CHAPTER 52 ROHAN
ROHAN
T here was a game that Rohan liked to play, one that had proven of use to him on more than one occasion, called Who Will Betray You First?
Since becoming Factotum, he’d often been the one throwing that question out to the person in his sights, letting them wonder if they had already been betrayed—and by whom.
But long before he’d won his place as the second-in-command at the Mercy, Rohan had been a master at playing Who Will Betray You First? all by himself. This time, there was only one candidate, only one player in this game who could betray him.
And Rohan had known from the start that she would.
The only questions were when and how . Savannah hadn’t said a word to Brady on the chopper ride, nor had she given Rohan any indication that her allegiances had changed.
But then, with a woman like Savannah Grayson, there would be no indications, no forewarning.
Regardless, Rohan had no intentions of being taken off guard.
On the yacht, he’d told her what he’d found on his mask—not so much a test as a push.
All Savannah would have to do is take what he’d given her and run, and Rohan would know: Their alliance had reached its end—sooner than anticipated, granted, but Rohan still fully intended to relish her attempts to destroy him.
Take me out of the game, love. If you can.
The doors on the helicopter unlocked. Savannah threw herself out of her seat, making it to the door first. She glanced back at Brady. “If you want me to consider your proposition,” Savannah said, jerking her head toward Lyra Kane, “block her.”
A second later, Savannah was out the door. “Hurry up, British.”
Savannah had asked Brady to block Lyra , not Rohan. Keeping up the illusion that we’re a team, Savvy? Rohan jumped out of the chopper and immediately started gaining on his quarry, his legs and stride longer even than Savannah’s.
“Your brother will not allow anyone to block Lyra Kane for long,” Rohan said, neck and neck with her now.
“We don’t need long,” Savannah retorted. “Even if they’ve managed to solve the music box, we just need long enough to get to the second floor and plug in the combination.”
Rohan pushed past her. “Keep up, love.”
Savannah kicked it up a notch and surged past him. It was almost too easy, bringing out the beast. Rohan would have upped his own pace again, but the dress was slowing her down just enough that he would have been able to leave her in the dust.
And that did not suit his purposes at all.
Within minutes, they hit the front porch of the mansion, then the foyer, then the stairs.
Rohan’s sixth sense for his surroundings warned him that Grayson and Lyra weren’t all that far behind, but he and Savannah beat them to the marble door—just like they’d beaten Grayson Hawthorne and Lyra Kane every step along the way so far.
It was supposed to be us. A voice snaked its way through Rohan’s mind, twisting and turning through the corridors of the labyrinth. At the end of this game, after we’d decimated the competition, it was supposed to be us.
The right kind of betrayal would have been exquisite.
The wrong kind of betrayal? Well, at least he would see it coming. At least he’d been reminded why affection was just another form of weakness.
“Thirty-four,” Rohan said, setting the first dial. The waltz.
Savannah edged in on him, taking control of the second row of the dial. “Forty-four.” The tango.
“And ninety-eight,” Rohan finished. “For ‘Clair de lune’.”
There was a click, and the marble door swung open. Rohan forced himself to hold back: another test—another trap—for Savannah. She squeezed past him. She did not, however, attempt to close the marble door in his face.
That answered the when , in the vaguest terms at least. Not yet. They had some waltzing to do still, a deadly little tango, and more. Rohan followed Savannah past the marble door and shut it, just as he heard two sets of footfalls hit the top of the stairs.
Savannah practically body slammed Rohan out of the way to throw a golden deadbolt.
“They aren’t getting in here,” Savannah said primly, triumph and sweat both visible on her angular face. “At least, not until we leave.”
“Victory is sweet, isn’t it?” Rohan lingered on Savannah’s eyes for a moment longer than he should have, and then he turned to the room at large to take in the lay of the land.
The room had walls made of the same marble as the door. The seams of said walls were barely visible, but Rohan marked them all the same—quite a few on one wall and one large seam on another.
On the marble ceiling, red numbers appeared. A digital clock, counting down. Five minutes.
“What happens in five minutes?” Savannah asked.
Rohan glanced back at the deadbolt. “My guess is that we’ll have company.” If there’d been anything in the room, he would have used it to block the door, but the only item in the entire room—as far as Rohan could see—was the ledger.
He let Savannah be the one to pick it up, let her add her name—right below Brady’s.
To Rohan’s left, the wall with the large seam parted. Behind it was a series of floating shelves, each bearing one player’s name. Brady’s shelf was already empty. A familiar rule had been inscribed over the shelves. TAKE ONLY YOUR OWN.
The game makers were awfully fond of fair play for the rich and mighty.
Rohan wasted no time in signing the ledger, then sauntered to his shelf. There were two items on top of it. He grasped the first: a charm—a music note this time. “Quite the collection we’re amassing,” he commented, as he hooked it on to the bracelet next to the others.
The charms would matter eventually—or the bracelet would. Rohan was as sure of that as he was of the fact that Savannah’s betrayal would come.
He picked the second item up in his hand. A worn leather pouch.
“And how did our Mr. Daniels respond to your offer of an alliance?” Rohan asked the question the exact same way he would have had he not borne witness to the event himself.
Lie to me, Savannah Grayson.
“Counteroffer.” Savannah kept her answer to a single word. A true one, as it happened.
“What kind of counter?” Rohan asked. He opened the leather pouch and withdrew a compass, a very old one by the looks of it.
“One I haven’t decided on yet.”
More truth? Perhaps. But Rohan was not in the habit of living for perhaps . He flipped open the compass, taking in the words written on the underside of the lid. A riddle.
“That’s it?” Savannah said beside him, examining her own compass. “No further interrogation?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, love.”
“Liar.”
“We’re all liars, Savvy.” Rohan read and reread the inscription on the compass. “Knowing that, living it…” He glanced up at the timer on the ceiling. “That’s the grandest game of all.”