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Blue is really making waves.
Dane sports a mischievous grin as he watches Blue get in a red-faced shouting match with Ivan Rossi. He shakes his head and makes atsksound with his tongue. “If Rossi pulls his investment from The Games because of your girl here, Terrene is going to be pissed.”
“She’s notmygirl,” I say, watching as Vaughn and a guard burst into her room. She tries to slip from their grip, fightingthem off, but is eventually dragged from the room as Ivan continues to shout insults after her through the broken mirror.
“Sure,” Dane says absently, zoned in on the drama. Once Ivan leaves the room, he finally turns his attention toward me. “Kind of a bummer she got disqualified so soon. I was hoping to see how far she’d go. She had a lot of potential.” He flips his screens through the other games, which are now complete.
It turns out Blue wasn’t the only one who got disqualified. Player two, a woman who’s name I didn’t even catch, received all three strikes for guessing her lies incorrectly. The game is rigged to be made of trick questions, to get them to expose more truths about themselves, but it seems she didn’t want to give up the information. I may not remember her name, but I remember structuring Player two’s file.
It seems she wasn’t too keen to confess to her crimes.
Blue’s game was fabricated by Vaughn, if I remember right.
Vaughn getting intimate with Blue’s files, enough to fabricate a game too personal for her to feel inclined to answer, feels unfairly laid out, especially given the nature of the prompts. Looking through the footage, I search for my intended target and his reaction. In the Advent Hall, I find him in conversation with Reid. Carrick. He’s speaking animatedly to Reid and appears viscerally upset following the events of Blue’s game, which exposed his desire to use Blue to win money for himself, implying he’s been rigging the bets.
With Blue disqualified, there’s no doubt he’s lost a lot of money today.
But this loss is vastly unfair to someone other than Carrick, who must have been Vaughn’s main target. Blue was just in the crossfire.
I abruptly rise from my seat.
“Where are you going?” Dane shouts after me, but I ignore him.
If Blue is removed from the games before I can even get a proper taste of her company, of the fiery spirit I witnessed today, I won’t feel predisposed to have a vested interest in the games anymore. Her absence is already a growing void inside me.
After traversing the winding stone staircase to the topmost floor, I arrive at Terrence Marlowe’s living quarters and am greeted by his personal secretary. As I make my way toward the set of double doors to barge in and demand to see Terrence, his secretary halts me with a manicured hand on my chest.
“Laurence,” Crystal says in a scolding tone. We’ve been in this exact position before. I don’t disrespect Terrence’s time, I simply operate on a certain level of urgency when I have a matter to address. “You know you need an appointment. At the very least, you know you can’t barge in there without checking in.”
“Fine,” I say, taking a step back. “But itisurgent, so would you please tell Terrence I would be grateful for a minute of his time?”
Crystal gives me an icy look as she returns to her desk and types on her computer. She glances up at me, glaring at me briefly before typing something else. It seems like they’re conversing, possibly deciding my fate—and, in turn, Blue’s fate—as every second ticks by.
“Terrence says he’ll take you, but he says you need to learn to practice more patience in the future.” Crystal raises a brow at me, but I don’t have time to make sense of her assessing look as I open the double doors and head in to see the owner of this manor, and the creator of the games.
I’ve been in this room a few times before, but each time it’s impossible not to admire the luxurious living space of broad windows which rotate open to overlook the jungle, making it feel like the trees and the birds are a part of the room. He has a pond in the corner, accompanied by a trickling waterfall fountain, which I know houses his collection of expensive koi. His bed canbarely be considered a bed, in that it’s too enormous to logically be considered something so normal. It sprawls from wall to wall, raised a distance off the floor to require steps leading down from the foot of it.
After scanning the room, I don’t find Terrence. He doesn’t appear to be in his living space in the center of the room, which consists of a set of curved sofas positioned facing each other.
“Hello, Laurence,” Terrence’s deep voice rumbles from behind me.
I turn to find him in the corner that extends out into a balcony, where he sits half in, half out at a bistro table smoking a cigar in a silk robe, an old-looking book in hand.
“Sorry to disturb you.” I head over to meet him at the table, and he blows a gust of smoke toward me.
“No, you’re not,” Terrence says without looking up from his book. “If you were, you wouldn’t have done it.”
“That might be true.”
He looks at me over his silver rimmed reading glasses, then sets down his book and gestures to the chair across from him. “Take a seat. Let’s talk.”
Since first meeting him months ago when Vaughn brought me to him to become a part of the games, the billionaire mogul has never been someone I would describe as intimidating. But I would never describe him as an easily readable person, either. Terrence Marlowe’s demeanor has always been one that eludes me. Reading people has been something I’ve prided myself on since starting my business and watching it take off. I would even argue that Vaughn was easily readable for me.
But Terrence operates as if there is always a secret he’s harboring, a secret he’s trying to guide you to. It constantly puts me in a position of a loss of power in conversations with him. I’m convinced it’s how he’s achieved the success that he has.
His command is undeniable.
“I would like to discuss a change in the rules with you.” I cross an ankle over my knee, looking to ease the conversation into my driving argument.
