Page 29

“Did you hear that?” Kyle peered at the open door to the patio.

Geri looked up from the empty glass she’d been staring into for… she didn’t know how long. “Hear what?”

He furrowed his brow. “I thought I heard shouting.”

She craned her neck to listen. A moment later, there was indeed shouting, but it was brief and distant. She couldn’t make out what was being said.

Grimacing, she prayed that Quinn hadn’t been caught trying to escape again. Rich had already warned him once, and then made an example out of him. She doubted a third offense would warrant much in the way of mercy.

There was some more noise outside. Voices, she thought. Footsteps. A moment later, some of Rich’s thugs marched onto the patio, half-leading and half-dragging Quinn. Tyson barked orders at some of his men, and one of them closed and locked the patio door, cutting off the only breeze in the room.

They shoved Quinn into a chair at the table with Kyle and Geri. He didn’t fight them. His eyes were unfocused, though he didn’t seem injured besides a small scrape on his forehead. There was some dirt on his clothes, but he wasn’t bleeding and he hadn’t been limping any more than usual.

Tyson pointed at the table and said to one of the goons, “Nobody leaves.”

The response to that was a nod.

He glared at the occupants of the table as if he expected them to protest. None of them made a sound.

Apparently satisfied he’d made his point, Tyson strode out of the restaurant and into the hotel’s deserted lobby.

Some of the goons stayed. One hovered by the closed patio door with a rifle. Two others leaned against a wall and had a hushed conversation. No one bothered the three competitors at the small table.

Probably because they knew as well as Geri did that they weren’t going anywhere.

As the silence settled in around them, Geri looked around. “Where’s Paul?”

The question seemed to bring Quinn into the present. His eyes focused, then focused on her. He sounded dazed as he murmured, “He’s dead.”

Geri’s stomach somersaulted. Beside her, Kyle swore. It shouldn’t have even been a surprise anymore. But one more member of their dwindling group was gone now, and Quinn had evidently witnessed it.

She didn’t want to ask because Quinn was clearly not handling it well.

Kyle, however, didn’t hold back. “What the fuck happened?”

Quinn took his vape pen out of his pocket and turned it between his shaking fingers. Staring out at the patio, he said, “He just… He broke down. About everything his tech is being used for. It…” Quinn closed his eyes and exhaled, shaking his head slowly. When he opened his eyes, he looked right at Kyle with a haunted expression. “It destroyed him. He went up the cliff and…” Quinn made a gesture like something falling.

“Oh my God,” Geri whispered.

“Jesus Christ,” Kyle breathed.

Quinn just nodded, gaze turning distant again. Speaking more to himself than them, he said, “At least it was quick.”

There was cold comfort there. Death at Faraway Resort was nearly always long and agonizing. Elena had probably gone out most peacefully. As high as those cliffs were, it was a safe bet that Paul hadn’t suffered.

Except… he had. With each passing day, there’d been less life in his eyes. Paul had probably been thinking about ending it before he’d even gone up to the cliff.

His death had likely been instantaneous and without physical pain.

But Paul had absolutely suffered.

So had Elena. They all had. They all would. Right up to whatever end Rich had planned for them.

Kyle’s chair scraped on the floor. He shuffled over to the bar, pulled another bottle off the shelf, and came back to the table. Without asking if either of them wanted any, he poured a generous dose of whiskey into each of their empty glasses.

After he’d put the bottle down, he picked up his glass and raised it above the center of the table. “To Paul.”

Geri and Quinn both hesitated, but then they joined him, clinking their glasses with his before they all took long, somber swallows.

In silence, watched over by Rich Price’s goons, they drank. When they’d finished, Kyle topped them off again.

As she sipped, Geri looked at Quinn. At Kyle. At the closed door leading to the patio.

And then there were three.

Another miserably hot sleepless night later, they were again summoned to the boardroom.

The restaurant downstairs had seemed eerily huge and empty with just the three of them and the handful of thugs. The boardroom was much smaller, but somehow it was even creepier to sit at this long table with nine empty chairs. Maybe because blood remained in every place someone had been murdered, from the blackened stains at Eric’s seat to the relatively fresher place on the floor where Charlie’d rattled his final breath. At least she couldn’t smell the cooked flesh and burnt hair from Dan’s immolation. Small comforts, she supposed.

Without preamble or explanation, Kevin placed a large manila envelope in front of each competitor. Geri eyed hers warily; all three were thick, nearly bursting with their contents.

“Thank you, Kevin.” Rich flashed him a smile. “That will be all.”

Kevin nodded. He and the other two men left, and the boardroom was even emptier. Only Rich, Geri, Quinn, and Kyle remained.

“There is one final stage of the game before our time together is complete,” Rich announced. “Open your envelopes, please.”

Geri exchanged glances with Kyle and Quinn. Then she slid her thumb under the envelope’s flap and opened it.

Oh. Fuck. She’d thought the projections on her walls and ceiling had been bad. These were horrifying, and each photo was worse than the last. People—civilians, by the looks of it—beside the rubble of their homes and the mangled bodies of their loved ones.

There was also a document detailing a specific weapons system developed by Cole Industries. It highlighted multiple places where the V.P. of research and development—Geri—had signed off on design modifications that increased the weapon’s damaging capabilities. Three separate transcripts of conversations quoted her saying that the weapon wasn’t effective against armored vehicles or bunkers, but would obliterate civilian structures as if they were made of paper.

There was even a quote from her saying that mowing down civilians would turn the populace on their leaders, and that would in turn pressure the leaders into surrendering.

She’d never said any such thing. She also hadn’t signed off on those design modifications. She hadn’t done half of what was in here.

Still, there was page after page was damning evidence of everything from the usual white collar crimes like fraud and tax evasion to much more serious crimes. There was even evidence of massive amounts of embezzlement, complete with statements from offshore accounts and a sworn testimony from a money launderer.

Most of it was false. Geri knew that. She’d never embezzled, never mind employed a money launderer or stashed ill-gotten cash in offshore accounts. She had never made treasonous deals to sell weapons to enemies of the United States—these contracts were obviously fraudulent.

But she was also too aware of how little it mattered what was real or what was fake. Especially when it was so easy to create extraordinarily convincing fakes. If this information was released, shareholders would dump their stocks. Cole Industries would have their DoD contracts suspended pending investigations. Geri would be ousted from her position as CEO before she could blink.

Given everything she’d learned about her own company since coming to Faraway Resort, maybe none of that was such a bad thing. She wasn’t so sure she could resume her role as CEO. Facing the board or the shareholders—the thought turned her stomach.

Some of the fabricated information would land her in prison. Likely for a long time. Assuming the treason didn’t land her in front of a literal firing squad.

She turned to Quinn and Kyle. They were both staring at the contents of their own envelopes, faces white and eyes full of terror.

“What the hell is all this?” Kyle demanded as he thumbed through the pages.

Geri looked up at Rich, who watched the three of them with an unreadable expression.

“This is all fake,” Quinn said, his voice hollow.

“Is it, though?” Rich shrugged. “Because regardless of what you think about it, once the information in those envelopes is released to the public and turned over to law enforcement, you and your companies will be fined and sued into the ground. Dozens of people, yourselves included, will likely end up in prison. And no amount of political lobbying or palm-greasing will save any of you from these consequences.”

“But…” Kyle sputtered. “They’re not real! They’re fake!”

Rich chuckled. “Prove it. Because even if you can find a way to prove that any of this”—he gestured at the envelopes—“is fake, you’ll never convince the court of public opinion.”

Geri clenched her jaw. Quinn and Kyle both looked like they desperately wanted to argue but had nothing.

Rich must have taken their silence for having no more questions. “With that out of the way, let me explain how the final stage will work.”

Geri pressed back in her chair as cold sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She was pretty sure that wasn’t from the hotel’s unbearable heat.

“Tomorrow morning,” Rich began, “three boats will leave this island. One of you will be aboard each.”

The thought of leaving the island should’ve had Geri giddy with relief. She’d seen too many of Rich’s games, however, to believe this was anything more than the beginning of something unspeakably horrible.

“Halfway to land,” the man went on, “one of you will die.”

He said it so casually. So matter-of-factly.

And he wasn’t done. “The two survivors will continue to shore. There, one of you will return to your life.” He gestured like something flying away. “You’ve won the game. Via con dios.”

Acid climbed the back of Geri’s throat. She was afraid to ask what would happen to the second survivor.

Of course, Rich didn’t keep them in suspense.

“The other survivor will have a more challenging time, I’m afraid.” He grinned. “By the time you reach the shore, law enforcement will already have their hands on every piece of evidence we have on you. The video you watched during the deep fake challenge—good luck debunking it.”

Geri’s heart hit the floor. If that video got out—holy fuck. No one would listen to a word she said about mass murder and torture because they’d be too busy hemming her up for treason.

“What’s to stop the winner from telling the world about this?” Kyle gestured around the boardroom. “You really think they’ll just go back to normal?”

Rich smiled that evil smile Geri had come to associate with screams and the smell of blood. “Oh, they can try.” His eyes flicked toward Geri. “Much like Démas Lavigne did.”

Ice slithered through Geri’s veins. “He… You killed him too?”

“No. But he came to Faraway Resort. He won the game and went back to the life he’d been living before.” Rich pursed his lips. “His story was such a sad one, wasn’t it?”

Quinn cleared his throat. “Uh, who was this?”

“One of my father’s colleagues,” Geri said numbly. “He was the only one who didn’t get onboard the yacht off St. Martin’s with…” She paused as the ice turned even colder. “Eleven other people.”

Rich’s smile was frostier than her blood. “Such a tragedy. He missed the boat, and the eleven people who didn’t… Well, no one could have predicted that storm, could they?”

Geri sensed Kyle and Quinn eyeing both of them, but her gaze was locked on Rich. “He was a mess when he came back. Wouldn’t talk about anything.” She swallowed hard. “He shot himself. He…” She wiped a hand over her face and stared at the fucking lunatic in front of her. “Are you saying there was no boat? No storm?” She gestured around them. “He went through… this? ”

“He won the game,” Rich said coldly. “And he certainly threatened to tell the world what happened, but he was persuaded not to.” He gestured at the envelopes and their contents. “It wasn’t in his best interest to speak up.”

“It wasn’t in his best interest to off himself either,” she growled.

“Well, given the nature of his sins and the investigations coming his way…” Rich half-shrugged. “Perhaps it was. And you’re all welcome to try to send law enforcement after me and my organization, but every trail will lead not to me, but to you. The sole survivor of such a game, blaming the mass murder of competitors on a non-existent man running a non-existent company? That’ll just turn law enforcement on you, and they won’t have to dig far to find all kinds of evidence that the surviving player, not RightPriceTek, was the mastermind and murderer.”

Kyle, Geri, and Quinn exchanged wide-eyed looks.

“It’s quite simple, my friends,” Rich continued. “I’m a ghost. As is my company. And we didn’t approach anyone for this game until we’d already secured the ability to pin anything we wanted to on any one of you.” He gave a quiet, evil laugh. “You’ve been fucked from the start, and there’s no way out.”

“And then what?” Quinn swallowed. “The winner just… goes back to their normal life? And nobody notices that ten extremely high-profile people died over the course of—what, a few weeks?”

Rich’s smile turned even colder. “Oh, no one will know that ten of you died during that period. You see, billionaires like yourselves are known for being busy. Jet-setting. Some of you are reclusive, handling most of your business via phone or video conference. While you’ve been here, you’ve all been very busy and productive—you just don’t know it.” He half-shrugged. “For those of us who’ve spent years learning everything we can about your habits and behaviors, it’s much easier than you think to keep you”—he made air quotes”—‘alive’ in the public eye. We run your company. Attend your meetings virtually. Conduct interviews remotely. And then…” He put on a mockingly sad face. “Some unexpected tragedy befalls you.”

“That’s insane,” Kyle whispered.

“Is it, though?” Rich’s lips peeled back into an evil grin. “Billionaires love their lavish and extreme lifestyles, which come with high risks, don’t they? After all, did anyone raise an eyebrow when Hans Decker died on K2?”

Geri’s heart stopped. “What? Are you… Are you saying he didn’t?”

“My dear.” Rich laughed condescendingly. “Hans Decker was shark shit six months before the K2 incident.”

She could feel the blood running from her face. “You… I… I spoke to him. Just a month before that expedition. How did—”

“You spoke to one of my people,” Rich said. “And you had no idea until just this moment, did you?”

Geri couldn’t speak. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her suddenly bone-dry mouth.

“That’s the thing with billionaires,” Rich went on. “You’re all convinced you’re critically important and too high-profile to kill. But with a little generative AI, some corporate espionage, and a few strategically placed players…” He gave another dismissive half shrug. “You’d be amazed at how easy it is to replace you with an electronic puppet.”

Everyone was silent for a long, painful moment.

Quinn was the first to break. “How many people have you killed?”

Rich narrowed his eyes and smirked. “So now you want to know my body count?”

Quinn seemed to consider it, then nodded. “Now that you mention it… yeah.”

“Well.” The smirk became a grin. “Except when it’s necessary to make my point, I don’t kill and tell.” Before anyone could press for more information, he said, “Going back to the end of the game, one of you will die at the halfway point. The other two will continue to shore. One will go back to their normal life. The last?” He again gestured at the envelopes. “Will find the media and law enforcement waiting because they’ve also received copies of that.”

One of the guys made a sound like he was about to throw up. Geri pressed back in her seat and tried to catch her breath. “What really happened to our staff?”

Rich smoothed the air with both hands. “All of your entourages have returned to their homes while the ‘show’ is ‘filmed.’ I assure you, everyone is safe, and as far as they know, all of their employers are still alive.” He chuckled. “Though some of them have already heard the sad news that that isn’t the case. Others will find out soon enough.”

“My security will know something is up,” Kyle gritted out. “I guarantee they’re already suspicious that I ‘agreed’ to this nonsense.”

Rich laughed. “Oh, my sweet summer child. Have you not been paying attention?” He clicked the controller a couple of times, and a video popped up on the big screen. It showed a virtual meeting that was very clearly between Kyle and one other man.

“I’m happy to pay to the end of the contract,” Kyle drawled. “I don’t want to cut into anybody’s paycheck, of course. But I need a break after this reality show nonsense, and I’ll be laying low on this vacation. Need to keep a low-profile, you know? And having security trailing around with me…” He grimaced and shook his head.

The other man—a Black man in a suit—scowled. “I would strongly advise against that, Mr. Aimes. My people are very well-trained in remaining inconspicuous. There’s no reason why anyone else would have any clue that you have security nearby.”

Kyle was already shaking his head. “I’ve been surrounded by people and cameras for weeks .” He made a face. “I need some privacy .”

“I understand that,” the other man argued. “A discreet security presence is still certainly advisable, though. Especially in light of threats you’ve received.”

Kyle waved a hand. “Nah. I’ll be fine. They won’t even know where I am. Nobody will except the ticketing agent and the bellhops.” He laughed at his own joke.

The other guy did not. Instead, he sighed, but he forced a professional smile. “Well, when you’re ready, you let me know, and I’ll have personnel ready to deploy.”

“Thank you, Jim. We’ll be in touch.”

Then the call ended.

Here in the boardroom, Kyle stared at the screen, his face slack.

“Anything you can think of, I’m already ten steps ahead of you.” Rich leaned over his hands on the table and peered at each of them in turn. “You’ve already seen how meticulous and methodical I am. Rest assured, I’ve already thought of everything. Otherwise…” He smiled coldly. “I wouldn’t be letting two of you go.”

They looked at each other, and Kyle and Quinn’s expressions echoed Geri’s horror and disbelief.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Rich taunted, “You can try. You can tell anyone who will listen about this horrific thing you’ve allegedly endured. But it’s nothing I can’t counter. Nothing I haven’t countered before.” He tapped his chest. “I hold all the cards. If I didn’t, I’d kill all three of you rather than risk turning you loose.”

Geri’s throat was so tight, he may as well have been squeezing her neck.

“There’s only one real winner of this game,” Rich said. “And that winner is me.”

Holy shit. This man was insane. Or the literal devil. Or… something.

Rich knocked his knuckle against the table, then straightened. “I’ll see you all at the marina at 8:00 tomorrow morning.” His grin had never made Geri’s blood colder than it did in that moment. “And we’ll find out who’s going home.”