It made Adi want to punch someone.
He was pretty sure, though, that Ranielle Russell had not been the one to send them that painting, no matter how much she enjoyed messing with contestants. No . . . She had to be thinking that she was in the clear over her little murder spree. She wouldn’t risk a threat that might turn the attention back on her.
This was the work of a saboteur. Someone trying to get in their heads. Someone who wanted them to screw up during the semifinals. Someone who had been targeting them from the start.
Jarius? Team Dread? Elijah?
He wished he was back in the villas, puzzling it out with his teammates. He wished he was anywhere but in this stuffy office, not-sopatiently waiting for Ranielle to take a break from her busy email schedule or whatever she was doing. He knew why she’d summoned him this morning. He knew what she was going to ask.
He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say.
He’d almost forgotten about the host offer in the chaos. Despite what Ranielle had said, it was impossible to imagine the show going on without the Game Master. And to boot Fitzy out, too? It would be a whole new show—the Clue Masters would be livid.
Although Ranielle had made it clear that Hitflix wanted to take the show in a new direction.
With Victor Cunningham. Maybehewould be the new Game Master.
Adi breathed through a nervous tremor. Hitflix had asked for Adi especially, so he would outlast Ranielle Russell, too, when she was arrested for her husband’s murder.
But.
But.
Adi’s instincts told him there was something about the suicide note that wasn’t adding up.
Tell Rani I love her.
The office door swung open without a knock. Adi glanced over his shoulder—then bolted upright.
“Here I am,” sang Symphony, floating into the room. “Traffic was such a bear! I trust you haven’t been waiting long.”
Ranielle’s icy gaze shifted from her computer screen to Symphony and back again. “As it’s now nine thirty-seven, and we were to meet at nine o’clock, safe to say we’ve been waiting for thirty-seven minutes.”
“I’m worth every second,” Symphony chirruped.
Though there was a chair beside Adi, Symphony sank onto the sofa, and Adi’s stomach churned to think how he had done the exact same thing the first time he’d been called to this office.
“Hello, love,” his mother said, beaming at him. “You’re still looking too skinny. You need definition in those arms. I brought some more shake packets—”
“What are you doing here?” he barked, then turned to Ranielle. “What is she doing here?”
“I’ve been asking myself that a lot this past year,” Ranielle muttered. She finally pushed back from her computer and folded her hands on top of her desk. “Your mother will be coming on as a producer next season and—”
“Shewhat?”
“—has therefore taken a vested interest in our search for the next show host,” Ranielle continued, ignoring Adi’s outburst. “She insisted on being here while we discuss particulars.”
Adi’s face contorted—first with surprise, then disgust, then anger. He would never escape his mother.
Symphony crossed her legs and leaned forward, elbows propped on her knee. “Actually. Now that you mention it, I have some concerns about Aditya as host.” Her voice was all sugar and softness, her face perfectly molded into that of the concerned, doting mother.
“What are you talking about?” Ranielle demanded. “This is what you wanted.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Adi drawled.
Symphony’s unnaturally plumped lips fluttered into a smile. “It’s just . . . Aditya is still so young.”
“He’s older than Fitzy was when he hosted our first season,” Ranielle said, not missing a beat.
