Off Her Game (The Game Lords Book 1) Read online

  Off Her Game

  The Game Lords, Book 1

  Zoe Forward

  ISBN 978-0-578-43037-9

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  Copyright © 2019 by Zoe Forward.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

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  Edited by Tera Cuskaden

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  Cover design © 2019 by Quincy Marin

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, or transmitted in any for by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  Published in the United States of America.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Join the Review Crew

  Before You Leave

  1

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Tori Duarte fanned through her empty wallet. She show-and-telled its vacant pockets to the police officer across the counter.

  The officer’s eyes didn’t deviate from his computer screen. Smells of coffee and cigarette smoke floated off him. “Musta been confiscated.”

  “That was mine.” She needed that two hundred and ninety-eight dollars.

  He shrugged. Arguing was pointless. The attitude? Nothing new. Cops profiled her based on one glance at her Cuban heritage. Besides, the cop had drawn the shortest straw in the crap-jobs lottery, condemned to hand out personal effects when people were on the way out in the witching hours.

  “Take a seat. They’ll call when they’re ready for you.” He extended a bony index finger toward two metal benches along the wall. Six taped-up crayon pictures of Christmas trees clung to the gray cinderblock wall. “Take me down” had been scribbled in pen across one. Although the graffiti came off as disrespectful, the holiday had come and gone over three months ago.

  She met the gaze of the only other bench occupant. And nearly sucked in a breath. Her fellow detainee was gorgeous, with messy, short, dirty blond hair, deep blue eyes, and… Oh my fucking arm porn. His black T-shirt stretched tight over his biceps.

  She plopped onto the unoccupied bench, landing with her back against the cold wall. Goosebumps studded her arms within seconds.

  “They stole your money, too?” The guy propped his cheek on a hand, his elbow on the bench arm. Men in Tori’s world of computer geeks didn’t come in models like this—earring in his left ear, dark jeans, leather jacket slung across his lap, and the body of a man who didn’t live on fast food or have an aversion to working out.

  “Assholes,” she muttered, fingering the three mini hoops along the edge of her left ear. “What’d they get you on?”

  “Wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. This time, beneath the cool confidence, she noticed he looked a little disheveled—uncombed and unshaven.

  “That’s the story of my life,” she mumbled. “Wrong place. Wrong time.”

  A more comprehensive assessment of him and…no way. He wore a vintage Zoneworld Warrior shirt? Melt her heart and set flame to her panties. A fellow video gamer? Maybe he’d been caught in the same police raid as she.

  You cannot be into a random guy at a police station. That’s beyond desperate. He could’ve picked up the shirt at the thrift store.

  “Gum?” He held open a Doublemint pack in offering.

  “Sure, thanks.” The spicy spearmint coated her parched taste buds.

  Her phone dinged. She opened up the homepage to read the message from one of her eGaming team members who’d checked in at the Washington D.C. hotel where she planned to travel via train tomorrow for the competition.

  Dibs on the bed by the window.

  She bit back a smile as she typed. Sure. Try not to rack up the porn bill again.

  Alex’s enthusiasm over qualifying for the WorldGaming Championship this year had him packed last week and scheduled to arrive a day early. She loved him to pieces, but she and Quan never missed an opportunity to remind him what happened the last the time Alex arrived early to a competition and got bored. As the trio comprising the Dynasty team, they’d been gaming together long enough that they behaved like siblings. And, even though internationally ranked, gaming didn’t pay much, so they bunked together. It wasn’t anything new since they were all roommates anyway.

  “You’re a Trekkie?” His eyes were bright as he glanced at her home screen background image icon.

  Was that a judgmental tone, or was he a fan? “Yeah. So?”

  Perking up, he looked her square in the eyes. “The latest movie just popped up off preorder on my TV. The opening scene…great a second time around, but wouldn’t do it justice without a kickass sound system.” He left out the which I’ve got, but it hung there, implied.

  She imagined him with the total gaming setup—monster high def screen, comfort seats, and a surround sound system that’d knock her socks off. Hook her up with a headset and a gamepad, and that was the stuff of fantasy. In reality, the guy probably had two roommates and rented a one-bedroom in Queens.

  Wait a sec. The movie released in digital yesterday. He’d preordered? Oh my God. He was a sci-fi geek.

  “You asking me to see your big-ass sound system?” she asked.

  “Beats Tinder. One detainee to another, at least we already know about our arrest records.” A smile teased the corners of his mouth. He leaned forward and said low, “Would you judge me if I admitted my nightmare is an exposed public toilet in jail?”

  Giggling, she shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t judge you in the slightest. I’ve got to pee like a racehorse, but no way was I going in the holding cell. No way. And have you seen the restrooms up the hall?”

  “Me too. No way.” He leaned back to rest his head against the wall.

  “You like Zoneworld?” Her eyes darted down to his shirt.

  “You play?” He stopped chewing his gum and gazed at her out of the corner of his eyes with a guarded expression.

  She nodded.

  Quickly, he asked, “Who do you play?”

  “In Zoneworld One or Two?”

  “Two.” He uncrossed his legs and faced her.

  “Evelle.”

  He nodded and resumed chewing. “Of course. You’d choose the femme fatale.”

  “She gets more weapons than any other character.” And, she didn’t have enhanced tits or a bubble butt. In this classic role-playing game she adored the avatar for being an ordinary-looking brunette with glasses, rare attributes for a gaming character. The glasses might be a nerd stereotype, but she’d take it over a sexualized female.

  “She doesn’t need a single one of the weapons.” His eyes flared. This was a test to see if she was only a talk-the-talk kinda girl or a serious gamer.

  “That’s why choosing her is a no brainer. You gotta admit the best part of the Zoneworld games is their storylines.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d talked gaming with a guy who piqued her interest for something other than kicking his butt in front of a screen. She found herself on edge, giddy for his next question.

  “Evelle is a tough play because of the level of extra work required, since she can seduce the other characters.”

  Whoa. Hold the boat. What, what, what? She hadn’t known that. She knew a hell of a lot of about the game, being ranked in the top twenty in the legit, up-and-up, non-gambling world of multi-character gaming competitions and top fifty online. Talk about shattering her love for a non-cliché female character.

  Maybe he lied. Who was this guy, anyway?

  He grinned wide. Dimple alert. Damn, he knew he’d surprised her. He asked, “I assume you mastered Zoneworld Warrior One. What level have you gotten to in Two?”

  “Forty-one,” she admitted with pride. It was as far as anyone else online had achieved.

  “Nine away from the accolade. That’s pretty good. Did you get stuck at the cave?”

  “What’s the accolade?” He’d made it all the way to the end? In the four months since the game released no one had made it that far. If he’d finished the game, it’d been offline. Unless everyone witnessed your success online, no one believed it.

  He shook his head in an I’m-not-telling way, but no comment on if he’d mastered the game. “You’ve got to make it to there to find out.”

  “How do I get out of the ca
ve without getting killed by a scorpion bot?”

  A voice yelled, “Harrison and…” The thin cop at the exit read names off a clipboard. “Duarte.”

  Not now. I need this answer!

  A burst of dignity backed her down from begging.

  The cop held open the swinging door into the station’s lobby. A floor wax machine hummed its circular wipes up the hall.

  High heels that probably cost as much as had been in her wallet fast clicked against the worn linoleum in her direction. Each click ratcheted up her nerves. Did she beg for the bots answer before he disappeared or ready herself to face off with her pissed-off sister?

  “Guess it’s a two-for-one special tonight.” Emma flicked imaginary dirt off her designer dark coat. Her sister had been the last person she’d wanted to call, but she had no other option with Quan on a train to D.C. tonight.

  “What do you mean?” Tori started when her fellow offender stopped next to her and shrugged into his jacket. Her flawless, had-her-shit-together sister who could maintain an impeccable facade at all times, even in the middle of night at the crappiest police station in New York City, knew this man? Emma didn’t hang around gamer guys with earrings who got arrested.

  Emma said, “Tori, meet my boss, Noah Harrison. Noah, this is my sister, Tori.”

  He was the Noah Harrison? The mysterious, reclusive billionaire to which her sister had risen in the ranks of his company to become his personal assistant a few months ago? The guy who co-designed Zoneworld Warrior?

  Oh my freaking God.

  She’d conversed one-on-one with one of the Game Lords? No one got that kind of quality time with one of them. At least, no one she knew. Over the past year she’d begged her sister for info on Noah since little was posted publicly about him, not that she’d found out much. Noah avoided media exposure like the plague. His business partner, Jake Allen, Game Lord number two, was the face of the company, but everyone knew Noah was the brains. Jake’s line on the mystery of Noah’s media reticence was that he wanted his work to speak for itself. She hadn’t expected him to look like this.

  Be cool. You will not go all fangirl crazy and creep him out.

  Noah held out his hand her.

  Shake it.

  Crap, she’d frozen. Like a clumsy puppy she slapped her tremoring hand into his for a brief shake.

  Maybe he’d autograph something. Hello, checking out of jail. Yeah, that’d be weird.

  “Zoneworld Warrior’s cool,” she muttered. Hand to forehead slap. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  “Tori’s in to video games.” Emma’s eyebrows shot upward in a what’s-wrong-with-you glare. Or maybe it was a don’t-embarrass-me glower.

  He granted Tori a small smile. Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t interpret the smile. Was it a pity smile or an oh-god-not-another-gaming-fan smile?

  He said, “Thanks, Emma, for bailing me out. Guess it wasn’t too out of your way tonight.”

  “I hope you’re not going to make this a habit.” She looked between the two of them. Her scowl promised more coming Tori’s way as soon as her boss was out of earshot. “Either of you.”

  Outside smelled of recent rain and gasoline. The icy wind whipped through the few microns of T-shirt fabric, reminding her she’d left her favorite jacket at the Stadium tonight. No getting it back after the cops invaded. The Stadium wasn’t so much a place as an event. The dark underbelly of the video gaming world commanded a lot of money, unsavory characters, and a buttload of the illegal. The competitions never happened in the same location twice. It was unlike the up-and-up, legit event she’d be attending tomorrow.

  “Mr. Harrison, I phoned your driver.” Emma waved at a dark sedan idling on the curb. She pasted on a professional smile. “Let’s talk tomorrow.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tori.” Noah’s gaze bounced back to her. His eyes crinkled in the corners with his smile. “Good luck with the gaming.”

  “You too.” Please, dear God, tell me about the bots before you leave.

  Noah met Emma’s gaze with raised eyebrows.

  Emma pointed her finger at him. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “We can talk tomorrow, Emma.” He gave her a pointed look before he disappeared into the back seat of his car. The driver shut the door, closing him away.

  Tori fisted her hands against the desire to bang on the window and demand an answer to get through the game level.

  Have some self-respect.

  As she watched his car turn left at the end of the street and out of sight she wasn’t as disappointed to see him go because she didn’t get the answer as because she genuinely liked Noah Harrison. And maybe there was a tad bit of hero worship thrown in.

  Emma snapped, “You were gambling on those video games again, weren’t you?”

  “I would’ve won tonight.” Said like a bonafide gambling addict, which she wasn’t. Or, maybe she was. She’d argue until the end of the Earth she wasn’t. The gambling, the underworld gaming…at first it’d been about a quick buck to pay rent. Now, she was desperate to be free of it.

  Emma’s lips thinned. “You always think you’ll win. I’m never doing this again. I swear.”

  “Thanks for coming down to pick me up. Again.” Her sister had threatened the same a few months ago. As polar opposites, they rarely jived on life choices. Emma was the blonde to her dark, almost black hair. Even if her sister’s color wasn’t natural, it fit her. Unlike her sister, Tori excelled at one thing—other than her new talent to get arrested—and that was gaming. Both playing and designing. She traveled to big gaming events, winning a pittance, but still placing with her team in the top twenty-five. Someday, she hoped to design video games full-time and not rely on freelance coding and Twitch streaming with her teammates to pay rent, a dream that was a few months away from becoming reality.

  Emma paused at the entrance to the parking deck adjacent to the police station and whirled. “Why do you do this? We can’t afford a big time lawyer. I’m lucky to have found some lady at Legal Aid familiar with video gaming who worked magic to get the gambling charges dropped last time. This time sounds like they didn’t have anything concrete to hold you on. You lucked out.”

  Tori tucked her frozen hands into her jeans pockets. “One more good win and then I’m out. I’m hoping D.C. will come through this weekend.” But playing in legit competitions was a crapshoot. When the prize was good, the big names in the sport showed up. Noah Harrison’s company, NJ Legacy, sponsored a twenty-thousand-dollar pot at the D.C. competition. She’d be lucky to hit the top ten and get a fourth of that. Two or three good wins, though, and her gambling debt could be paid off.

  “How much do you owe?” Emma released a long sigh filled with judgment.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Jesus, Tori. I’m at a police station at one a.m. bailing you out when I have to be at work at seven. Tell me how much you owe.”

  “You also bailed out your boss, which is…weird. How often does that happen?”

  “Never. This is a first. I don’t think he’d want either of us talking about it to anyone.” Emma cast her a plea for silence.

  “All right. I won’t tell anyone I met the elusive Game Lord in jail.” She bit her lip against a smile and amended in her mind that she might tell Alex and Quan, but not the whole story.

  “Thanks. How much do you owe?” Emma’s tone had gentled.

  “Ten grand. Give or take some change.” Tori toed a plastic bottle cap with her sneaker.

  Emma stepped back. “Wow.”

  Tori shrugged.

  “To whom do you owe this much?”

  “Symphis.” An ambitious nudge kicked the bottle cap too hard. It rolled under a car.

  “There’s a person who actually calls himself that?”