Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
I’ve always had a go-bag.
Call it paranoia. I call it preparation. After Berkeley, after my father, it became muscle memory to keep cash, a phone charger, extra clothes, and copies of what I can’t afford to lose all packed together.
What if someone found out I’d fudged my test scores? The bag was my answer then, and it never stopped being my fallback. What used to feel like smart planning now looks like evidence I was practicing lies long before I met Alistair Blackwood.
Jake’s blue eyes flash into my mind—bright, eager, exploited. Like the rest of them.
I walk back into the living room with the bag slung over my shoulder. Evie presses three aspirin into my palm.
“Proof,” she whispers. “Text me anytime, just… don’t get caught.”
That’s what Marcus Wilder is for: his smile will hide my teeth. If I want to burn Alistair’s house down, I’ll have to sit at his table first.
I nod, loosen my shoulders, and open the door.
“There he is!” Jake says, arms wide and too cheery for a hallway that feels like the scene of a crime I’m still committing.
He’d waited for me, and I’d slammed the door in his face. Why do I feel bad leaving this guy in the hallway for two minutes?
Jake saw Evie. He could have heard us talking, and yet that doesn’t worry me as much as it should.
When the door shuts behind me, Jake takes my hands into his. “I know how you’re feeling. Your best chance to make it through is to make allies.”
My brain drags itself through exhaustion and translates this as his offer to help.
“Why me?”
“You’re new. Everyone else already has deals, grudges, or both.”
“And you don’t?”
“I need allies too,” he says, already pulling me downstairs. I have so many questions, but Jake is rushing through his own agenda. “Nico’s in the middle of his second test. Play along, keep a low profile until your tests, and when they come, just hang on for dear life.”
He opens the door. Through our security gate, I spot a limousine squatting in the nearest lane. Jake opens the security gate for me too.
“You’ll be fine,” he whispers, and then waves his arm above his head, like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-man. “Have fun with it!”
The driver takes my bag. Jake opens the limousine door, and cold air spills out like the limo itself is trying to keep me from entering. This is it. He can open the door, but I have to walk through it.
My life may be a hollow shell of lies, but for the next seventy-two hours, that shell is my only tool and my only shield. I can do this. I can tell a convincing-enough lie. I was practically made for this.
I climb into the limo to find Alistair’s inner circle already packed in along with their cologne and laughter.
Jake follows, and the door shuts behind him with a soft, final click. He squeezes past in the narrow aisle, his thigh dragging along mine, and for a split second, his hand lands warm and firm on my knee to steady himself before he drops onto the bench nearest the divider.
A guy in a driving cap turns around, surprise flickering across his face before he smooths it into a grin. A gold signet ring flashes when he lifts his glass.
“New guy!” he says.
“Marcus,” Jake corrects on my behalf. “Meet Nico.”
“Nicolás Pardo.” Nico tips his cap like we’re in an old movie. “Enjoy your first night?” He turns to the rest of the car. “Sure looked like you did.”
I flinch as someone whistles, drawing catcalls and cheers, leaving me to play the part with a smile. A lie, right? Because of course I didn’t enjoy last night.
Jake hops up and shimmies in the low clearance to stand between me and the bar.
“You fuckers are scaring him,” Jake says, grinning, “and everyone knows we all enjoyed it.” He hands me a glass of champagne and lifts his own. “To seeing more of each other!”
The limo lurches forward and Jake squeals, losing his balance into my lap at the cost of my champagne. Everyone laughs. This time, he catches himself with one hand on my thigh, but once he’s upright again, he leaves it there. Our eyes meet, and his grin settles into something quieter.
“Well, this is cozy,” he murmurs. When he lifts his hand, my thigh misses the weight of it.
“All right, everyone,” Nico says, reclaiming the room. “Alistair wants us to play a game.” He leans out and waves at the little red light on a camera just above the divider. “Hola, Alistair.”
The whole limo leans in to wave at the camera together.
“Nico,” a voice booms from the far corner.
Brad, the chiseled mountain of a longtimer, sits with his arms crossed and his head nearly touching the ceiling in the narrow beam of his overhead reading light, looking up from his book to seethe at him.
Nico’s back goes a degree too straight. “Sorry,” he says, then starts again more carefully. “I want to play a game.”
Brad might hold Alistair’s strings, but the real puppet master is watching through the camera. The urge to disappear claws at me while the others draw closer, enthralled.
“Quit being so dramatic,” someone says. “What are we playing?”
Nico’s eyes dart to the camera, and his lip catches between his teeth.
The limousine rolls forward, and just as Nico opens his mouth to explain, a phone rings.
Brad fishes it from his pocket while checking the camera. “Mr. Blackwood,” Brad says. Someone kills the music, and the remaining silence is sharp enough to cut. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”
Nico takes his hat off. His knuckles whiten around the brim.
“Dae.” Brad holds the phone out to a man in a crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough to show a thin silver chain resting against his collarbone. “Mr. Blackwood would like to speak with you.”
Dae hesitates before taking it. “Alistair?”
The way each of them says his name tells me they’ve each found their own way to play Alistair’s game.
Brad makes it formal. Jake makes it easy.
Dae makes it sound strained. His eyes flick to Brad and stick there.
The hand that had been tracing the leather stills, fingers curling into a loose fist. Whatever he’s hearing reaches past his careful polish and presses something raw.
“Understood. Yes, sir. Thank you.”
It’s a clean delivery, except for the way his hand lingers near his mouth afterward, like he has to hold something in. Fear is contagious, and it twists in me to answer his.
Dae passes the phone back to Brad and turns his gaze on me.
“All good?” Nico asks.
“A brief detour,” Dae says. “Me first. Then back to your regularly scheduled programming.”
Nico sits without protest. Brad pockets the phone. The music returns, and the guys all settle back into drinks and chatter like nothing happened.
Jake leans in, cupping a hand to my ear. “Dae’s second test.”
What I hear in his whisper is that if Dae’s and Nico’s tests have begun, mine will come soon enough. Somewhere on the other end of that camera, Alistair is watching. Waiting. Wanting.
It’s enough to wake me up.
Nico’s white knuckles tell me there are rules I still don’t understand.
Dae’s swallowed panic tells me there are costs to breaking them.
And Jake’s whisper tells me the game is already cracking people open.
Whatever proof I bring back has to survive outside this tinted glass.
Nobody trusts me, because nobody here trusts anyone. They wave at the camera like it’s a goddamn producer. They’re acting like reality show contestants instead of captives. If I want the truth, I have to earn it. I have to make them believe I’m here not to win Alistair’s game, but to break it.
So far, Jake is my best lead. A witness, maybe. A victim, definitely. Either way, I need him.
I raise my glass with the rest of them, lie with a smile, and crawl deeper into the lion’s mouth.