The door shut behind him.
I stripped out of Jacob’s jacket and shirt, folded them over the arm of the chair, and pulled on new shirt and the tux. The fit was decent enough, if you didn’t look too closely, with the sleeves a touch long, and the jacket a hair too broad in the shoulders. Exactly what wardrobe would toss to a staff member who’d been roped into a rich man’s game.
In the small mirror bolted to the wall, I barely recognized myself.
Not the billionaire recluse.
Not the scarred stranger in a hoodie and gloves at the hardware store.
Just a man in an ill-fitting tux with a mask in his hand and too much riding on how one woman chose to look at him.
I slid the mask on, tied it in the back, and stared.
The scar cut clean around the edge of the black, visible from temple to jaw. The mask made my blue eyes look darker and sharper.
Untrustworthy.
Good.
I went back to the control room long enough to see the next piece fall into place.
On the Room Eighteen feed, a maid entered with careful deference and delivered the line exactly as rehearsed:
“Mr. Stonewood has reviewed the footage of your arrival. You’re on thin ice, ma’am. Mr. Stonewood said that if you have one more misstep, you will be ejected from the game and escorted off the property.”
Chrissy’s spine went ramrod straight, but her voice stayed even.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I understand.”
She understood more than she should, and less than she needed to.
The maid left. Chrissy stood alone in the center of the room for a long second, then put on her heels and moved for the door likeshe’d decided that, if this place was going to chew her up and spit her out, it was damn well going to choke on her in the process.
I cut the feed before I started talking to the screen.
Time to get to work.
The blue roomoff the dining hall had been turned into staging for the men. None of the women would see it tonight; they were being funneled by a different route, all chandeliers and theatrics.
The blue room was pure backstage.
Nine tuxedos. Nine masks. Nine versions of the same fantasy. Eight hired actors. One real billionaire.
The actors were already there when I stepped in, numbers pinned discreetly to the lapels of their jackets, masks in hand. Some were stretching like they were about to go on stage. One was checking himself out in the mirror. Another was fidgeting idly, as if missing his phone, bored.
Henry stood near the door, arms folded.
They all looked up when I walked in.
Silence rippled out from the center, just a beat.
Then Brandon — the man who’d kissed Chrissy in the foyer and taken the fall like a champ — grinned from his spot by the window.
“Look who’s leveling up,” he said. “Groundskeeper’s got a tux.”
“Brandon,” Henry said in warning.
“It’s fine,” I said. “He earned the right to get a line in after that performance.”
