s voice echoed through the twisting halls of Rohan’s mind. Like stones tied to your ankles.
Rohan stepped farther into the scalding heat of the spray, taking in it a distinct kind of pleasure. His focus was sharpest in moments like these. I am going to win the Grandest Game.
Power came, always, at a cost. Pain was a reminder of that. And heat reminded Rohan: I was not made to shiver or drown.
Whatever he had to do to win, he would do it.
Footsteps. Rohan marked the sound of them and the length of the stride—Savannah, incoming. Soon enough, she was standing right outside the shower curtain.
“I didn’t say you could use my shower.” Savannah Grayson’s voice was a socialite’s voice, its sharpness the sharpness of diamonds, not glass.
“And I didn’t say you could try to steal my sword,” Rohan replied lazily. It was too bad, really, that her shower had a curtain instead of a glass door. He would have liked to have seen the expression on her delightfully angular face the moment he called her out.
“The sword isn’t yours.”
Didn’t find it, did you, love? Rohan’s smile deepened. “Agree to disagree.”
“Get out of my shower,” Savannah ordered.
Rohan, magnificent bastard that he was, was happy to comply. He turned off the water, swept the red glass dice from the shelf with his left hand, and curled the fingers on his right hand around the curtain. “Careful what you wish for, love.”
Savannah threw a towel over the rod. Hard. Rohan made use of it, toweling off, then wrapping it around his waist before stepping out from behind the curtain. “I do hope you put my room back as you found it after you failed to find that sword.”
Savannah’s gaze roved over his body—chest, abs, down to the place where the towel hugged his hips. “I hope you weren’t expecting what happened to mean anything,” she replied.
Ruthless. Rohan appreciated that in a woman—in anyone, really. “I expect you to hold up your end of the deal in this phase of the game, Savvy, and that is all.”
Per their agreed-upon terms, the two of them would continue playing the Grandest Game as a team until—and only until—the competition had been effectively dispatched.
“There’s no need for concern.” Savannah arched a pale brow at him. “When I promised to work alongside you and then destroy you, I meant it.” She turned toward the mirror, examining her own reflection—an attempt, Rohan was certain, to keep from further examining him .
He brought one hand to rest on the towel around his hips and smirked at her.
“Grayson is going to be a problem,” Savannah commented coolly.
All business. “How fortunate, then,” Rohan said, “that I excel at taking care of problems.” And how fortunate that the Hawthorne brother in question has developed a weakness.
Savannah raised her chin, her newly shorn hair making her pale eyes look that much larger, her cheekbones that much sharper. “What do you know about the girl?” she asked.
Lyra Kane. Savannah had zeroed in on Grayson’s weak point with admirable efficiency.
“What do you know,” Rohan countered, “about how Lyra Kane’s father’s name ended up plastered all over the burnt forest?”
“What are you suggesting?” Savannah could play the ice queen to perfection.
“You have a sponsor, love.” Rohan didn’t pull his punches. “You’re very likely not the only player with one, and I doubt any of them are above playing dirty.” He gave her a look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“If I wasted my time pointing out your every misapprehension, we’d barely have any left to strategize.
” Savannah gave a deadly, elegant little shrug.
“I will, however, point out that you are the one more positioned to know other players’ secrets—assuming, of course, that the Mercy is as powerful as you claim. ”
An eighteen-year-old American girl couldn’t even begin to fathom the power, the wealth, the reach of the Devil’s Mercy, the organization that had raised Rohan, the organization that he was determined to rule.
He’d been given a year to come up with the buy-in, a year to obtain ten million pounds and claim his rightful place as the next Proprietor.
Unless and until he did so, as far as the Mercy was concerned, Rohan was nothing .
“You claim that you want to win more than I do.” Savannah shifted her gaze back to his. “You never told me why.”
“Imagine that,” Rohan replied.
Savannah narrowed her eyes at him. “You know why I’m here.”
Rohan stepped forward, his body brushing hers. “ I’ll never pause again ,” he quoted, “ never stand still, till either death hath closed these eyes of mine or fortune given me measure of… revenge .”
Rohan gauged Savannah’s response to that final word in the slow rise and fall of her chest.
“ Henry the Sixth, Part Three ,” he clarified.
“I am well aware,” Savannah replied. She didn’t take the bait, didn’t say a word about her motivation for playing this game—or her plot for revenge.
“Perhaps you should be going.” She picked up Rohan’s clothes and tossed them at him.
“We have hours yet before phase two, and there’s no reason for you to spend them here. ”
No reason. Is that right, love? “You mentioned strategy.” Rohan lowered his voice, a move aimed at forcing her to lean slightly toward him.
“Here’s a tip, Savvy: divide and conquer.
” Now it was Rohan’s turn to lean forward ever so slightly.
“And here’s another one: The fewer players there are left in a game, the more important it becomes to control the board. ”
“The board,” Savannah repeated, intensity in her tone. “The island.”
“The island. The house. The objects.” Rohan held Savannah’s gaze a moment longer, then brushed past her and stepped into the bedroom. “Think fast, love.” He tossed something back over his shoulder at her.
He heard her catch the glass dice—the white dice, hers, lifted from her pocket, along with his room key—as he’d passed.
“And that,” Rohan called back, as he sauntered out of Savannah’s room, “is why I’m the one in charge of securing our sword.”