You do not get to decide whether or not I betray you. All you get to decide is whether you are really that scared. Of me.
“I trust you to play this appropriately,” Rohan said. Savannah most likely would not make it all the way into the Mercy, but if she made itunderground, made it to the emerald path, that would be enough to send the proper message.
“You trust no one,” Savannah replied.
“How right you are,” Rohan murmured. Trust was weakness. It always had been. “But I’m in the mood for one more wager, love, and to make it interesting, I’m not going to tell you the terms this time.”
Rohan was betting that Savannah could handle herself. He was betting that even once she had—once she’d gotten whatshewas after—she would come back to him.
“I believe I’ve made it perfectly clear what I think of your games,” Savannah said.
You’re here, aren’t you?Rohan thought, and then he produced a pen. He stood, kitten and all, and crossed to Savannah’s side of the table, uncapping the pen without so much as jarring the sleeping stray.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Savannah asked.
“Arming you,” Rohan replied, “as best I can. Now take off your jacket and slip your shirt down, baring your left shoulder.”
Rohan could not tell Savannah what to do once she walked beneath the glass dome in the winter garden and stood beneath the gazebo. He could not tell her what to say if she made it to the caverns below and found herself intercepted.
But hecouldmark her in a way that would serve as a safeguard and message both—if she let him.
“Heaven forbid I go in unarmed.” Savannah unzipped her jacket. A heartbeat later, her left shoulder was bare.
Rohan brought his pen to her skin. Letter by letter, he crafted his message.
POTENTIAL MUST BE TESTED.That was something Helena Thorp had told Gigi and Savannah. There was a chance that phrase would mean something to the duchess, and even if it did not, it was cryptic enough to pique her interest—and the Proprietor’s.
“Other shoulder,” Rohan told Savannah.
“You are pushing your luck,” she replied, but a moment later, she’d given him his canvas.
Rohan chose a different phrase this time:THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS.Should anyone other than Zella or the Proprietor intercept Savannah, that phrase would give them pause about doing her harm.
Rohan had been the house once. He would be again.
“You realize I’m sitting right here?” Brady leaned forward in his seat. “I can figure out where to go. You’re not the least bit concerned that I’ll follow her to thewinter garden?”
Rohan flashed the scholar a smile. “You’re welcome to try me, Brady, but I would not suggest it.”
Chapter 49
GIGI
The good news was that Slate hadn’t bled out. He was even still conscious! The less good news was that a Hawthorne was currently trying to kill him—or, if notkill, at the very least get in his face and deprive him of much-needed, pain-numbing booze.
Sadly, Toby Hawthorne was not one of Gigi’s Hawthornes, so she held no particular sway over the man, but that had never stopped her before.
“I think we can all agree,” Gigi said, wedging herself between Toby and Slate, who was supposed to beresting, “that Slate is the victim here, and that his abs should not be forced to bear this without a mind-altering substance of some type.”
“Bullet didn’t hit his abs,” Knox muttered.
“I’m fine,” Slate insisted.
“I need him sober.” That was Toby. He was a grizzly kind of Hawthorne, lean and strong and wholly intimidating, but Gigi persevered and snatched the bourbon bottle he’d confiscated.
“I think we can all agree that I’m going to do what I want unless someone tackles and/or restrains me.” Gigi smiled. “No takers, I see.”She opened the bottle, then tried to help prop Slate up a bit before lifting it to his lips.
Slate turned his head away. “You’re a force.”
