17. Liam
LIAM
I wait for her in the Hollow, a space inside the Velvet Trap designed to become whatever the Game requires.
For her, we built a counter-sensory room.
The walls are wrapped in black velvet pulled so tight it looks poured into place.
The light comes from a single suspended source overhead.
Sound dies the moment it leaves your mouth.
The air is deliberately cold, biting into bone without numbing it.
I hear my guards approaching, and her voice protesting her innocence. “Look, I don’t mind being accused. I mind not knowing by whom.”
Nice try, Hellion.
She will be in pain. My men were not instructed to be gentle. How much it rattles her remains to be seen.
When I told Victor she would not play, I was wrong about one thing.
I assumed she would resist the invitation because she would not leap into something unknown for the sake of sport.
I underestimated the part of her that responds to credible invitation.
So she does trust Victor to some degree, the rest is likely propelled by curiosity.
But she is not impulsive. I was right about that. In the maze, she chose Zebra with intention. At the poker table, she folded early hands without ego, letting the others expose themselves before she escalated.
So far, she has played brilliantly.
Now she’s unsure.
“Take me to whoever runs this,” she insists.
She’s not doubting herself, but in the fairness of it all. And that, is where pressure becomes useful.
I conceal myself behind a curtain. The room waits empty. And empty in here never feels harmless.
The men guide her to the center apparatus, a sculptural frame padded for constraint. Her wrists are secured overhead, her ankles fixed. The mask remains on her face and so too does the blindfold.
She resists once, a controlled attempt rather than panic, and then she stills.
Even bound and sightless, she occupies space. Charcoal velvet against black velvet. The lines of her dress merge with the walls, but she does not disappear. Her spine holds. Her chin lifts.
Being held suits her.
Venus enters first, her seashell mask gleaming beneath the light, her hips swaying with provocation. Seraphim follows, wearing white feathers and bare shoulders. Together they move like opposing currents. Silk and salt, heaven and temptation.
They circle Helena slowly.
Venus reaches up to Helena’s cuffed wrists, her bare nipples almost graze Helena’s lips. She then trails her fingers along her bound arms. Seraphim steps in behind her, pressing close enough that fabric grazes fabric, breath skimming the curve of Helena’s throat.
The frame keeps her exposed. She can’t step back or shield herself.
Venus’s mouth hovers near her ear. “You can admit what you’ve done,” she murmurs. “We’ll be generous.”
“I did not cheat,” Helena insists. “I’m here to play. And to collect.”
Seraphim smiles against her skin, the broad feathers of her angel mask skimming Helena’s bare shoulders. Helena tilts her head, exposing the line of her neck. Seraphim’s hands move higher, from hip to waist to breast.
“I can tell you’ve never been with a woman,” Seraphim says softly. “That’s a shame. You’re the kind who would undo someone without trying.”
Helena’s lips part. Her breath leaves her in visible strands, warmer than the room, fogging into the cold air.
The sight pulls at something primal in me, and it isn’t flattering. The charge of dominance and desire disturbs the line of my trousers.
I don’t indulge it. Tonight’s game is far from finished, and it isn’t mine to claim. Not entirely. It’s almost unfortunate Victor is late. Through my earpiece, my guard informs me that Victor is still tied up with Zebra.
Venus now stands behind Helena, her fingers gliding through the length of her gorgeous brunette hair, every so often pressing beneath the strands to knead at the skin. Meanwhile in front of Helena, Seraphim’s mouth traces the edge of her jaw. Helena writhes like she’s being burned from all sides.
“He’s in, sir,” my guard says.
I clap and step out from behind the curtain.
Helena’s head snaps toward me, her hearing doing the work her eyes can’t. She draws in a breath.
Venus and Seraphim withdraw and I move toward her.
“Hello, Hellion. I see you’ve been…occupied,” I change the pitch and pace of my real voice. The man she heard at the Silver Paw Ball is offstage now. There’s nothing in this voice she can place.
“I know who you are,” she declares.
That stops me. At the ball, we spoke for half an hour, perhaps more, but she cannot know. Not truly. Still…I’ve noticed the way she tilts her head when I come near. The way her breath deepens.
Damn. She’s been following my scent.
“You agreed to step into the Game because of someone,” I say.
Victor is confined to the adjacent room. He can hear us, but he cannot see.
Earlier, I watched him navigate his own maze toward the gambling room.
From one vantage point he could observe the three-door challenge, and he stayed to watch both women—Hellion and Seraphim.
Seraphim is perfection as Hellion’s double.
I doubt he knew which was which, but when they both turned away Mouse and Gladiator, he was clearly pleased. Especially Gladiator.
So was I.
“Do you trust him?” I ask.
She takes a breath. “Yes.”
I lift her chin, studying the shape of her mouth. The curve of it. The red. A filthy thought hits hard and fast.
Fuck!
Marcus handed me the Game for control, not to be undone by a pair of lips. I drop my hand and step back, resetting the air between us. She may handle pressure beautifully. But I decide how far it goes.
I direct my attention back to Victor Rochemont.
The more I examine it, the clearer it becomes.
He did not request truth or dare because he needs reassurance that she still thinks of him.
He believes she is concealing something related to her father’s estate, some asset unaccounted for, some detail that never made public record.
He does not require a direct confession.
As he said himself, he wants to know the temperature.
Truth questions provide words.
Dares provide pressure.
What he is seeking lies in the space between them.
If Helena Mercer is hiding anything beneath that composed exterior, it will not surface through interrogation. It will surface through reaction and I intend to see it first.
“Hellion, you are accused of breaching the integrity of the Game.”
Her head tilts at the accusation.
This is where the real play begins.
I hook a finger beneath the blindfold and strip it away.
The mask stays in place—dark, elegant, and impenetrable.
God, I chose well. Sabine assembled the options, but the final decision was mine.
And Helena could have traded it at the gate.
She didn’t. She kept the one she arrived in. She isn’t hiding behind it—it fits her.
Helena’s eyes adjust to the single light. I step behind her as she takes in the velvet walls, the height of the ceiling, the absence of exits. And lastly, the frame holding her.
Then I show myself.
“It is you,” she says. “Red Fox.”
I step closer and take hold of her elbows, firm enough that she feels it. I lean in until there’s barely space between us, breath against breath, heat against cold.
Her body reacts before she can censor it. An involuntary arch toward me. For a second, the only sound in the room is the rhythm of her breathing and the strain of the cuffs above her.
I release my hold on her, step back, then turn away.
“Why did you cheat, Hellion?”
“I did not cheat,” she replies. “I’ll admit I’m not exceptional at poker, but I won. That leaves two possibilities. Either the Game permitted it…or I was fortunate.”
She’s not scrambling, or trying to argue who’s right and who’s wrong.
I move behind her, close enough that she feels the shift in air.
“You haven’t tried to lie,” I say. “Don’t start now. We ask. You answer. A single lie forfeits the prize.”
A soft laugh escapes her. “You think you know me that well?”
The challenge is light, but every question serves a purpose. She may think Victor is watching from somewhere beyond these walls and shape her answers accordingly. But I don’t believe she intends to play for his approval.
“We know you more than you suspect,” I answer, letting the plural remain ambiguous.
I resume my circuit.
“If your past held something others believe was lost,” I ask, “would you let them keep believing that?”
She does not rush her answer. “Sometimes loss is more useful than possession.”
The words are careful, layered. She neither confirms nor denies. Victor would hear possibility in that sentence. I hear survival from what she lost, what her family lost.
I shift closer, her breath dusts the air near my chest.
“Confess something you have never said aloud.”
The question alters her rhythm. I see it in the subtle lift of her chest, in the way her fingers clench briefly before relaxing again.
“I don’t correct people,” she says after a moment, “when they assume the worst about me. It saves time to let them believe what they prefer.”
Her voice remains steady, but the confession affects her more than the accusation about cheating in that poker game did. That struck her pride. This touches something older. I step closer before I fully register it, almost wanting to comfort her. Absurdly.
I clap once, and Venus and Seraphim come back.
With a nod, Venus releases Helena’s wrists and ankles.
She lowers her arms slowly, reclaiming circulation with composed movements. Seraphim approaches her with a glass of water. Helena’s fingers quaver around the crystal, and she drinks without leaving the spot.
I circle her once more.
“How quickly do you forget someone?”
“Never,” she answers without pause. “I never forget anyone.”
“Do you love him, Hellion?”
This time she considers the room as much as the question. The angle of her head changes, a small adjustment that signals she knows her answer will travel beyond these walls.
When she speaks, her tone is even. “Love isn’t something you demonstrate in a room like this.”
The reply overturns the premise. I didn’t anticipate that move, and I doubt Victor did either. I never knew her father, but she may well have inherited Edward Mercer’s cunning.
“Wise,” I say, and mean it.
I take her in one last time, as though this might be the closest I will ever stand to her.
The temperature between us has changed. The tension no longer belongs to accusation, it belongs to proximity. The space feels charged, as if something is being negotiated without words.
The lights cut out, plunging the room into darkness.
The Game bares its claws.