CHAPTER 48 ROHAN
ROHAN
A rmed 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 her fungible loyalty to Brady Daniels to 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 and past the 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.
“—double-cross your current partner?” Brady Daniels had a deep voice, pleasant enough.
Savannah’s, in contrast, was high and clear, cutting through the air like a diamond-studded blade. “ Partner is an overstatement. Rohan knows quite well that our interests only align to a point.”
Rohan smiled. There you are, winter girl.
“And that point is…,” Brady prompted.
“A matter of some internal debate. At this juncture, I could be persuaded of many things, and I have to say, Mr. Daniels, that you strike me as the debate team type.”
“It’s the glasses,” Brady replied.
Rohan wondered if Brady was peering at Savannah through those glasses, but from this angle, he couldn’t see a thing, could only hear them.
“On day one of this competition,” Brady commented mildly, “you told your sister that she couldn’t trust anyone in this game. You warned Gigi that I wasn’t her friend.”
“Was I wrong?”
“You were not.” Brady Daniels left it at that.
Rohan wondered what the scholar’s read on Savannah Grayson was. Obviously, he’d be suspicious of her, but did he have any idea what she was truly capable of?
Rohan hadn’t—at first. Make your move, Savvy , he thought. Any time now, love.
“Gigi didn’t know on day one that you were playing this game for Calla.” Savannah gave that name its due. “Who was she to you?”
“Someone I knew,” Brady replied quietly, “once upon a time.”
“Are you a fan of fairy tales, Mr. Daniels?”
“A few of them.” Brady Daniels paused in a way that made Rohan think he was studying Savannah like a handwritten letter or a broken clay pot or a piece of priceless art. “ Les Fées , for example.”
“ The Fairies ,” Savannah translated.
“You speak French.”
“Was that a question?” Savannah said archly.
“It was not. Les Fées is a tale sometimes known as Diamonds and Toads . Are you familiar with the story, Savannah?”
“Pretend,” Savannah replied, “that I am not.”
She didn’t have it in her to admit to not knowing something, and if she did know—well, there were benefits to getting an opponent talking. I see you, winter girl.
“It’s a story of two sisters,” Brady said. “One kind, one unkind.”
Rather brutal. Rohan hadn’t thought the scholar had it in him.
“Do go on,” Savannah said.
“The younger sister—the kind one—offers a poor old woman a drink, and in return, the kind sister is given a magical blessing. Every time she speaks, diamonds and jewels fall from her lips like drops of rain from the sky.”
“I take it the older, unkind sister is likewise tested, fails, and gets a curse and toads?” Savannah cut straight to the chase. She was the first-born twin, the older sister to a little sister who was very kind .
“Toads,” Brady confirmed. “And snakes.”
“And it’s assumed, of course,” Savannah said, “that it’s better to be a girl who spits diamonds than snakes.”
Rohan could picture her, shaking her head in a way that would have set her braid singing, back when her platinum blond hair came down to her waist.
“But how much would you like to wager, Mr. Daniels,” Savannah continued, just a hint of tantalizing anger working its way into her tone, “that no one ever really listened to either of those girls again?”
If Brady Daniels had been hoping to get the measure of Savannah Grayson—well, he had it now.
“Is that what you want?” Brady asked her. “To be listened to?”
That was exactly what she wanted—far too close, Rohan suspected, for Savannah’s comfort. She wanted to win the Grandest Game so that she could tell the world that her father was dead and point a finger at the Hawthorne heiress on a livestream with hordes of people watching.
Or at least, that was the plan as she’d described it to him.
“I want to win.” Savannah was quite skilled at masking one truth by telling another.
“You obviously want the same.” Savannah made another move then.
“ Do exactly as I say. The game must go on. Ensure that it does. Someone is pulling your strings. Whoever it is sounds a bit threatening, if you ask me.”
Oh, Rohan wished he could see the expression on Brady’s face now. Well played, Savvy.
“Does Rohan know?” Brady asked finally.
“About your sponsor? About the way that sponsor is communicating with you?” Savannah said. “No. Are you interested in having an ally in this game, Mr. Daniels? Because I won’t be asking again.”
“I’m listening,” Brady said, and Rohan knew that he hadn’t chosen those words on accident.
“I’ll stay quiet about the photographs, about your sponsor and any rules that you might or might not have already broken. I’ll aid you in the game and you will do the same for me—until the end.”
“I assume the terms of your alliance with Rohan are similar,” Brady said, “and that you’ll continue to work with him as well, pitting the two of us against each other if and when it suits you.”
“Why is it,” Savannah replied, “that men can make the prospect of a woman doing what suits her sound like a cardinal sin? I’m making you an offer, Mr. Daniels. If it doesn’t suit you , then by all means, decline.”
A large wave hit the side of the yacht, soaking Rohan’s tuxedo. As focused as he was, he shouldn’t have even felt it, the same way he wasn’t feeling the pain of staying in position, clinging to the yacht.
But the water was cold, and the ocean was velvety black beneath him, and he never had learned how to swim all that well.
Not. Now.
“Before we make a deal”—Brady’s voice came to Rohan as if across a great distance—“you should ask me what I have to offer, Ms. Grayson.”
Rohan listened for Savannah’s voice, listened like his life and his sanity depended on it.
“What you have to offer?” Savannah said. “Or what your sponsor does?”
Pain seeped into Rohan’s muscles as they cramped—but pain was good . Pain kept the memories at bay, even as it also threatened his grip on the side of the boat. Still, Rohan refused to go in, refused to move.
“My sponsor knows where the body is buried,” Brady said. Rohan presumed he was talking about Calla Thorp’s body. And yet… Brady had previously used the present tense in referring to her.
“The body?” Savannah said coolly.
“Your father’s.” Brady’s voice was far too calm.
“My sponsor knows how and where they disposed of his remains. Proof , Savannah, of what befell your father, and you don’t have to be my ally to earn that information.
You don’t have to help me win. All you have to do is find a way to take Rohan out of the game. ”