They didn’t have a female locker room here—or they didn’t the last time I was here—so I imagined she changed in a private room.
I climbed the two flights of stairs, and once at the third floor, I stepped quietly down the hallway. Doors lined both sides and I was unsure of where she went.
There were offices, a library, a few bedrooms, and on the right, I passed a billiards room, the door open and Rika leaning on the pool table with her back to me. I stopped, seeing her staring at a collection of weapons hung on the wall.
“Michael didn’t want me to come tonight,” she said.
I smiled to myself. Couldn’t sneak up on her anymore.
“He knew you knew my routine,” she continued. “But lately, and with as happy as I am with so much in my life, the bouts are the only time I feel like I’m sure of what I’m doing anymore. The only time my strike is sure. I couldn’t miss it.”
She stood up and turned around, still dressed in her fencing gear minus the helmet. Her hair was up in a ponytail, and she looked down at the pool table, absently rolling the pink ball back and forth.
“You know, after our meeting at the club that night,” she told me, “I started reading up on chess. I mean, I knew how to play. My father made sure of it. But I wasn’t very clever with it.”
I approached the table, listening.
“I thought each piece’s power increased based on its proximity to the king, but that’s not true.” She looked up at me. “Other than the queen, the most powerful player is—”
“The rook,” I said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“So you’re finally ready to begin?” I asked, pouring myself a glass of bourbon.
But she just turned around, looking back at the wall of weapons. “The game has already begun.”
My pulse throbbed harder in my neck as I carried my drink to the table. I lived for this shit.
But while I liked my games, intrigue, and going wild, I didn’t like doing it alone. I wanted someone on my side. I wanted her on my side.
“All of this is mine,” she said, gesturing to the wall of weapons and turning her head to meet my eyes. “It’s only taken me a few months to gather it. Some purchased, some traded, and some borrowed from private collections.”
She turned back around, studying it again, and I stared at the back of her head as I took a swig of the alcohol.
“The curator of the Menkin Museum would love to have this for her weapons exhibit next summer,” she explained. “And I’m prepared to let her have it in exchange for a favor from her husband, whenever I choose to call it in.”
A favor? Who was her husband?
She paused and then clarified, “Her soon-to-be police commissioner husband, Martin Scott.”
I blinked long and hard, anger winding its way through my stomach.
Martin Scott.
As in Emory Scott.
The girl with the abusive—police officer—older brother whom Kai and Will were sent to prison for assaulting as payback for beating up on his little sister.
The little sister who wasn’t little anymore and who Will was still obsessed with.
He hated us, and was now more powerful than ever.
Rika shot up, grabbed a sword off the wall, and whipped around, holding it at her side and pinning me with a stare. “And guess where he plays billiards every Friday night?” she taunted.
Goddammit. My hand tightened around the glass.
“See, the thing I always wondered about was,” she said, circling the table, and I did the same, glass in hand. “Kai and Will served time for assaulting Martin Scott, but…” She eyed me. “They weren’t the only ones there. Someone was filming.”
You little shit.
“And that’s like… aiding and abetting, right?” she asked.
The glass shattered in my fist, and I felt the sting of a cut as the liquid spilled and the shards fell to the ground.
She just smirked at me, a glint in her blue eyes. “Queen takes rook.”
You fucking bitch.
“Fucking little monster,” I muttered, breathing lava out of my nose.
“Kai and Will protected you,” she stated, fighting not to smile. “That charge along with the statutory rape charge? You would still be in prison. If Martin Scott were to find out…
“There’s no proof.”
“There’s Kai and Will,” she fired back. “And they’re mad at you right now.”
Goddamn her. Martin Scott knew it was me filming his much-deserved beat-down, but without a reason for Will and Kai to be silent about my part in it anymore, all I had was Rika. She pulled the strings.
She circled the table, held up the sword, and pointed it at me. “You will not force her,” she ordered her terms. “You will not threaten, torture, or coerce her into your bed. You will not touch her.”
I shot out my hands, planting them on the pool table and leaning over it to look her in the eyes. “And if she wants me to touch her?”
“It’s good to dream big, Damon.”
I almost snorted, but I couldn’t contain my smile. “God, you’re like a female version of me,” I said. “It’s turning me on.”
“Makes sense. You love yourself best.”
I stood upright again, brushing off my hands. She was exquisite, and if she weren’t working against me, I’d think she was brilliant.
Smart. Tough. Clever.
And cold when she needed to be.
Cold.
“The queen,” I mused, rolling a ball on the table as a memory came to mind. “The snow queen.”
She thinned her eyes, probably confused.
“Years ago,” I explained, “when your father brought his young bride here from South Africa, I’m told my father was quite enamored of her. She reminded him of the beautiful snow queen from the Nutcracker ballet.” I tipped my chin down, casting her a knowing look. “And that’s what he called her. His little snow queen.”
She growled and lunged, and I shot backward just as she slammed the sword on the table. Leaping onto the table, she forwent charging around it to chase me, and hopped off, going straight for me.
Did she not like me insinuating my father got inside her mother’s panties?
She swung for my legs, but I stomped my foot on the sword, knocking it out of her hand, and threw her down on the floor, pressing her shoulders into the wood.
Her face was red with fury.
“The queen is the most valuable player,” I told her, “but to win, she’s not the last one standing. Her job…” I paused, arching an eyebrow, “is to protect the king.”
She pulled out a knife from somewhere and pressed the side of the blade into my neck.
Jesus. She must be fun in bed.
I grinned. “You won’t hurt me.”
“And why not?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word!” she snapped. “You don’t care about me!”
“I would kill for you,” I shot back, getting in her face.
The incredulous look on her face, like she didn’t know if she should be touched or laughing, mimicked exactly what was happening in my head right now.
Yes.
It kind of just came out, but I thought it was true. At one time, I would’ve killed for Michael, Kai, and Will. I might still.
But I’d definitely kill for Erika and Banks. They may not like me a whole lot, but they understood me.
I pushed her knife off my neck and looked down at her.
“Now I’m impressed, but you’re on the wrong side,” I told her.
And then I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out the flash drive with the information Alex had retrieved. The proof I said I would get in exchange for the information on Winter’s father Rika got for me.
She looked at me, realization crossing her eyes and all the anger leaving her face as she took it from my hand.
Getting off her, I sat down next to her. “There’s more coming. Gimme a few days.”
“It’s bad?” she asked, turning her head to look at me.
“It’s exactly what I told you last year,” I said. “I told you I don’t lie. Evans Crist—and my father—had yours killed.”
It was something I’d picked up over years of accidently overhearing conversations in my house, and I’d had Alex working Evans Crist—Michael’s father—and gathering security cam footage and bank statements that I knew he kept just in case, so he could hold it over my father if he ever needed to.