The Player (The Game Maker #3)(77)

“It’s too good. I went from having no man to having one who amazes me every second. I went from cocktail waitressing and eviction notices to all this.” I waved around. “The whole situation feels like reaching for the stars, which is something I never do.”

Tension eased from him, moment by moment. “Why?”

“Because that would involve taking my eyes off the road and my hands off the wheel. Great way to crash.” The rain intensified, pouring along the coast.

He shifted closer to me, hope growing in his eyes. “How do we get past your superstition?”

“This feels like a dream, and all dreams have to end—”

“Why do they have to end?”

Not a rhetorical question. He wanted me to explain this? “I don’t know why. I just know they always have before.”

“You say I’m more than my past. Why can’t your dreams be more than the ones that ended?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. “Dmitri, what if I’m not good enough for you?”

He looked baffled. “I’ve told you what you are to me. How you’ve affected me mentally and physically. Emotionally.”

“I’m not responsible for that—you are. You got therapy for years, and you worked so hard to improve your life; you still do. All the changes you made must have helped you overcome the dissociation.” I could tell he didn’t agree, but wasn’t going to argue his point. “Now that you’re able to stay present, maybe you could find someone else. Someone who’s more like Lucía and Natalie.”

Someone who isn’t rotten from all the secrets burrowing inside her.

He blinked. “I don’t follow.”

“They’re both rich and educated. I couldn’t pick them apart with a fork.”

He squared his shoulders. “You are rich and talented and brilliant and exquisitely beautiful. You’re an artist.”

Yeah, a con artist. A breed apart.

Dmitri insisted, “I’m far from perfect.”

I sighed, giving him a sad smile. “Not from where I’m sitting, big guy.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I believe I am ready to tell you more about my past. I wasn’t entirely forthcoming.” His tone was threatening—as if he intended to hit me with a fatal imperfection.

“Did you lie?” No, I would’ve caught him.

“I’ve never lied to you. But what I’m about to tell you involves another. His secret has been safe with me for twenty-three years, never repeated outside of my family. I will share it with you now.”

He’d definitely piqued my curiosity. “Okay. I’ll keep the secret to the grave.”

Nod. “I told you Orloff died. Which is true. But he was murdered.” Another bolt of lightning flashed.

I schooled my expression. “Who did it?”

“My brother and I.”





CHAPTER 34

My mind raced as I got my bearings with this bombshell. Orloff had died when Dmitri had been about nine. Maksim would’ve barely been a teenager. How do I respond to this? I settled on: “Will you tell me more?”

Dmitri ran his fingers through his hair. “When Orloff beat my brother and locked him in the cellar, the violence sent me deeper into dissociation; my isolation with Orloff kept me under, until I rarely surfaced. Maksim was down there in the dark for months, suffering, blaming himself for not protecting me. The night of a bitter freeze, I finally woke. Maybe the wind battering the window brought me back. Maybe it was that f*ck’s smug behavior—he knew Maksim would die.”

Orloff had fully planned to murder an innocent boy. Maksim must’ve been so terrified.

“I knew I had to save my brother somehow. When I tried to get the key from the man’s pocket, he woke, but I was prepared. Earlier, I’d gone outside and brought in a snow shovel. I hit Orloff with all my might. I freed Maks, and we . . . we strangled the man before he could ever wake,” Dmitri said, his gaze clocking my face for clues.

I wanted to shake him: “You felt guilty about this? You carried this weight? Shuck it right now!”

He swallowed. “I have no idea how you’re reacting.”

I chose my words more carefully. “That psychopath forced you and Maksim to defend yourselves. You two were so incredibly brave.”

As if I were missing his point, he said, “I helped kill a man. In the same situation, I would do it again.”

“Do you think I would’ve done less if I could’ve saved Benji from the horrors he suffered? Those men are still out there, Dmitri. And we have to live with that knowledge. You and Maksim prevented a homicidal monster from preying on other children, yet no one will ever know you’re heroes.” I cupped his face.

As he’d done the first night, he leaned into my touch. “Heroes?”

“If someone had prevented Orloff from ever putting his sights on you, what would you have called that person?”

He drew back. “I never thought of it that way.”

“It’s crystal clear to me. Thank you for trusting me with this.”

His brow furrowed. “That’s it?” His shoulder and neck muscles tensed, his frustration welling.

“If you told me this to make me see you in a worse light, then you did just the opposite.”