The Player (The Game Maker #3)(81)

That seemed to snap him past the limits of his control. “Guess what, wife? I’d do all of it again!”

“Stay the f*ck away from me! I never want to see your face again!”

The sedan lurched ahead a few feet, but was blocked by a taxi.

Eyes wild, Dmitri yelled, “Nooo!” Still yanking on the car handle, he pounded his fist against the window. The car rocked.

Benji muttered, “Jesus.”

“Just unlock the door, Vika.” Another brutal punch against the window. Blood smeared the glass. “You cannot leave!”

Even now I fought the impulse to soothe his anguish.

Pete said, “Finally!” The car sped forward out onto the Strip, leaving Dmitri behind.

I gazed back as he stumbled out into the traffic, yelling, “Do not leave me!”





CHAPTER 36

“Is she hyperventilating?”

“She looks like she’s about to throw up.”

“Not in my new car!”

“Shut the f*ck up, Pete.”

“Vice, say something, hon.”

I couldn’t, could barely think with the roaring in my ears. I had all this noise in my head, yet my body was numb.

Was this what crazy felt like? How had Dmitri stood it for so many years?

Familiar scenery passed by my window, but Dmitri’s dried blood on the glass colored every sight. Vegas no longer felt like my home.

I’d made my home alongside a wave-tossed cliff with a man who was a stranger to me.

I glanced down at my ring, and the tears fell and fell. . . .

After what must’ve been ages, we pulled up to my parents’ house. I let Karin walk me inside.

When Mom and Dad leapt up to hug me, I gave a humiliating sob. Cold-as-Ice Vice had broken into frozen shards. Even Cash’s welcoming gurgle from his playpen barely registered. I dimly noticed Al and Gram had traded up from sherry to hard liquor—vodka. Because things were seriously f*cked.

Mom brushed tears from my face. “Honey, we’re going to figure this out.”

Dad searched my expression. “Did he ever hurt you, sweet pea?”

I shook my head. Finally found my voice. “He was . . . wonderful. Obviously too good to be true.”

I sat on the lumpy couch, Mom and Dad on one side, Karin protectively on the other.

Mom rubbed my back. “Then help us understand this.”

How? When I couldn’t wrap my mind around it? “I don’t know. I don’t . . . I can’t think.”

How much of Dmitri’s interest was real? How much of his sentiments?

Everything between us was as fake as the Strip.

I muffled another sob.

“We can’t figure out why.” Mom frowned. “Does he like playing games?”

Dmitri had warned me he would do just that.

Benji sat on my parents’ love seat. “Maybe he’s a typical rich * who enjoys manipulating people. He could’ve made a bet with one of his brothers or something, then ended up falling for Vice.”

Karin said, “Maybe he’s an unlovable person—and he knows it. He could’ve spied on Vice, learned everything about her, then changed himself like a chameleon to trick her into loving him.”

They debated possibilities, each one getting more far-fetched.

I finally said, “I want to see the surveillance.”

Karin nodded. “Benji put a compilation together.”

He pushed buttons on a remote. “I’ll cue it up.” The TV flared to life.

I noticed they had a new flat-screen, courtesy of Dmitri’s money. Good. They’d proudly hung the art I’d bought them.

Video footage of the Caly’s main lounge began to play, with a date and time stamp at the bottom. August 21 at ten after ten.

I barely recognized Dmitri sitting at the end of the bar. Because he’d been a drug-addicted, addled, suicidal wreck—a shadow of what he was now.

He’d weighed at least twenty pounds less. His skin had been pale and clammy, his face gaunt, his eyes deadened and filled with pain.

Seeing him like that . . . Emotion squeezed my chest till my lungs threatened to collapse.

Then my group of seven women came on-screen—Karin and I, cousins, and grift friends. We’d booked rooms that night at the Caly; right then, we would’ve been heading out to a club next door.

Karin, dazzling as ever in a slinky red dress, had led the way. She’d been pregnant, but hadn’t looked it, except for her glowing skin and lustrous hair. Every man she’d passed had done a double take. Yet as she’d traipsed past Dmitri, he hadn’t spared her a second glance.

I was farther behind her, the last of the group. I’d been wearing a black strapless dress, my hair loose. I’d been laughing at something.

When Dmitri spotted me across the bar, his body jolted straighter. He’d stared at my face as I passed, rubbing his chest. All of a sudden, those deadened eyes glimmered with interest. . . .

He’d once described his first impression of me. He’d been telling the truth—about the real first time he’d seen me: “You looked like an angel to me. One with an edge. My chest tightened, and my pulse raced. When I registered the blue of your eyes, I believed I was having a heart attack.”

I swiped my forearm over my cheeks. He’d gazed at me as if . . . I were a candle in a world of darkness.