The Player (The Game Maker #3)(82)

Hurrying to follow, he’d tossed money on the bar, then strode out of the casino.

The video skipped to later that night at the Caly. With Dmitri secretly observing me, I’d picked a pocket. The guy must’ve negged me.

Dmitri had canted his head, appearing utterly fascinated. An angel with an edge.

Gram murmured, “Nice lift, Victoria.”

“Not nice enough. He saw me do it.” Between that and the spying . . . “He’s known all along what we are.” All that worry and covering up for nothing.

Pete said, “Oh, yeah.”

At the end of the night, Dmitri had trailed my group to the elevator, then gone straight to the front desk, taking aside the manager.

Had Dmitri paid for my information then? My room number? He could’ve cloned my phone that very weekend.

Pete told me, “I had a hunch about all your burned marks, so we got more recent tapes. Vice, he busted your cons.”

My fists clenched. “What??”

Another video cued up, this one from just over a month ago. There stood Nigel in the lobby, fidgeting, smoothing a hand over his head, waiting for me to show. And off to one side—Dmitri, looking a thousand times better, phone in hand. He’d texted something; seconds later, Nigel glanced down at his own phone, paling at whatever he’d read. Dmitri had spooked the man somehow.

Right on time, I showed up in my white drape dress—then looked dumbfounded as my mark bailed.

In the video, Dmitri squared his shoulders, clearly intending to talk to me then. How nervous he must have been!

As he started toward me, I exhaled an irritated breath, texting Pete my humiliating defeat. When I pinched my temples, Dmitri slowed his pace, looking wrecked. As if he hated my pain. Even though he’d been the cause of it!

A group of babes approached him, circling him aggressively, blowing his chance to talk to me. He scowled at them, then reluctantly walked away.

The TV screen went black. I stared at it anyway.

What had he said to me that very night on the deck? “Perhaps I drove the others away so you would appear in front of me.”

Dear God, when he’d tipped his face up to the moon and exhaled, he had been longing—for me.

Then, as if his wish to the universe had come true, I’d shown up moments later. No wonder he’d been shocked.

Fresh from sabotaging my con, never knowing what was at stake for me, he’d kissed me. Wait. He’d known everything. He’d known about the cartel. My eyes narrowed. He’d paid them off so easily because he’d always intended to.

So why let us suffer? Why not pay sooner? Couldn’t he tell how scared we’d been? For months, we’d talked about nothing else, and he’d been listening in.

Dad said, “I watch that video, and I don’t see a man out to hurt my daughter. I see obsession and fixation but not malice.”

“Obsession?” Benji turned off the TV and set aside the remote. “You could say that. Today he bloodied the car window trying to get to Vice.”

“Then how could he keep himself away from her?” Mom asked. “Once Brett was out of the picture . . .”

Pete scratched his head. “He must’ve used some of that time to clean himself up.” He turned to me. “Is Dmitri off whatever he’d been on?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “Completely.”

Benji said, “Before you married him, he mentioned issues. Based on the way he acted today, I’m thinking more than drugs.” When I nodded, he said, “So mental issues.”

My sense of loyalty to Dmitri still had a stranglehold on me. I would never specify exactly what he’d struggled with. “He worked on some things over the past year. Then he and I resolved some more.” I think. Who knows what was real? “If you’d talked with him over the last month, you’d just think he was a rich eccentric.”

Karin put her arm around my shoulders. “You told me he sent up all these red flags, but I pushed anyway.”

She had. They all had. Mom had cried, “You’re letting him get away!” But then, none of us had had a choice.

Benji leaned forward. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt, sis, but marrying him was still the right play. You’re rich now. You’ll never have to work again.”

I wanted Dmitri. I wanted my husband. Or the man I’d thought he was.

“No prenup with a known con artist?” Karin shook her head. “What was he thinking?”

“The lawyer said that postnup was legit,” Pete said. “Dmitri’s left himself with a half a billion dollar exposure.”

It’s actually a ton more than that, Pete.

Mom nodded. “For whatever reason, Sevastyan gambled. And he lost.”

They were making Dmitri sound foolish, and even now it got my back up. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. Just the opposite. He was the most brilliant man I’d ever met. Methodical. Quick to learn—

My eyes widened as realization hit me. I shot to my feet, sucking in a breath.

He did learn! “I see now,” I whispered. “I see so clearly what he did.” Everything began to add up.

“Don’t leave us hanging, Vice,” Benji said.

I started to pace. “He let me catch him.” The fox had never suspected the henhouse was a trap.

“I don’t understand,” Dad said. “What’d he want from you?”