Jessica must recognize it too because she proposes a game of truth or dare. It must be a joke, but the way she holds her eyebrows high while awaiting our reactions makes me think it’s one of those situations where if either of us shows any interest, she’ll jump all over the suggestion and admit that it’s serious.
“You just want an excuse to fuck me,” I finally say.
Jessica laughs.
“I’m not really into girls, Jess.”
She makes a pouty face.
“Talk to Kat. Kat … ” And that’s when I realize I haven’t told Jessica the story about me and Daniel and Kat — where Kat watched us while we had sex. I shouldn’t be embarrassed to say it now, especially in front of Jessica, but my old taboos are still firmly in place. You just don’t do that kind of thing, considering how borderline and out of character it is. It’s just too raw.
“What?” Jessica says when I stop speaking.
“She is talking about time I watched Daniel put it in her hard.”
“What? When?” Jessica sounds angry that she missed it.
I sigh. Whatever. She’s already revealed some pretty sticky shit during the course of our conversation. Like, literally sticky.
“The day Ivy attacked Kylie in the Great Room.” And then I tell her everything, still speaking into the pillows because it all took place on the blind spot and would be news to anyone listening. I tell her how Kat hiked up and played with herself while watching us. Watching me, really.
“I can’t believe you didn’t invite me,” Jessica says.
“It was spur of the moment.”
“And did it get you hot?” Jessica asks me, almost accusatory.
I roll my eyes.
“It did! It did!” she shouts, bouncing around in the pillow pit. Then she gestures at the pit, at the three of us. “So what do you say … girl train?”
I roll my eyes harder.
“Okay, fine, Be that way.” She turns to our third. “Kat? How about just you and me? One on one, right now.” She’s still using her joking voice, but I kind of doubt she’s kidding. Jessica seems perfectly bisexual — equally happy with either gender, as long as they’re hot and willing. And given all the pussy I’ve seen Kat lick since I’ve been here, she clearly is, too.
“We will make Bridget uncomfortable.”
“Oh, fuck her,” Jessica says, rolling over. And we all laugh.
After a quiet moment, Kat says, “Tell you some truth?”
I want to make a truth or dare joke — about Kat’s offer of truth dovetailing with Jessica’s sexual goading — but Kat seems uncharacteristically serious. So I nod while Jessica scoots forward in the pit, eyes waiting.
“I do not like men.”
I look at Jessica before turning back to Kat. We’ve both seen her hard at work, chasing dick, riding like a maniac. If it was all a performance to stay in the mansion as a potential bride, it was a great one. But still, there’s no way she’s saying what I think she might be.
Thinking of Daniel, I say, “I don’t like men very much right now, either.”
“No. I mean I do not like them. Not as lovers.”
“But you have a boyfriend. He has ‘dick like kolbasa,’” I say, mimicking her accent. I smile a little as I say it, but Kat’s face is stone.
“He is friend. Sometimes we have sex because he is good to me, and I want him to be happy. And also because he has face like woman, it is not that different from what I like.” She smiled before the last bit, but the smile vanishes when she realizes the aside was less funny than she hoped. “But is a lie. My parents, they are not so understanding of such things. When I was young, it was … difficult. I do not like my mother and father, but they are still there, now in USA, and I always go when they ask for me, like slave.”
The word slave hurts something inside me. I remember Kat’s story about being abducted as a child, then sold to the Mob, passed around like a party favor, losing her innocence over and over and over without ever wanting to. If she was gay to start, that kind of thing would definitely seal the deal against the masculine sex. And then I start to wonder if she was abducted at all, given the way she talks about her parents still being in her life. There are lots of poor people in the Ukraine. Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t taken away as a child. Maybe her parents sold her. It’s enough to fuck someone up for life.
“We lie for my parents,” Kat says, and I have to assume she’s talking about her relationship with her supposed boyfriend. “But he knows all about me and what I must pretend to be. And he is kind. He teaches us acrobatics. And yes, there is fun sex to be had up in the air.” She smiles for the first time in the story, like light entering a dark room.
“‘Us’?” Jessica repeats.
“My girlfriend. She lives with us, too. But he does not touch her. He is not allowed.”
Kat’s now breaking my heart. I don’t see the raving sexual goddess I thought I knew, or the cold facade I originally mistook for hatred or bitchiness. Now I see that facade for the wall it was, and this girl with me and Jessica now is the soft thing that’s been hiding beneath. Kat’s story makes my childhood trauma look like nothing. She’s been working hard to fool everyone here, probably because using sex and her tight little body to get what she wants has probably been the only thing that’s ever consistently worked. I remember her genius brain, realizing that despite all those smarts, it’s the body that still controls her. And her past. I try to imagine her life, but I can’t. Nor do I want to.
Still speaking into the pillow, Kat says, meekly like a child, “Maybe I should not have told this story. Say nothing of it. Please?”
And my heart breaks a little more. I put my hand on her arm.
“Of course,” I say.
Jessica echoes me, and even manages to refrain from restating her offer of a girl-girl tryst. Though now that she knows the truth, I’m sure she’ll suggest it in the future. I don’t get the feeling Kat’s girlfriend is any more jealous of extracurricular affairs than we thought her “boyfriend” was five minutes ago.
The air seems too heavy, so I sacrifice myself and shift attention from Kat, telling them briefly about my talk with Daniel, about Caspian White’s visit and Daniel’s somehow urgent worries revolving around it. Kat and Jessica throw supportive pillows at me, apparently meant to convey solidarity against dudes in general. I relate what I can without giving them all the details. Something holds me back, so they don’t learn about the freaky triggers Daniel somehow installed in me, the mysterious board, or the finer points about all of this that I’ve heard and suspected. But despite my lack of detail in the story, Daniel still manages to come off as a traitorous cock. As he should.
“I will anger fuck him for you,” Kat says.
I force a smile, but I don’t find that funny at all. Not just because I still seem unwilling to share the man who hurt me, but also because the idea of Kat using her body for revenge after what she’s just told us is enough to make me cringe. Kat must see something in my eyes because she drops it, and we sit through a few beats of awkward silence.
“So,” Jessica says. “Final three.”
“There are four of us,” I point out.
“Not after the next round. We’ve been talking.”
“You and Kat?”
Jessica smiles. “Kat, tell Bridget what you were telling me about Kylie and Caspian White.
I’ve heard the story before, but I’m quiet while Kat recaps it. Events have turned toward our favor. There are three of us on one side with only Kylie left on hers. And what’s more, she’s facing some sort of test in front of the one man she’s keeping an enormous secret from. It’s a perfect storm.
Kat tells us about some work Kylie did in what I can only think of as spy duty, somehow tossing a wrench into Caspian’s business — and, in the process, managing to piss off the Russian Mafia. It’s the bit of insider knowledge Kat used in the first elimination to disarm Kylie as she threatened me.
“And now she faces Caspian for
the next elimination.” A small, evil smile crosses Kat’s lips. “She is bread.”
Jessica looks at me and then says, “‘Bread’?”
“Finished,” Kat elaborates.
“Oh, right. You mean, She’s toast.”
“Is toast not bread?”
But I’m nodding to myself. This is why I have my girls. Kylie really is bread, or toast, or whatever. She knows Kat holds this threat over her — of spilling what she knows to Caspian, thus making the Bratva less than happy — and will therefore be forced to play nice. She will do what’s asked, no dirty tricks lest she rock her already-unsteady boat. If the contest allows it, we might even be able to get Kylie to raise the white flag and leave on her own. She’s been declawed. With us holding the Caspian White knife to her throat, she has nowhere to use her tricky skills. No room to maneuver.
So we make our plan.
We’ll talk to Kylie. We’ll make a few things clear that should be obvious: There’s a coalition against her, and if she messes with one of us, she’s messing with all of us. We’ll put the metaphorical gun to her head and cock it. I doubt even wily Kylie wants to live with professional murderers on her heels.
Then, after she’s gone, we’ll lie down one by one. We can’t all win, but that’s okay.
I already have what I want, so I volunteer to go first. I’ll walk out once we’re down to three, with my bank account swelled to back over a million even after Jenny’s withdrawal. It’s way more than enough. I’m smart and used to living on next to nothing. I can parlay a million dollars into the business of my dreams.
Jessica and I always talked — back before we knew Kat was on our side — as if Jessica would win it all. Judging by this room’s decor versus her antics with the other contestants and studs, Jessica is equal parts bad girl and good. She’s equal parts tramp and domestic. I’ve seen Kat’s room, and the sex drapes bolted to her ceiling — apparently as useful for crazy lesbian sex as for crazy straight sex. She also has a girlfriend and therefore technically doesn’t need another mate — especially a male mate. I’d pick Jessica to win if it was my decision, but they both still want it, even if just for the money.
We talk, and talk, and talk. And after some reluctant discussion, Jessica eventually agrees to bow out next because Kat brought us the weapon to use against Kylie. Jessica will walk away with more than three million bucks as runner-up, leaving Kat with Trevor and a prenup-permitted allotment of his fortune — and, I’d guess, leaving Trevor with blue balls. Or maybe she’ll do Trevor favors like she does for her boyfriend. It’s the definition of selflessness: doing good for another even if there’s nothing in it for you. Even if, honestly, you’d rather not do it at all.
It’s sad. But I shake it off because I don’t want to be sad right now.
“Is okay,” Kat says, smiling with her little upturned nose and devilish brown eyes. “We will make threesomes with other girls. I will bring my girlfriend, and he will be happy, though I will not let him touch her. And we may have many other girls to join us, for both of us. It will work.” She looks at me and Jessica. “And I will make like all of us won. I will be … generous with what Trevor has, and throw many parties.”
Kat laughs, and then Jessica and I laugh, too.
We’ve got this. We don’t need Daniel and his fucking advice. His fucking favors, done in “my best interest” whether I like it or not.
There’s still an itch deep down inside me, but I ignore it.
Right now I feel better than I have, maybe, since my arrival.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Daniel
It’s afternoon on the day Caspian has bullied his way into assessing the remaining women. I don’t like it, but whenever I try to pull rank, Caspian makes a subtle threat. It makes me wonder if he knows more than he lets on. It’s possible. He created GameStorming and is a certified genius. He seems to have designed new species of spyware and has surely written enough backdoors between the LiveLyfe/GameStorming interface that he’ll always be able to come and go as he pleases. What I’ve been doing, these past weeks, must look like child’s play to someone like Caspian. By definition, I don’t know what I’m doing. I only know that it works — although considering my faulty prediction in the Roxy test, maybe even that much is a lie.
Trevor appears as I’m closing a door behind me. I catch a final glimpse of pink, then there’s nothing but dark wood and polished doorknobs.
“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be down in the rec room,” Trevor says.
“You mean the dungeon?”
Trevor exhales at my sarcasm. “That’s overstating it a bit.”
“He’s had it emptied. Stripped of the tables and chairs, and every decoration. He’s had the windows covered. The walls are painted black, Trevor.”
“They’re panels,” Trevor says, as if this excuses it. “We’ll take them right back down after he leaves.”
I don’t want to argue. I think I know what Caspian is up to — in our house, in our business, without our permission, and yet we’re never able to object. We’re free to try, but he’s slippery like a fish. And once you’re in Caspian’s presence, he always has such excellent explanations as to why you’re wrong, while also being so eminently reasonable. Even now I can hear his arguments in my head, and I have to agree they’re good ones. Caspian’s “dungeon” scenario is harder for me to control, but it’s not like I can tell him that’s why I want it changed. Nobody’s supposed to control the experiments. We set them up and record; Halo parses the data. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
I start to walk, but I must be moving in the wrong direction because Trevor stops me.
“Didn’t you hear me? We’re supposed to be down in the rec room.” His eyes narrow and he looks behind me, at the door I’ve just exited. “Is that Jessica’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Is she in there?”
Trevor is looking at me like he thinks I’m trying to pull something. Which, of course, I am. I’m not proud of any of this, especially what I’ve just done. But this is bigger than the contest. Bigger than Bridget. I can’t let petty concerns bind my hands from doing what must be done.
“Yes.”
“Why isn’t she in the rec room? Is she at least dressed?”
“She’s not dressed.”
Trevor reaches for the doorknob, but I block him with my body.
“What are you doing, Trevor?”
“Telling her to get ready. Where are the others; do you know?”
“Probably in their rooms. I had Sammy slip them envelopes.” Again, he tries for the knob, but again I block him. Trevor can’t see Jessica right now. He might see things that give him ideas — and they’d be exactly the right ones, at that.
“What the fuck, Daniel? What’s wrong with you? Do you know the kind of shit he’s going to start with the board if we don’t set up the challenge just right? And then we’ll all be — ”
“There’s not going to be a challenge.”
“It’s been postponed?”
“It’s been cancelled.”
“By who?”
“By me.”
Trevor watches me. Then very deliberately he says, “And why did you do that?”
“Look, I don’t have time to explain this right now.”
It’s true, but it’s even truer that I’ve said too much already. Trevor’s not an idiot. If timelines don’t mesh, he might connect the dots. There’s been no official announcement of what I’ve almost slipped and said, and I certainly wasn’t informed by Halo or the board. After everyone sees what I know, things will make sense. But if Trevor realizes I knew early, I’ll be up shit creek, where I’m already kind of marooned. I guessed wrong on the last elimination; I’ve lost Bridget’s trust and the desperately needed controls that came with it. Though really, she shouldn’t trust me. It was my job to keep the right secrets and divulge the others. It’s such a mess. I need my own AI to track all of this. I’m a sharp guy, but I’m no Kat, or
Jessica.
I can’t just stand here blocking the door. The clock is ticking. Especially now, there’s a flame burning under my ass, and I have to haul across the mansion to douse it — or redirect the fire so it’s burning the right things. I don’t want to leave Jessica’s door unblocked, but my need to move trumps it. I’ll have to take my chances, hoping Trevor won’t enter her room.
I push past him, my feet rushing.
“Hey! Get back here!”
I won’t run. I can only walk. But it’s hard not to break into a sprint. My heart is hammering. I think of Bridget and how she’ll react to what’s happening. She’ll hate me more than she already does. I’m about to undo so much of the good that’s been built, and not just between us. My flop in the garden nailed my coffin closed as far as Bridget is concerned, but the other damage bothers me now. It’s cruel on so many levels. But I have to be its harbinger, or things will unfold even worse.
“Daniel!”
Trevor catches up, now walking astride of me. How am I supposed to lose him without broadcasting urgency? I must get to Kylie and do what I can to diffuse this waiting bomb. It’ll create too many new variables in the algorithm. It’s unacceptable for such a big omission to have been missed. I don’t love Halo, but right now, insider knowledge of the AI is the only thing keeping my hands on the controls of this situation, and only barely at that. Any algorithm — no matter how intelligent — can’t work when it was never informed of something so vital.
I feel like I’m losing hold of everything.
Nobody was supposed to know about me and Bridget.
Nobody was supposed to know about the superpowers, until Trevor and I blabbed.
And sure as shit, nobody was supposed to know about Halo — and, it seems, the vital datum it missed.
“Go tell Caspian it’s off.” I tell Trevor.
“Tell him … ” I see his face shift. Then: “You haven’t told him yet? Oh, no way. Daniel? No way.”
Burning Choice (Trevor's Harem #3) Page 14