“Yes, sir. She’ll be safe.”

“From everyone but me,” I clarified.

“Yes, sir.”

She was probably just overly alert. Thanks to me.

But she also mentioned a visitor at Bridge Bay Theater days ago. Someone who came into the bathroom and scared her. She thought it was me.

It wasn’t.

This house should have better security, but I didn’t like cameras or video. I’d learned the hard way to not leave evidence.

And given our affluent neighborhood and the low crime rate, Winter’s father never saw fit to arm the house with an alarm system, at the very least. Maybe I’d add one eventually. Right now, I liked coming and going quickly.

“And, sir?” Crane prodded.

“What is it?”

“Her phone’s been ringing downstairs,” he told me, approaching my side. “Would you like me to give it her or…?”

I glanced to where he held it out for me, amused at his coy attempt to give me her phone but still remain innocent in the matter.

I took it.

He left, and I turned it on, seeing it was armed with a pattern passcode. I couldn’t get into it, but there were several notifications visible just on her lock screen.

Mostly from Rika.

An article in the town paper about Winter’s performance last night.

Talk on social media and some videos. Lots of shares and comments as the video spread outside of our town.

I squeezed the phone. She didn’t think she was getting out of here, did she?

And then I expanded a text from Rika. It was a screenshot of a Twitter comment on the video of Winter dancing:

This girl should be everywhere! Why isn’t she touring?

Rika texted below the image:

What she said! Need some sponsors? I might know a few. Let’s talk.

I gritted my teeth together, barking at the dog. “Kom-yen ya!”

He scurried to my side as I left the room, and I carried the phone downstairs and dropped it on the foyer table. I whipped open the front door, charging out of the house.

Fuckin’ Rika.

“Stay,” I told Crane who stood in the driveway, washing the other car. “She doesn’t leave.”

He nodded, and I jumped in my car, the dog taking the passenger seat. I sped off, kicking it into high gear in less than five seconds.

Goddamn her.

My ex-friends were the only people who could protect those in Winter’s life I threatened, and that’s why I needed Rika on my side. Seemed she was tired of waiting for me to keep my end of the bargain, though, so she was trying to undo hers.

She gave me Winter. Now she was trying to take her away.

I stepped into the large hall, hanging back in the shadows as lots of activity happened around the room. I’d missed this place. Hunter-Bailey was a nice club to relax because it was geared for men and didn’t allow women.

Other than one.

After some digging, I’d found out Rika had installed two bouting nights per week at Hunter-Bailey for fencing, and one of them was tonight. It had always been a hobby of hers, as well as collecting swords and various kinds of daggers, and while no other woman was permitted on the premises, Rika could come and go as she pleased as long as she was covert about it. The perks of having a star athlete fiancé for the Meridian City Storm, and a future father-in-law who owned a large fraction of the city.

Boxers went at it in a ring to the left, some worked out, and others lounged on chairs with drinks, chatting it up. I followed the sound of foils clanging together and veered to the other room off to the right and entered, seeing more chairs occupied, a full bar, and members in the middle of the room dueling it out, dressed in their white protective gear and helmets.

I spotted Rika right away. Her body was unmistakable in the tight pants.

She lunged for her opponent, landing her point right in his heart, and I heard him growl and back away before setting himself up again.

I wanted to go over there and drag her off now, but I wasn’t supposed to be in here, Michael having had them cancel my membership two years ago. I was barely able to sneak in at all.

I watched the way she stepped and retreated, rolling her wrists and swinging her arm. Like choreography. Methodical. It was like chess with strategy, but also like a dance. Graceful and statuesque.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, leaning against the wall and watching her, but she finished, and I didn’t even know if she’d won. Keeping her mask on, she put up her foil, and walked to the other side of the room, ascending the stairs.

I followed.

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.”