The Player (The Game Maker #3)(19)

Karin studied my expression. “Then the con won’t be such a chore. Everybody’s so excited, Vice. I’ve been bragging about my boss of a little sister.” She would; she didn’t have a jealous bone in her body. “Pete said he’s never seen a mark respond like this.”

He chuckled. “Not fifteen minutes after I told Vice she needed to practice sexual manipulation, she had the Russian shoving her up against a wall, groaning into her mouth, and hard as rock.”

I blushed. “I wondered if you’d seen that detail.”

“As if I could miss that huge . . . detail.”

Karin laughed. “The student has become the teacher! I tried every trick in the book to get that man’s attention—even a noob move like the toppled tray.”

She’d dropped a tray filled with plastic cups of ice, enabling her to spend lots of time on all fours in a miniskirt hunting for each cube.

The idea of my sister doing that in front of Dmitri . . . Jealousy hit me. Again.

Benji said, “Start from the beginning and tell us everything that happened.”

I did—because this was my first sex con and I needed their input. But I omitted the finer points of each orgasm, and I found myself leaving out details that made Dmitri sound even more . . . eccentric.

I finished with: “He walked me to my door, all gentlemanlike, which blew my mind after the way he’d been sexually.”

“He spanked you?” Pete raised his brows. “I did not see that one coming. Pun intended.”

“Yep.” My ass still burned. I’d gotten a glimpse of what sex would be like with Sevastyan.

Earth-shattering. Filthy. Baffling.

Pete snapped his fingers. “Now that I think of it, I’ve overheard some jokes and innuendo about BDSM from the Sevastyan couples.”

Natalie and Lucía just didn’t seem like the type.

“Did you like it?” Karin asked. “I didn’t think your tastes ran that way.”

“It’s not my bag,” I said, even though I’d gotten off on being whipped.

Karin tilted her head. “Luckily, you won’t have to deal with his penchant for very long.”

Because I only had so much time to fleece the man.

I’d once been asked if I felt guilty conning people. Nope. You have to play to pay. Behave yourself, and you’ll never know my family exists. We targeted those who could never report a con to the police—because of their own dirty deeds.

So what had Dmitri done to deserve me? What if he was a little crazy—and a lot vulnerable? I kept replaying how he’d leaned into my touch for comfort. He’d already been burned in his life and still bore the scars.

Maybe Pete’s initial instinct to cut that family had been right on. “I’ve been thinking about tomorrow night,” I said to no one in particular. “About the congressman.”

Blackmailing him could be the family’s largest score yet. Badger games were like grifter annuities; they paid for life, and sometimes even appreciated if the mark made it big.

The congressman could be a presidential hopeful. We wished him all the best in his future campaigns.

Unfortunately, Karin would have to turn over the big payout from that * to service our debt.

Her blond brows drew together. “What about him?”

Benji perked up too. He was instrumental in badgers. He’d earned his nickname “the Eye” from his remarkable camera work.

“My string of bad luck, or whatever, seems to be over.” I got up, knocked on the wood of my desk, then returned. “If I start roping guys and you bag the congressman, maybe we . . . shouldn’t run Dmitri.”

“What?” the three exclaimed in unison.

I played with the sash on my robe. “We might be able to scrounge up enough if Mom and Dad make good on their art scam. And Nigel could reconnect. Plus there’s the watch I lifted.” From a genuinely nice woman. If I felt this shitty about that, I couldn’t imagine what playing with Dmitri’s feelings would do to me.

In a scandalized tone, Karin said, “You like him.”

“Or maybe I’m thinking about our own rules? No sins, no in. We have a code, remember?” In all my life, we’d never broken it. “What has the Russian done to merit a financial punishment and a helping of pain? We prey on vulnerabilities, not the vulnerable.”

Benji scratched his head. “Why would you consider a brilliant and handsome BDSM billionaire vulnerable?”

“Call it grift sense.”

“He simply hasn’t shown you his sins yet,” Karin said, disturbingly confident. “Give him time. Sins always out. I guarantee he’s part of the ninety-seven percent.”

Like the father of her kid?

She was right. I knew better. You’d think I would’ve learned after all the lying, two-timing scrotes I’d encountered in the grift. Hell, my own ex-fiancé should’ve taught me.

“The point is moot anyway.” Karin sighed. “Dmitri could be pure as driven snow, and we’d still have to target him. Hon, think of the alternative.”

Three months ago, we’d swindled a drug-trafficking couple from overseas for a cool million, our largest take to date. We’d spent ages doing foundation work, yet no amount of research would’ve revealed that the woman was an untouchable. The lovechild of a cartel kingpin.