The Player (The Game Maker #3)(85)

He appeared so different now. He was so different. He’d turned his entire existence around.

For me.

I was his “incentive.” The one he’d face a loaded gun for.

He took a step closer, his eyes thralling me. “The first time I saw you, you were making jokes and laughing, and you were everything bright that was missing from my grim life. I was mesmerized; I had to follow. You went to another bar. There was a limerick contest. You delivered the winning one with an Irish burr.”

I blushed to recall it—one too many syllables coupled with questionable taste—but I’d been hammered.

There once was a laddie from Nantucket, and if he saw a hole he would f*ck it. A wooden fence down the row . . . had a nice circular hole . . . a splinter later, he’d come by the bucket.

“Vika, for the first time in memory, I laughed. The sound coming from my chest startled me. And I knew you were the one for me. I just needed your name.”

I cast my mind back. “The emcee asked me to tell the crowd about myself.”

His expression grew stark. “And you said you were at your f*cking bachelorette party. I’d finally found you, and you were engaged.”

“So you took it upon yourself to manipulate my life,” said the grifter.

“As I investigated your family, I discovered what a long con was. A badger game seemed ideal to begin with. I put one into place immediately.”

My anger spiked. “You knew you’d be hurting me!” I started pacing again. “Do you have any idea how bad that screwed me up?”

“I hated hurting you!” He scrubbed his busted-up hand over his face, seeming not to feel his injury. “I made a deal with myself: I would try to entrap him just once. I reasoned if he proved weak enough to fold—especially so close to your wedding—then eventually he would stray all on his own. I told myself if he resisted, I would leave you alone forever.” Dmitri gave me that lifeline look. “But that was a goddamned lie—because I never could have given you up. I would’ve thrown a thousand women at him until he succumbed.”

A breath left my lungs, and I slowed my pacing. “Emailing him to meet me was needlessly cruel.”

“You have to play to pay.” He was using our own logic against us! “You assumed one of your family members did it, but you held no lasting resentment against them.”

Shit. Good point. “What purpose did fighting him serve?”

“None. I merely wanted to thrash him for being disloyal to you.” Dmitri’s fists clenched. “How could he, after he got to have all those memories with you? I envy him every one.”

Obviously, Dmitri had read all my private messages, all of Brett’s recollections—but I couldn’t talk; Pete and I had rued the missed opportunity to clone Dmitri’s phone.

“Ultimately, the blame for hurting you goes to your ex-fiancé. He didn’t appreciate what he had,” Dmitri grated. “So yes, I made him my mark, because you deserve a faithful husband. And unlike him, I can keep my eyes on the queen!”

Oh. My. God. Broad-tosser wordplay. This man could not be sexier.

Gram, Mom, and Karin sighed.

In a sly tone, Al murmured, “Checkmate.”

Not quite. “Was the cartel threat even real?”

“Yes.”

My pacing ramped up. “Did you manipulate the kingpin for your own purposes?” I could never get over that. Not if he’d exposed my family to danger.

Yet I couldn’t believe Dmitri would do that.

“I encouraged him to accept my money instead of harming Joseph.” Dmitri waved to indicate my dad.

I froze. “You what?”

Dad appeared stunned; Mom looked at Dmitri as if he were a hero of old.

“The threat was very real.” Dmitri took another step closer to me. “I told you I mended fences with my brother. At first, I did it because you obviously revere family, and I wanted to show no rifts in mine.” A united front is a powerful thing, no? “But Aleks was of great assistance in those cartel negotiations.”

Because Aleks was a mafiya vor. “The business matters that were crucial to you . . .” Dmitri had gone to his brother—hat in hand after decades of anger—to save my dad and my family.

“I paid the kingpin off, promising even more would come, but I asked him not to inform you that your debt was satisfied.”

Pete said, “Creating a sense of urgency.”

Dmitri nodded to him, then turned back to me. “I confided to Aleks my plan to win you. He alone understood I couldn’t learn charm and that courting you in a traditional fashion would end in failure. We both knew I could only hide my . . . limitations—and my obsession with you—for so long.”

His sexual limitations. Because people who dated had sex.

“You knew I would pull a milk-cow.” The first time I’d told him we couldn’t sleep together, he’d seized on it.

He inclined his head.

“Did Maksim and the others know about me and my family?”

“No, not until the morning after you met everyone. He and Vasili, his security head, ran a check on you over the night. Your efforts to hide your background would’ve been effective, but there is nothing those two can’t find.”

Benji raised his hand. “Wrong time to ask if I could chat with them?”