Wicked Games: The Complete Wicked Games Series Box Set

by J. T. Geissinger

  During the thundering silence that follows, I hope there aren’t any sharp objects within easy reach.

  “Are we gonna talk about this?”

  “No.”

  “Angel—”

  “Ryan, don’t push me. Do. Not.”

  Mariana paces back the way she just came. We’re in the living room. I’m on the couch, and she’s wearing holes in the rug. Suffice it to say, I’m feeling a lot less anxiety about what may or may not have taken root in the shower, so to speak.

  I mean, I’m not an idiot. It’s not an ideal situation. If it even is a situation. But it’s also not the end of the world.

  I love kids. Being a dad is something I’ve always wanted.

  If Mariana lets me live long enough to become one, which is up in the air at this point.

  Finally, she stops pacing and crucifies me with a look. “I need to call Reynard.”

  Unease clenches my gut. “What you need to do is eat something. I’ll make us—”

  “No,” she says sharply, cutting me off. “You don’t get to decide what I do or don’t do.”

  I stand and draw in a breath. Keeping my voice low and controlled, I say, “I know you’re upset—”

  “You know nothing, Ryan Tiberius McLean,” she says bitingly, her eyes as hard as diamonds. “You know exactly nothing about me, not even my last name.”

  She waits for me to challenge it, but of course I can’t. She’s right.

  I don’t know her goddamn last name.

  Heat creeps up my neck.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not putting this on you. I accept full responsibility for what happened in the shower. But we need to be very clear that you’re not calling the shots here. You stopped me from stealing a fake diamond and giving it to a man who’s killed many people for far less, and for that I’m grateful. But my gratitude is where my obligation to you ends.”

  My face stings like I’ve been slapped. I take several slow breaths to cool my rising temperature. “Okay, let’s dial this back a notch. You’ve been through a lot. You’re tired and stressed—”

  “Don’t you dare patronize me,” she snaps, eyes blazing. “I’ve been through more than you’ll ever know, more than most people could live through, and I survived. Clawing and biting and eating worms when I had to, eating fucking dirt when that’s all there was, I survived. Long before you, Ryan, I survived.”

  Her face is red. Her hands are shaking. I’ve never seen her this angry.

  “You don’t know what it means to have nothing, because you were born in a country where you could speak out against the government without being killed. You were born to parents who knew how to read and write, who had opportunities to make life better for their children. You weren’t born a girl in a culture that valued girls as much as horses or cows, good only for buying or selling or putting to work. You weren’t orphaned at six when your parents and almost everyone else you knew was murdered in a midnight raid. You didn’t live for years like an animal in the hills, filthy and starving, hiding from guerrillas who’d sell you to the highest bidder, only coming out at night to steal what you could from the villages. You didn’t have to watch your sister—”

  She breaks off abruptly, swallowing a sob.

  I’m frozen in shock at her words. “Angel,” I breathe.

  She swallows hard several times, swipes at her eyes, then straightens her shoulders, lifts her chin, and pierces me with her gaze.

  With exquisite dignity, she says, “My name is Mariana. I’m a professional thief wanted by authorities in twelve countries for crimes committed in the service of honoring an oath that saved the life of the only man I’ve ever loved. That man is Reynard. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have died a horrible death as a little girl, the worst kind of death a little girl could ever suffer. And now I want to call him. God help you, gringo, if you try to stand in my way.”

  My mouth hangs open. I’m stunned, heartsick, and deeply, deeply impressed. If I thought she was a goddess before, now I might as well kneel at her feet and start babbling prayers.

  “Yes,” I say, finding my voice. “Of course. I’ll bring the phone.”

  We stare at each other across the room, silence yawning wide between us. I want to say more but know any words I could speak would be useless.

  I bring her one of the spare cells I keep in the safe in the wall of my bedroom. “It’s a crypto phone. Untraceable. Totally secure. You can keep it.” I turn and head back toward my bedroom, assuming she’ll want privacy.

  Shows how much I know.

  “Ryan,” she calls.

  I stop and look over my shoulder. I washed her jeans and hoodie while she was asleep, and she’s wearing them now, her damp hair loose around her shoulders, her feet bare. Even with no makeup, dressed down, exhaustion seeping through all her movements, she’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.

  She drags a hand through her hair and sighs. “Is your offer of food still on the table?”

  I nod, not daring to speak.

  She looks at the phone in her hand like she’s looking for answers. She exhales in a gust and lifts her gaze to mine. “That would be nice. Thank you. And thank you for the phone. I didn’t mean to be such a bitch…it’s just that…”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation,” I say softly.

  After a moment where I can tell she’s struggling to find the right words, she says, “I’ve always been alone. I’ve always worked alone. I don’t know anything about taking care of other people, or being part of a team. I’ve never even had a pet. Trust isn’t a luxury I’ve ever been able to afford. So this…you…”

  She falters, making a helpless gesture with her hands. I don’t want to push her to say more, but I also don’t want her to stop talking.

  This is exactly the kind of shit we need to work out.

  Her eyes shining, she says, “You’re like a dream that’s so good, I don’t want to wake up, but I know eventually I’ll have to. And the longer I stay dreaming, the worse it’ll hurt when I’m finally awake.”

  Fuck. If my heart didn’t already burst in the shower, it would shatter into a million tiny pieces now. I have to stand there and breathe for a few seconds before I can speak. When I do, my voice is rough with emotion.

  “Life isn’t always unfair, Mariana. Lots of bad shit happens, but good things happen, too, and you need to be able to recognize the good when it comes along. You need to be able to accept it and deal with it, same as you deal with the bad. Love is as real as hate. Trust is as real as hunger. You know how to survive. But that’s not the same as living.”

  She stares at me, swallowing, the color high in her cheeks.

  I say more softly, “And if what happened in the shower turns out to have consequences, we’ll deal with it. Together. Now make your phone call, woman. I’m gonna make us some chow.”

  I kiss her forehead as I walk past her into the kitchen.

  The sound of her faint laugh follows me as I go.

  19

  Mariana

  “Reynard,” purrs a cultured British voice on the other end of the line.

  Flooded with the same relief I always feel when I hear his voice, I close my eyes and rest my forehead in my hand. I’m sitting at Ryan’s glass kitchen table, my nose filled with the delicious scent of frying bacon, my heart like a grenade with the pin pulled inside my chest.

  How do people live like this? How can anyone survive this feeling, this agony of tenderness and hope? It’s madness, I know it is, and yet…

  “Hello, Reynard,” I say quietly. “It’s Dragonfly.”

  A brief pause follows before he asks, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes and no. Mostly yes, nothing to worry about.”

  Another pause. “It certainly sounds like something to worry about.”

  I chew my lip, thinking. “The job was…difficult.”

  This time, his pause is deafening. “Have you completed it?”

  I clear my throat. “Yes. And no.”

>   He says drily, “How esoteric. Care to elaborate?”

  “I’m just calling to find out if you’re safe. Are you safe? Are you well?”

  “Of course. Whatever are you going on about, my darling?”

  When I don’t respond, his voice turns dark. “Oh, bollocks. The American.”

  I let my heavy sigh serve as my answer.

  Reynard turns businesslike, his tone clipped. “If I’m not mistaken—and I never am—your deadline is in forty-eight hours. Do you need an extension?”

  “I want you to promise me something, Reynard.”

  I can almost hear him pull himself up short. “Good God. That sounds bad. Let me sit down. All right, go ahead, I’m sitting. No, wait, let me get my flask.” Through the phone comes the sounds of a gulp and some lip smacking. “There. Sorted. Tell me.”

  I open my eyes and look at Ryan, frying bacon in a pan at his ridiculously enormous stove, and listen to what my heart is emphatically telling me.

  “If Ryan McLean contacts you for any reason, I want you to promise to do exactly as he says. No questions asked.”

  At the stove, Ryan freezes.

  A bristling silence, then Reynard says flatly, “He’s taken you hostage. That bloody grinning idiot is holding you hostage, isn’t he?” His voice rises. “He has a gun to your head right now, doesn’t he? Put him on the phone! That colossal wanker! I’ll give that smiling arsebadger something to stew on—”

  “Reynard—”

  “Does he have any idea who he’s meddling with?” Reynard shouts. “That smarmy, second-rate John Wayne impersonator! That swaggering, insufferable, cock-swinging, pathetic excuse for a man—”

  Wincing, I hold the phone away from my ear. Reynard is still going. I wait until I hear a pause, then I put the phone against my ear again and loudly interrupt the tirade.

  “No one has taken me hostage, Reynard. No one is forcing me to say anything. I’m asking.”

  Ryan stands perfectly still at the stove. It doesn’t look like he’s even breathing.

  Cool and controlled, Reynard says, “Why are you asking?”

  Wavering one final time, I bite my lip so hard, I almost draw blood. Then I jump off the cliff that’s in front of me, hoping against hope that somehow I’ll fly instead of smashing face-first into the ground.

  “Because I think we can trust him. And I think we’re going to need his help.”

  I’ve stunned two men, thousands of miles apart, into shocked silence. After a while, Reynard makes a sound like he’s choking on his tongue.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I exhale in a gust. “I don’t like it, either, believe me! But it is what it is. We’re going to trust the American. This is the new normal. I just decided right now.”

  If Ryan can do it, then I can, too. Gut, you better be on track with this, or I’ll cut you out of my body myself.

  Reynard hollers, “Are you mad? You only have one job left! One! After all these years, freedom is within reach, and you—”

  “The diamond is a fake, Reynard. What do you think Capo would do to me—to us—if I gave him a fake? Do you think he’d believe me when I said I had no idea? Do you think he’d be forgiving?”

  Reynard’s voice drops an octave. “Who told you it was fake?”

  My gaze flashes up to Ryan’s back. He hasn’t moved an inch. From the pan of bacon, smoke rises in billowing gray plumes. It’s started to burn.

  For a moment, I fall through a bottomless chasm of pure panic, but I wrestle it into submission long enough to answer. “That’s not the point.”

  “Au contraire, my darling, it’s exactly the point. Take a moment and consider who you’re dealing with. This stranger you’ve decided to trust.” He says trust sarcastically, like he’s putting air quotes around it because the concept is so ridiculous. “Take a moment to consider what his motives might be. What his endgame is.” Reynard’s voice turns hard. “Wipe the stardust and rainbows from your eyes and think.”

  Anger crawls up my neck in a hot, prickling rush.

  I really detest being patronized, and that’s twice in ten minutes.

  “My eyes are wide open, Reynard. Sometimes I wish they weren’t, because life would be easier, but they are. Now here’s something for you to think about: what if Capo knew the diamond was fake? What if he set me up to fail? You want to talk about motives and endgames? Let’s talk about Capo’s. Let’s talk about what he really wants, because we both know it isn’t more jewels!”

  A buzzer sounds. It’s a smoke alarm. Ryan finally breaks his statue impersonation and jabs his index finger into a button on the hood above the stove. A fan starts to suck the smoke from the burning bacon into a vent, lifting it in eerie, ghostly whorls.

  It reminds me of the way the smoke rose over the avocado fields the night my parents were murdered.

  I can’t sit any longer. I jolt from the chair and start to pace around the table, chewing my thumbnail as I go.

  Reynard says flatly, “You have forty-eight hours to get that diamond and get back to London. Capo’s expecting you. If you don’t arrive, he’ll kill me. That’s not so alarming, I’ve been expecting it for years, but what should alarm you is that he will hunt you down, using all his considerable reach and power to find you. And when he finds you, my darling…” His voice darkens. “He’ll take his time with you. He’ll make you beg for death long before it arrives.”

  My hand lifts to my throat. I think of the girls with collars, the red stains on Enzo’s handkerchief, and all the blood drains from my face.

  “You’re suddenly so interested in trust?” asks Reynard, chillingly soft. “Trust that. Trust in the dependability of evil, because unlike lust and infatuation, it will never fade. It will never let you down. Unlike handsome American Marines, evil always keeps its promises.”

  I inhale a soft, shuddering breath, my entire body going icy cold.

  Ryan finally turns from the stove. He takes one look at my face, and thunderclouds gather over his head. He strides over to me, holding out his hand, his eyes burning.

  “Gimme the phone.”

  “What?” I say, startled.

  “Woman. Give. Me. The. Phone.”

  I decide now isn’t the time to be my usual sassy self. I silently place the phone in his hand.

  He lifts it to his ear and growls into it, “Listen up, you snobby motherfucker! I don’t care how much Mariana loves you, if you ever say anything to her again that makes her look like she does right now, I’ll break both your legs!”

  My lips part, but the man has rendered me incapable of speech.

  On the other end of the phone, Reynard says something unintelligible. All I hear is a bark.

  To which Ryan barks back, “Yes!”

  He listens for a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot, then thunders, “You better fuckin’ believe it!”

  I drop my face into my hands and groan.

  A pissing contest. Divine.

  After a moment, when I don’t hear any more barking, I peek through my fingers. Frowning furiously, Ryan listens to whatever Reynard is saying. He nods, says a curt, “Mmhmm,” huffs out a breath, looks at the ceiling with his nostrils flared, then nods again. Then he proceeds to answer what must be a series of rapid-fire questions with a series of rapid-fire answers, punctuated by jaw-clenching pauses.

  “None. Yeah. Yep. I do. I will. I know.” Then, more irritated, “Despite what you think, dickhead, I didn’t fall off the back of a fuckin’ turnip truck!”

  Then, just to bake my brain completely, he breaks into a grin. “Okay, man. Will do. Good talk, brother.” He ends the call and looks at me.

  After a while, I manage to say, “What the hell was that all about?”

  Ryan shrugs. “He doesn’t like me much, but we’re workin’ it out.”

  I stare at him in blank disbelief, all the cogs of my brain frozen.

  He says, “Okay, look. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m not perfect. Don’t make that face, it’s true. I’m
fuckin’ stubborn, and I’ve got a hair-trigger temper. I curse too much, I don’t exactly have finishing school manners, and I can be overbearing. And overconfident. And a bunch of other unflatterin’ words that start with ‘over.’ I’m also opinionated, sarcastic, easily frustrated, more than a little conceited—”

  “This is quite the list,” I say.

  “I could go on for days. My point is that I’m aware of my shortcomings. Because I know I’m not perfect, I don’t expect other people to be perfect, either. The only thing I demand from anyone—whether they like me or not—is that they’re real. Whatever and whoever they are, they own it. They don’t make fuckin’ excuses. I hate excuses.”

  When it becomes evident he’s done speaking, I venture a hesitant, “Okay?”

  “Reynard is worried about you. More worried about you than he is about himself, which I dig. Means he loves you, which is good, ’cause I know you love him. So no matter how much he doesn’t like me, I’m gonna respect him because he’s bein’ real with me. Understand?”

  I squint at him, hoping it might make things clearer. “Um…”

  Ryan reaches out and gathers me in his arms. He lifts my chin with a knuckle so I’m forced to meet his level, serious gaze. “Chalk it up to another one of those things about me you’ll eventually understand. The more important topic here is that you told him you decided to trust me.”

  He waits for me to answer, his eyes glowing bright blue with emotion, like a pair of sapphires held up to the sun.

  I flatten my hands over his chest, loving how hard it is, how wide and warm, how his heart thumps strong and steady beneath his sternum like it’s confident it will never fail. I run through a dozen different explanations in my mind before distilling my decision down to its essence.

  I say softly, “You’re worth the risk.”

  For this, I’m rewarded by the sight of a big, badass Marine getting all choked up.

  “Angel.”

  His voice is raw. His eyes glimmer. He wears the euphoric expression of someone who’s just been granted his dying wish.

  This is how I know my gut is on the right track, even if my brain is trying to stomp on the emergency brakes. I smile at him and stand on tiptoe to kiss him gently on the lips.