The Player (The Game Maker #3)(79)

I wished I could believe that.

Because even after Dmitri had bared his soul, my grift sense still needled me. Something was off, that thorn nagging my subconscious. Maybe Karin could help me figure it out.

Left to my own devices, I took a few minutes to check out the penthouse with new eyes. I strolled into the guest bathroom, memories making me blush. Dmitri had waited eight years for that night. I remembered every blistering second with you.

No, he’d waited his entire adult life: Because, beautiful girl, this is the most pleasurable thing I have ever done, and I’ll give anything for it to continue.

I wandered outside to the terrace and climbed up to the deck, with its wisteria-covered trellis and bubbling fountain. My beast’s lair. This is foreign territory for me, he’d said. But I like my new guide very much. It’d been new territory for both of us, for different reasons.

Though the sun beat down, such a change from that moonlit night, I twirled my ring on my finger and replayed our first kiss. I will play games with you. . . .

I’d had no idea how much my life was about to change. I’d had no idea I’d ever have to confess to him.

But first, introductions.

I headed back down, deciding to order all of Karin and Benji’s favorite dishes, even if none of them went together. Steak, risotto, sushi, pizza . . .

I’d just entered the living room when a text chime sounded from my purse on the coffee table. I hurried over and dug out my pink phone.

I blinked in disbelief at Karin’s message.

KV: Teotwawki outside.

What the . . . ? I read it again, as if the message would change.

When I’d texted her two days ago to invite her over, she’d replied: I will contact you when you reach the Caly.

The abrupt response was puzzling, but I’d shrugged it off, figuring she’d been upset about Walker. When Karin had sent him back all his child support and that note, he’d written:

Apparently you’ve gotten your claws into a new dupe. But if you think I’ll let another man raise my son, think again.



Now I feared something else had already been wrong. I glanced toward the study. I had an impulse to tell Dmitri, but what if the message was a false alarm? I could go downstairs and be back up before he even knew I was gone. I hurried to the penthouse’s main entry, my heels clicking down the foyer.

Starsky stood at the entrance.

“Just going to talk to a friend for a few minutes,” I told him. “I won’t leave the property.”

He hesitated, so I said, “Wasn’t asking permission, Starsky,” and breezed past him. Even when they were on my side, bodyguards were annoying as hell.

Outside the casino, checkout-time traffic clogged the main drive. I finally spotted Karin, Benji, and Pete in my cousin’s new sedan. All three looked pensive as I wove through the bumper-to-bumper snarl of cars to reach them.

When I hopped in the backseat beside Benji, he snapped his fingers at me. “Lemme see your phone.”

Frowning, I handed it over. “What’s going on?”

While he flew through screens at lightning speed, Karin gazed at me from the front seat with something like pity. “You aren’t falling for Dmitri, hon. You’re already there, aren’t you?”

I hesitated, then murmured, “Yes, I am.”

Her expression said, Welcome to the world of heartache.

“What the hell’s happening? He’s going to wonder where I went.”

Pete glanced back from behind the wheel. “We’re rescuing you.”

“From what?”

He honked at the cars blocking his way. “We’ll explain everything, but for now, we need to get out of here.”

“To go where?”

Benji glanced up. “Don’t say. Not yet. Her phone is hot.”

“Hot??” My heart raced. “Who would bug it? Did you guys just wake up this morning and think ‘Vice probably has a bug’?”

Pete said, “Your husband did it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Panic churned. “Why would he?”

Benji powered down my phone, handing it back to me. “Pretty sure we can talk freely now.”

“You can’t know it was Dmitri.” But who else would do something like that to me? Who would have the chance? “Maybe . . . maybe the cartel is monitoring us for some reason!”

Benji shook his head. “You’re the only one in the family with a tap. Plus, the hack to pirate the microphone is really sophisticated. Something you’d see from a tech genius. Assume he made a clone and accessed all of your data in real time as well.”

Data. Every text, picture, e-mail, and web search. My face heated as I thought of everything I’d written about him, all the things I’d said about him while in range of that phone. “Since when?”

“No way to tell,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say from the beginning.”

From the first night? Then Dmitri had probably heard me telling Karin I’d never come harder than with him. I cast my mind back. He must’ve heard my family plotting how to shake him down. He’d called with news about my new car right when we’d been wondering how to monetize his interest! “Then he knows what we are. What we’ve done.” And he still wanted me? I stared down at my ring. He might’ve started spying on me in the beginning for security reasons. Maybe he regretted it—the same way I wished I’d never used him. Maybe he and I could try counseling. “This isn’t necessarily teotwawki here.”