Page 197 of The Faking Game

“I was all out,” he says. His voice is tight and calm, but there’s murder in his eyes. It only takes a few minutes before heavy steps sound outside the door. I wait beside it, and as soon as Wilde wanders into the room, I close the door behind him.

He stops in the middle of the cellar.

“Good evening,” Rafe says. He pushes a glass of red wine in Wilde’s direction. “Let’s have a birthday toast.”

Ben is standing stock-still. Slowly, like a sudden movement might set Rafe off, he looks around the room. He clocks me and quickly looks back at the glass he’s being offered. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“It’s a party.” I don’t try to hide the distaste in my voice. “Our invitations were lost in the mail, I’m guessing.”

He takes a step forward, accepting the glass. It’s a stilted movement. “Gentlemen…”

“Explain yourself,” Rafe demands. His voice is almost friendly.

Almost.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Wilde says. “If you’re here about our negotiations, that’s for our lawyers to handle.”

“Lawyers.” Rafe takes a long sip of his wine and stretches his legs out. “Did you hear that, West?”

“I did, yes.”

“As if there’s anything legal about what you’ve been doing.”

“I’m not doing?—”

“You hired great people, Wilde. I’ll give you that. But our people are better. And everyone leaves a trace.” I walk around him, stopping a few feet away. “Nora Montclair.”

He looks between us, but his face whitens. “I don’t know?—”

“Don’t embarrass yourself with lies.”

“Family is off-limits. Always has been, always will be.” Rafe’s voice is steel. “What was the plan? Split my attention, throw me off my game? Make this deal so time-consuming that I walked away?”

Wilde’s face hardens. “We’ve never wanted to sell to Valmont. To you. This is business, gentlemen. You both know that. It was… a strategic move.”

This smug son of a bitch. The anger that flows through me then is cold as ice, but it’s a calculated move when I push him up against the barrels. “Youthreatened an innocent woman for a business deal.” I use my forearm to keep him there and revel in the way his eyes widen. “She’s had to look over her shoulder formonthsbecause of you. But for you? It’ll be the rest of your life. I’m going to come for everything you have.”

“It’s business, Calloway,” he wheezes. “The girl was never harmed. It was all just… pretend.”

“No,” I tell him. “Someone will be harmed.”

And then I punch him.

* * *

We exit the party the same way I entered it. The rain has picked up. It’s fresh and warm, and my fist aches. “Damn, that felt good.”

“It did.” Rafe glances sideways at me. “Did you have to punch him, though? Now we’ve left evidence.”

“He won’t do shit.”

“You haven’t punched anyone in over a decade.”

“No. We can’t all be you.” I glance at him. Rafe doesn’t often talk about it, the fighting he used to do at night. The underground rings where he’d work out his guilt and frustration. We’d all tried to get him to stop.

I don’t know if he has.

“That was years ago,” he says, so easily that I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. We’re on a leafy side street, but we might as well be back at Belmont. The years have fallen away, suit jackets turning into uniforms, racing from the headmaster’s residence with a stolen trophy in hand. “Fuck.”

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