“You’re turning me into one of those billionaires,” Robert says once the waitress has taken our order and left us. We are on a private deck that cantilevers over the water. I’m wearing a full-length dress in bold, multi-colored patterns with ruffled straps that Robert picked up at the hotel store. It’s shapeless and somehow also sexy. Especially paired with the gladiator sandals he brought me…and had to tie on for me. I’m not a fashionista, and straps that long just didn’t make sense until Robert wound them up my calf and tied them off right under my knee.
The soft murmurs of the main dining room barely reach us through the open French doors. It’s a small restaurant—intimate and romantic. This is a hotel for honeymoons and anniversaries. A place for couples to celebrate their promises to each other. Robert and I look the part—me in my fancy dress and him in a lightweight navy suit and crisp white shirt.
Memories of Robert’s and my wedding flash. The dress Robert picked out—white and elegant—the flowers—fragrant and gorgeous—and the music—live and excellent. It had all the trappings a wedding should have. Even my nearest and dearest in attendance.
The worried smile on my friend Hugh’s face, his offer to hold the train of my dress if I wanted to make a run for it…it was so old-fashioned…especially the part where the bride didn’t have a say in it. The union was formed to cement relationships, to protect me, to give Robert what he wanted. None of it was for love. Nor romance. At least my mother didn’t provide Robert any livestock…that I know of.
I pull my attention back to the table, the here and now. My gun is in my purse, Robert’s is strapped under his jacket, and Brock eats alone in a protective position just inside—his wound rewrapped with clean bandages. The other couples dining in the flickering candlelight would never guess a bullet grazed his forehead a few hours ago.
“What kind of billionaire have I turned you into?” I ask.
“The kind with an eccentric wife who orders a hundred-dollar steak for her dog.”
“That steak costs a hundred dollars?!” Blue, who’d laid down under the table, shifts so that his chin rests on my foot—offering me comfort.
Robert raises his brows. “This is paradise, Sydney.” He gestures to the calm sea and the jungle greenery around us. “It has a high cost.”
“But—” I look around, realizing that Robert is pointing out the obvious. “There are no prices on the menu. That’s not fair.”
“Would it have changed your order?” he asks, leaning forward, his tone teasing.
“I don’t know. Probably. I mean, they might have some dog food…” My voice tips up at the end like it’s a question.
“I’m sure we could make that happen. Will he need more tonight?”
“More than a hundred-dollar steak? No. I’ll be back on the island by breakfast,” I point out. “So he’ll be fine.”
“Yes,” Robert says, his expression darkening. “I’m sorry you have to go.”
“Are you going to stay here?” The buzz of a speedboat draws my attention to the water where a small craft skims across the flat sea.
“Yes,” he answers, following my gaze. “I will stay.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’ve spoken with my friend who owns the yacht. The crew member has been taken into custody. Brock and I will interrogate him.”
“Oh,” I say.
“It has nothing to do with you,” Robert is quick to add. “And you’ll be leaving for your safety.”
My eyes narrow at him and he raises his brow—the look on his face way too innocent. “Those are the kind of words someone might say if they wanted me to argue.”
“Oh?” he asks, again the look on his face way too innocent for Robert Maxim.
“Yeah, ‘nothing to do with me’? ‘For my safety’?”
Robert smiles. “You want to be involved in dangerous endeavors that are none of your business?”
“You talk as though you don’t know me, Mr. Maxim.”
Robert and I both look toward the dining room as the waitress approaches with our appetizers. I wait until she leaves to speak again. “What I want,” I say, picking up a piece of bread, “is for you to explain to me why you’re buying up cryptocurrency while I inhale this food.”
“Your wish is my command.” Robert picks up his glass of wine and takes a sip as I slather pâté onto the bread—briefly wondering how much it cost. “Simply put, it’s insurance,” he says.
“Insurance?” I ask, then take a bite. My eyes close in pleasure, my hunger making a meal that already would have been delicious into something divine.
“Yes. If you’re going to burn down society—as you so eloquently put it—and I’m going to help, then I need a way of staying rich.” He smiles. “Of course, I have gold as well. I’ll always have gold. And other assets I trust will weather your fire storm.”
“Obviously,” I say. “You’ll need to stay rich. What about powerful? Won’t you need a way to stay powerful?”
Robert tuts. “With money comes power, Sydney.”
“Not always. What about politicians? Many are not as rich as you but they have as much power. If society is reordered, who’s to say that those with money will stay on top?”
Robert shakes his head. “I am more powerful than most politicians—even very high-ranking ones. And it’s because they don’t have as much money as me. Money is power, Sydney.”
“What about me?” I ask.
“You have a lot of money. Not only do you share my wealth through marriage, but Dan is a brilliant investor and has multiplied your own worth many times over.”
“But that’s all in Joyful Justice coffers. I don’t have direct access to it. Wouldn’t you say that my power lies in my legend?”
Robert sits back, taking his wine glass with him. He smiles, his gaze falling into the deep red liquid. “Your legend certainly has a value. It grants you power.” He pauses, swirls the wine in his glass, then looks up at me. “And will live on after you. But, it is not solely yours.”
“What do you mean?” I ask around a bite of food.
“Your legend—reputation—is a fiction. You’re not real. Sydney Rye, Joy Humbolt,” he waves his hand at me. “Whatever alias you are traveling under, they are all fictional characters.”
Something about his words makes the food in my mouth taste stale, like cardboard. I pick up my seltzer and sip, letting the bitter bubbles clear my palate.
“The more famous you become, the more people who speak your name, the less it is yours. It becomes theirs.”
The waitress returns and clears the appetizers, leaving us with nothing but the expanse of white tablecloth and a flickering candle in its breeze-resistant glass container between us. “You’re not answering my question, Robert. Why are you buying crypto?”
“I did.” He sits forward. “As insurance. Whatever you do to the world.” He shrugs one shoulder. “However you see fit to burn it down…I will be positioned for it.”
“But isn’t that the problem?” I ask, also leaning forward, the space between us closing. “That you will always be okay and so many people aren’t…and won’t ever be.”
A whisper of a smile plays over his lips. “But Sydney, you know the world isn’t fair. That there is no justice.”
“Then what is there?” I ask.
“A game. It’s all just a game.”
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re the winner. People who are starving aren’t playing.”
“And that’s why they’re losing?”
Bile rises in my throat. “You’re an asshole.”
Robert’s grin is quick—a flash of teeth—and then it’s gone. “Very true.”
I sit back, needing space from him. “And all your money, your power. What do you do with it?”
“Buy your dog hundred-dollar steaks, among other things,” he answers before picking up his glass of wine again and taking a sip. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, wondering if I could punch him in it or if he’d see me coming.
What would Brock do? I glance into the dining room, finding the security agent with his gaze on his phone. “Sydney,” Robert’s voice pulls me back to him. “I’m buying crypto because I believe in you. Because I believe that you have the power to change the world.”
“For the better?” I ask, my voice coming out bitter. The task I’ve set myself is far too hard. Impossible.
“The world will always be the same for me. I’m only playing a game. It can’t be good or bad, it’s just the playing field.”
“Sometimes you sound like Merl,” I say, surprised by the sentiment.
“Do I?” Robert asks, his smile amused. “That’s quite a compliment from you.”
“Just the whole, ‘It doesn’t matter what’s happening in the 3D world. The inner game is what matters’.”
Robert shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m saying. Out here matters very much—life cannot just be confined to ritual and meditation. I enjoy good wine,” he holds up the glass. “I love seeing an elegant dress I paid for brushing against your skin.” The mention of the dress makes me suddenly hyper aware of the ruffled sleeves fluttering in the wind, butterflying against my shoulders. “I want to take you back to our room and—”
I hold up a hand, interrupting him. “Don’t.”
His smile is slow and victorious, like somehow me stopping him was him winning.
“See!” I point at his face and he gives me that I’m so innocent look again. “It is an inner game to you. You’re winning because you’re fucking with me.”
“Am I?”
“Oh my god, you are infuriating.”
“Yes,” he takes in a slow breath. “I feel the same about you, my love.”
My lips press together, but before I can tell him once more I’m not into that or any other pet name, the waitress returns. Blue comes out from under the table and sits by my side politely waiting for his steak. I cut it up into Blue-sized pieces while Robert watches me, sipping wine, and smiling like he won. Like he always wins.
I stop cutting, the silverware hovering over the half-cut-up steak. That’s it. If we can convince people they are winning—that they can have everything they want—then they are more likely to get it. If we can convince them they deserve to win. That’s what Rida did: her lies, her story, sold women on their worthiness.
My mother, for one. A doormat her whole life—except when defending a man—she found her feet, her worthiness. My jaw tightens because the motivation still comes from outside. What if the next prophet tells her she needs to bow down to all men, would she do it?
I can hear her voice in my head. The prophet’s message resonates with me, that’s how I know it’s true.
But just because something feels like it’s true doesn’t make it gospel.
“Sydney?” Robert says, but I shake my head, trying to let the thought finish.
It’s slippery though, trailing through my mind like sand through fingers. “You win because you think you’re destined to win,” I say.
“I win because I am beholden to no one but myself, Sydney.”
I look up at him, blinking. The top two buttons of Robert’s shirt are undone, the breeze toys with his hair, he holds a wine glass by its elegant stem and watches me, a subtle smile teasing the corner of his mouth. He looks smug. And rich. And like he wins.
“What about your mother?” I ask.
He tilts his head, considering the question. “What about her?”
“Were you beholden to her? When you were a kid you must have been. All kids have to do what their parents say.”
“Spoken like a childless adult,” Robert says, leaning forward and picking up his fork. “Let’s not forget my son is actively trying to kill me. And that’s not under my orders.”
“But you won’t kill him?” Robert spears a bite of his fish and shakes his head. “Why not?”
His gaze rises to meet mine. “I’m not a monster, Sydney.”
“So you are beholden to something. To some moral code.”
“Yes, mine.” He raises the white flaky fish to his mouth.
Blue whines softly next to me, a gentle, polite reminder that the steak he is dying to eat is ready…I just have to give it to him. “Sorry, boy,” I say, shifting to place it on the floor for him.
My head is down at my knees, my attention on the plate as I place it on the wooden deck, when Blue growls and stands. My focus shifts to sliver of open space between the boards. A black form—wet and large—rises from the sea beneath the deck. Fuck.
I drop the plate and grab my bag, drawing my weapon as the first shot comes up through the deck, splintering the wood and thunking into the table.