I read the words out loud.
The dock is perfectly silent.Fuck.I thank the white-gloved courier, and Alex reaches for his wallet to tip the man. That’s when he gives us a set of four pearly white poker chips.Seat reservedis written on their backs.
The man gets back in the boat, and it takes off, leaving us all standing on the dock in charged silence.
Vivienne’s parties are legendary and just as dangerous. I haven’t been to one in over a year. It’s a great place to make deals, if you know how to handle them. It’s also a great place to lose yourself. The stakes are always astronomical.
But it seems one of us has already lost.
“Four buy-ins,” I say, and lower the bouquet. “Win somethingback?”
“Alex,” James says. His voice is clipped. “What did you lose?”
The large Scotsman has been silent since we came down here. Now he’s leaning against the lion pillar, arms over his chest, with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. “Why did you immediately think of me?”
“Because it’s not James. It’s not Rafe. And it’s damn well not me,” West says. “Alex…”
“I was going to win it back quietly,” he protests. “None of you ever had to know.”
“What did you lose?” I ask. There’s a low pounding at my temples, and I think of the terror-induced anger I felt seeing Paige standing outside the cage last night. The anger was familiar. The terror was new.
I feel a shade of it now, realizing that someone I consider family is more reckless than I ever thought.
Alex holds the saber up. “You’re all going to come after me when I tell you, but remember, I’m armed.”
James’s voice is ice. “What did you lose?”
He tells us, and he survives the telling, but it’s a close call.
“Do you thinkhe’llbe there?” I ask the others. They all know who I mean. We were once a friend group of five rather than four. We’d been inseparable at Belmont. Until everything collapsed around him... and until he broke the no-sisters-rule with Amber.
That was many years ago. It’s been a long time since any of us had the displeasure of crossing paths with Hadrian.
West came closest, this spring, when Vivienne’s last party was held at Hadrian’s family’s old estate. The one they lost when the façade came crashing down. We were all harmed in that wreckage. He lied to us and disappeared, and over the years the only traces have been brushes in the dark. His name bidding against Alex on a property; a large purchase in one of my stores.
And recently he’s started to make a name of his own in thefinancial sector as being every bit as ruthless as his father. Slowly regaining his fortune, deal by rapacious deal.
“He was invited last time I was there, even if he didn’t show,” West says. “I can’t imagine he’d come tonight.”
“Why would he show up? No one trusts him,” Alex says.
“I think we’ll be fine,” James says.
And so we all go to Monaco.
CHAPTER 38
PAIGE
One day I’m getting married on a glittering terrace overlooking Lake Como.
The next I’m wiping blood off Rafe’s knuckles, heart pounding.
And now I’ve checked into one of the most luxurious hotel rooms I’ve ever seen, with windows overlooking the yacht-filled harbor of Monte Carlo. When the others told me what they were planning, I said I wanted to come with immediately.
Travel is movement, and movement is safety.
The more time I have to think, the more I’ll see Rafe in front of me. Tired and sweaty and more intense than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes so close to mine. It was like I’d finally seen the real him. Edges smoothed off and our usual arguments paused.
