The Player (The Game Maker 3)

Dad muttered, "Well played, Sevastyan."

Mom said, "He was a hacker, a backer, and a fixer."

Pete gave a startled laugh. "Don't forget roper and mastermind."

Al petted his beard. "He played us like chess master."

Benji said, "We got freaking Keyser Soze-ed!"

"Vat does that mean?"

"The Usual Suspects?"

No wonder my grift sense kept sounding the alarm. I'd sensed his plot; deep down I'd known I was getting played! "Why are you guys not pissed?" I demanded. "Understanding his motives doesn't erase everything he did! He listened to our private conversations. He hired a woman to tempt my fiance. He might've faked the cartel threat!"

Benji pointed out, "You can't get angry about half of those things because they were done in the service of a long con. Either they don't count--or else we're really shitty people."

"But we target assholes!"

Dad cleared his throat. "Sweet pea, his con depended on us using him for money."

"But only to save us from the cartel--a crisis he might have manufactured." No one seemed to care about that.

"He didn't want to blow his one shot with Vice." Mom sighed. "I'd suspected him of having all these awful, twisted motives."

"Me, too." Karin stood, heading for the playpen. She pulled Cash in her arms. Gurgle. Blink. He'd grown. I needed to hold him, but I was shaking too bad.

"We all did," Pete agreed. "Vice, your biggest fear was that he'd get to know the real you and bail. He had the same fear about you--and so he hedged his bets to hell and back."

Benji told me, "He knows you up and down, and he still tried to fight a car to get to you."

"You wanted a man to make a grand gesture?" Karin sat on the couch arm, adjusting Cash. "Like in the movies? How about devoting a year of his life and risking half his fortune to win you?"

Mom smoothed my hair from my face. "As for you . . . I've never seen you more upset than you were earlier--and yet you didn't take off his ring."

I shot to my feet, pacing again. "You guys are all as crazy as he is!" I pictured Dmitri right now, going nuts, wondering whether his wife would come back to him. Just don't leave. . . . You are my home. . . . His voice echoed inside my head.

But I couldn't get over the cartel. Was the whole thing a setup? "We were terrified for months. I thought Dad was going to be burned alive! Think of how many extra men Karin had to seduce, or how many hours I'd tried to run game, never knowing I was doomed to failure. Mom, how many nights did you lie awake terrified?"

And if he'd monitored my conversations and texts, he knew how much anxiety I struggled with over the last month; why not put me out of my misery? Why let me agonize over my ring? Had he been testing me?

A car engine sounded outside.

Benji stood to peer out the living room window. "Holy shit, it's him! Maybe he's tracking Vice."

"He wouldn't need to," Karin said. "He knows her. He knows us. And this is our sanctuary."

Pete raised his brows. "He's showing up here? On our turf? The balls on that son of a bitch!"

Al intoned, "Russian men do have beeg balls."

I darted over to the window. Exhaled a shocked breath. Dmitri was striding to our front door.

Gram chuckled over her vodka. "This is better than my soaps."

CHAPTER 37

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I whirled around when I heard the front door open and close. No knock.

My family was agog at the towering billionaire who'd just barged right into our sanctuary without an invite.

He'd done a lot of things without an invite.

Standing across the room from me, he squared his shoulders, but I could tell how difficult walking into this lion's den was for him. A special kind of hell, as Lucia had said.

He loathed attention; all eyes were on him. This morning, all he'd wanted was to make a good first impression on my family. He'd gone back and forth over ties. Now his hair was unruly, his eyes wild, his hand bloody.

I fought the sympathy billowing up inside me. Stay cold, Vice.

"I need to speak with you, Vika." His voice was hoarse from yelling at me not to leave him.

My heart hurt, but I had to be strong. Which meant I couldn't let him touch me. "Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of them. From there."

"Very well." His gaze lit on each of my family members--who looked like they were settling in for the show--before returning to me. "I love you."

My lips parted.

Pete muttered, "I like it. Direct. No explanation. No rehashing."

Dmitri continued, "And you love me."

"Do I? I'm not sure I even know you. You may have tailored yourself to become more attractive to me."

"I did. To an extent. But you do know me."

"You spied on me for a year and used whatever you learned to trick me." How frustrated he must have gotten every time I'd thrown up roadblocks, claiming he didn't know me.

Or that his obsession would fade.

"Then wouldn't we have had everything in common?" he asked. "I also used what I'd learned to please you. You talked about California. I bought you a large part of it. You imagined travel. I have planned dozens of trips for you. You dreamed of designing clothes . . ."

And he'd given me a studio. Because I was an exhibitionist, he'd bought a mansion made of glass. He'd figured out my fetish and investigated it--though he struggled with it personally. He'd even gotten his scar lasered--for me. "What do you want from me now?"

"I want the wedding ring you bought for me that you think is hidden, the one I've tried on daily since its arrival. I want a ceremony in front of our families, with no secrets between us. I want to be married and not just wed."

He tried on the ring? "How could I ever trust you? How could you ever trust me?"

"Each time I put my faith in you I was rewarded, but I was never surprised--because I know you."

"Up and down, apparently."

"Everything," he said shamelessly. "And you can trust me because I have never lied to you."

I thought back. My honest madman hadn't lied, but he had been slippery. When he'd described the night he'd had his epiphany, he hadn't quite included me: "I made a commitment to right my life and become a man worthy of a woman such as yourself." He'd meant that literally; I was the woman.

He'd even told me the truth about how he'd come to Vegas. He had been on his way to a facility. Seeing the video of his appearance back then, I could absolutely believe he'd been on the verge of ta

king his own life.

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 fuck 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 fucking 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."