CHAPTER 31 ROHAN
ROHAN
Rohan was not a person who worried. He schemed.
He strategized. He took calculated risks and paid the price for power every time the piper came to call.
Thus, after they’d failed to catch Nora and found out that Gigi had taken off, Rohan hadn’t been overly concerned on either count.
And when Savannah had tracked little sister’s phone to the Thorp mansion—well, needs must. Savannah had been the obvious choice to go in after her twin, and flashing Calla’s necklace at the gate had earned her entrance easily enough.
Nothing to worry about, even if one had been prone to such things.
It had, however, been hours since. Day had given way to dusk to darkness, but Rohan steadfastly refused to be bothered by that. He had other things with which to occupy himself—a new mystery to ponder, for one, and two obvious liabilities to manage.
“I am going to kill Gigi.” Knox—liability number one—swore under his breath. “All she had to do was stay put for three minutes.”
“So you have said,” Rohan replied, but at least two-thirds of his focus was elsewhere. In the labyrinth of his mind, fifteen words played over and over again on repeat:
You said to make you an offer. I thought you should know: We already have.
Hence, a new mystery: What offer? Nora had still been in his companions’ custody when Rohan had received that call, which meant the woman on the other end had been someone else.
Calla—or someone like her.
“That’s it,” Knox hissed. “I don’t care if I have to scale the gate, take out the guard, and punch in a window.” Knox took a step toward the edge of the tree line. “I’m going in.”
“No, you’re not,” Rohan said. There was another sound—liability number two.
“And that goes double for you, scholar. It would be terribly inconvenient if you got yourself arrested or took a shard of glass to the wrong part of your arm—almost as inconvenient as the way you two lost our Icelandic friend.”
Icelandic, Brady had informed him, was the language Nora had spoken when she’d parted with a few choice bits of information that Rohan was keeping in his back pocket for now.
“What makes you think we care about your convenience?” Knox growled.
“You care,” Rohan replied, “about Gigi Grayson. The three of us making any kind of scene right now would hardly serve her well, would it?”
Rohan did not trust either of his companions as far as he could throw them.
Frankly, at this point, Rohan was starting to think the throwing of Knox Landry and Brady Daniels might prove therapeutic, but he settled for positioning himself between them and the guardhouse and retreating to his thoughts.
Make me an offer.
We already have.
Rohan was, at heart, a deal-maker, but to the best of his knowledge, the only person who’d offered him anything since the start of the Grandest Game, other than Jameson Hawthorne, was Savannah.
Savannah, who had not turned on Rohan during the game even when he’d given her every opportunity to do so.
Savannah, who had offered Rohan a chance to prove that he could hold up his end of a deal.
Savannah, who had been inside the Thorp mansion—and out of contact—for hours.
Rohan crouched, turning his attention to the small ball of fur at his feet. “What do you think?” he asked the kitten Savannah had dumped back into his arms when she went in after Gigi. “Is this situation truly in need of our intervention?”
“If you knew the Thorps—” Knox bit out.
“The world is full of Thorps.” Rohan picked the kitten up and allowed it to attempt to scale his arm. “I cut my teeth dealing with far more formidable prey. Should a threat need to be dealt with, it will be.”
That applied to the Thorps, and it applied to Nora as well. Come out, come out, wherever you are, warrior. Rohan’s instincts said they hadn’t seen the last of her.
Perhaps she was already inside.
Unable to suppress that thought, Rohan aimed a lazy gaze in the direction of the guardhouse. Security hadn’t clocked their presence even before the sun had set. Weeping willows made for excellent coverage.
“You really aren’t the least bit concerned right now?” Knox said
Rohan did not do concern. He did, however, do contingency plans, and if it came to that, the kitten—who’d just made it to his shoulder and launched an attack on his ear—might be of some use in getting past the guard at the gate.
Rohan plucked the feral little thing off his shoulder. “No biting,” he chided, as he eased just barely past the tree line.
“You’re going in,” Knox accused.
Rohan ran a hand over the kitten’s head. “I’m reserving my options.”