Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Cassius
“Welcome to Vegas, Cass.” My uncle, Hagen Lykaios, hugged me as I entered his palatial home on the outskirts of Las Vegas. “You look good for a washed-up bartender.”
Technically, he wasn’t my uncle but a cousin. However, he came from my parents’ generation and therefore fell under the Greek family categorization of uncle.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m into real estate now. My partners and I are building a resort to rival yours.”
“You’re a traitor. What kind of Lykaios are you to jump into camp with the competition?”
“Technically, you’re the traitor since Pappous Collin started his company first, and I’m partnering with Lykaios International.”
Hagen shook his head and gestured for me to follow him into his house. “I’m surrounded by traitors. I can’t believe my own sisters-in-law are working behind my back to recruit my family to work on the opposing team.”
I wanted to laugh. This was the age-old argument on the Vegas side of my family. They were all Lykaioses by last name but were business rivals. Nearly twenty years earlier, my father’s actual uncle, Collin, who I called Pappous Collin, had a falling-out with his three sons, Hagen, Pierce, and Zack.
They’d formed a company called HPZ to rival Collin’s Lykaios International, which was run by Zack’s now wife, Henna.
Today, the feud was long gone, and the family was tied together in the way only Greeks could manage to do, with Hagen married to Penny, Henna’s cousin.
Then, Peirce married Penny’s best friend, Amelia, followed by Henna marrying Zack.
Then finally, Adrian, Penny’s brother, married Anaya, Henna’s half-sister and my other business partner.
Oh, Anaya was also Hagen, Pierce, and Zack’s half-sister.
As I said, we were very, very Greek and confusing as hell to explain to everyone around us. We liked to say that none of the couples shared any ancestral genetics, so everything was good.
Now, the extent of any family drama happened in the form of friendly competition, with each conglomerate trying to outmaneuver the other.
“It’s not behind your back if he’s worked on previous projects with us.” Henna defended herself the second we entered a giant open-concept kitchen and family room. “Besides, he’s a shareholder. He owns part of the company.”
Henna Lykaios stirred something in a giant pot that emitted a mouthwatering aroma. Her long black hair was tied back in a high ponytail, and her golden skin glistened with a tinge of sweat from the heat near the stove.
Penny stood off to the side, drinking a cocktail, and winked at me in her relaxed way. “She has a point. Cass is a stakeholder and has a vested interest in the success of Lykaios International.”
Hagen scowled at his wife, who smiled at him and seemed unfazed by the former mob enforcer.
It still amazed me how I’d ended up with my portion of the company in the first place.
My father was the product of an affair and therefore shunned by his family all his life.
It hadn’t mattered that Papa was innocent of his parents’ actions or that my grandparents later married.
He represented a stain on the affluent and prestigious Lykaios name in Mykonos. Therefore, no one associated with him.
There was one exception—Collin. He’d gone against his family’s wishes and fostered a relationship with his brother and nephew.
Years later, when Collin decided to move to America, Papa gifted Collin some money to help him with a fresh start. Collin invested it as shares in his new company under my name instead of using the funds for living expenses.
And the rest was history. However, I hadn’t learned about the investment or my position in the Vegas Lykaios family until well into my teens.
“That’s right.” Henna nodded her head with a smirk. “He’s a stakeholder. He needs to get in the muck with the rest of us. First, we train this one how to run a corporation. Then we get our hands on all of the kids.”
I loved this woman. I’d had a soft spot for her since she stormed into my house when I was barely ten years old, as if she owned the place in her designer clothes and all-business attitude.
Papa and I were both lost in grief after my mother passed away during childbirth six weeks earlier, and we hadn’t left our house since the funeral. Papa coped by drinking, and I stayed in my bedroom.
Henna picked the lock of my bedroom, sat down next to me, and then held me as I cried. Afterward, she checked Papa into rehab and set up care for me with her family that lived in the area until Papa was well again.
After her visit, the Vegas Lykaioses made their presence in my life a very visible thing, from wanting updates about my education to popping in for visits without notice.
They became the family I had never had before.
“My opinion stands. The kids are off-limits.” Hagen folded his arms and moved to the kitchen counter where his petite wife Penny stood. “Christopher is the next oldest, and he is running HPZ, got it? Pierce’s son belongs to us. You’re not going to poach another of our kids.”
Penny rolled her bright green eyes and then winked at me with amusement. “Ignore him. He’s mad that after all these years, it was Henna who convinced you to move to Vegas, not him.”
Henna wasn’t the right reason, but I kept that to myself.
Plus, they’d never believe the only woman who’d ever made me want more was the one who’d brought me to Vegas.
Hagen countered with, “She gave birth to five kids. She can wait for one of them to grow up. She doesn’t need any of mine.”
The insanity of the discussion happening gave me a sense of comfort I only felt here.
“I was in the delivery room when Christopher came into the world.” Henna cocked a hand on her hip and lifted a brow. “Want to one-up that? I believe that gives me dibs on him.”
Only these women would think nothing of talking to Hagen Lykaios as if he wasn’t one of the scariest people in Vegas.
Penny pushed a tray holding a cocktail of some sort in my direction.
Probably a concoction created with Firewater, the whiskey she’d invented in a lab that tasted as if it were aged for twenty years but only spent less than six months in a barrel.
Her whiskeys positioned her as one of the most sought-after liquor manufacturers in the world.
Picking up the tumbler, I took a deep sip and let the spirit warm down my throat.
“Tell me, what pushed you to finally accept Henna’s offer? Incognito is something she’s wanted you to work on for years. You should have seen the smile on her face after you called her.”
I glanced at Henna, who was in a stare-off with Hagen.
“What if I said I wanted to trade island life for the desert?”
“Are you running from a broken heart, Cassius?” Penny asked. “Not so long ago, I ran to Greece because someone I won’t mention broke my heart. Makes sense some people come to Vegas.”
“I didn’t break your heart,” Hagen grumbled, shifting his attention to Penny. “It was over fifteen years ago, and you ran away. I had to come get you, if you recall. And I chased you to Ibiza.”
Well, shit, this wasn’t the subject I wanted to jump into. We’d be here for hours if these two moved into this historical discussion.
“If I recall, the last time you saw me, you called me the no-strings guy. Do you think I’d have a broken heart?”
Henna cocked a hand on her hip. “No strings? What about that someone you ditched us to see during the grand opening of Lykaios Mykonos? Why’d you rearrange your schedule to see her if there weren’t any strings?”
Because I had to get her to understand why I’d lied to her. In the end, I’d failed. She’d left the country before the resort opening party started, telling Henna she had a family event to attend.
Instead of voicing the truth, I said, “She was leaving town. I wanted to wish her well.”
“Really?” Henna pursed her lips as if not believing a word I’d said.
“Yes. Really.”
“And now you plan to start this no-strings shit here?” Hagen decided to chime in as he downed his drink.
Oh, my plans were full of strings, but working my way around the landmines in my path would take a lot of maneuvering.
I gave a noncommittal shrug of my shoulders.
“You are so much like Zack. It’s scary.” Hagen shook his head. “One day, you’re going to meet a woman as mean as Henna, and she’s going to fuck you up.”
“I’m not sure whether or not I should be offended by that statement.” Henna frowned and then glared at Penny.
“Don’t look at me to translate his meaning. I’m not the one who said it.”
“It’s a compliment. Cass has had it easy with every woman he’s ever met. That pretty face and accent of his get him whatever he wants.”
“So it’s a compliment to her and an insult to me,” I said. “Thanks.”
Hagen studied me and then shook his head. “Oh no, I think it already happened.”
“What are you talking about?” I narrowed my gaze.
“I think this no-strings game you like to play backfired on you. You met a woman like Henna who gave as good as she got. And you’re here to lick your wounds.”
“You make me sound like an asshole. And for the record, I’m not here to lick my wounds.”
Dammit. I sounded defensive. Shit. This was getting out of hand.
“Then why are you really here? You’ve financed projects with Henna worldwide without leaving the island. Why Vegas, all of a sudden?”
I might as well give him some of it.
“I needed to leave the memories. I have nothing left there. After losing Papa so suddenly, what’s the point of staying there?
My clubs run themselves. And the family there, if we want to call them that, only think of me as important now that I have money.
You guys are the only decent Lykaioses. Why wouldn’t I want to be here over there? ”
Everyone remained quiet for a few moments, processing my words.
“I still feel there is more to the story, but I’ll let it go for the moment.
” Henna spooned some chicken in a red cream sauce over rice and handed it to me.
“Penny and I made this feast specifically for you. We know how much you like chicken tikka masala. Eat up before the boys get here and everything disappears.”
For the first time in a long time, I truly relaxed.
Henna may have been a ballbuster by day, but she couldn’t help but mother me as she liked to do with her five kids. She was only sixteen years older than me, so technically not old enough to be my mother, but still, she thought of me as her own.
“Yes, this was for you, and we just happened to reap the benefits.” Hagen grabbed a plate from Henna.
“By the way, I’ve got you set up in the residential tower next to the construction site. You’re on the top penthouse floor with two suites. One’s yours, and the other is for our project manager-architect.”
I gave no reaction and shoveled another spoonful into my mouth.
The last thing I expected was to live on the same floor as Naomi, much less next door.
“You remember Naomi?” Henna probed. “She’s the one you met the day of the grand opening in Mykonos.”
“I remember,” I said.
I remembered everything about that afternoon, including the shock and then the devastation on her face. As well as the ice-cold mask she’d placed over her hurt within seconds.
She’d treated me as if I were a complete stranger, someone she’d never met. Not the man who’d spent the early-morning hours buried in her body.
Then she’d left the fucking country before giving me a chance to explain.
I clenched my jaw.
“Why do you seem annoyed? Is it because you’re sharing a floor with her?”
“I’m not annoyed.”
“It’s not like you’re in the same suite. It’s on the same floor. Well, technically, you can turn it into a big four-bedroom apartment, but that’s not going to happen, and that’s beside the point.”
“I have no issues with her living on the floor. Does she know I’m her new Lykaios counterpart?”
“Not yet. We wanted to wait until you arrived.”
A slight sense of relief washed over me. If she had even an inkling of the change of plans for the project, she’d send her partner as her replacement.
Suddenly, I realized what Henna had said, and I frowned.
“Did you think I would change my mind about moving?”
“We invited you to move years ago. I know island life is hard to leave.”
“Not when there are things to incentivize me elsewhere.”
“Vegas does have its draw,” Hagen mused.
If he only knew that it wasn’t Vegas or the project Henna dangled before me but the woman whose heart I’d broken.