Chapter 29
RILEY
I look at my hands. At the silver ring on my finger, still sitting exactly where Vaughn placed it that night in the chapel. At the new phone in my pocket, which I’ve owned since this morning and haven’t used yet.
Then I look at Loraine. Her eyes are wide and fearful. The same eyes that looked at me last night when she held me in her arms for the first time in twenty-seven years. And I think: I won't let Richard Blackstone take this from me, too.
“I don't want to keep running,” I say.
Vaughn looks at me and shakes his head.
“Riley… we at least have to—”
I shake my own head.
“No. We’re going to see my father.”
“Riley—”
“No, Vaughn. Listen to me.” I plant my hands on my hips.
“We can run. We can go to Seattle, to Griffin’s safe apartment, and hide and hope Cross doesn’t find us.
And then what? Do we spend the rest of our lives fleeing from the man who raised me?
Looking over our shoulders every time we go to a restaurant?
Moving every few months because someone picked up our trail? ”
“It would be safer than—”
“Security is an illusion.” I meet his gaze. “That’s what you told me. In a rooftop bar in Vegas, half an eternity ago. The strongest wall won’t stop anyone if someone opens the door from the inside.”
Vaughn shuts his mouth. He recognizes his own words, and he knows I’m right.
“I need to look him in the face,” I say. “Not over the phone, not through lawyers, not via contracts. I have to walk into his office and tell him it’s over. And I need to see if he accepts it or if he’s lying. I’ve known this man for twenty-seven years.”
Howard watches me with an expression somewhere between pride and worry. Loraine presses her lips together and reaches for my hand.
“You don't have to do this,” she says softly.
“Yes.” I squeeze her hand. “I do. Not for him. For me. As long as I’m running from him, he still has power over me. And that ends now.”
Vaughn leans back and regards me with that look I’ve come to know over the last few weeks—the look of a man realizing the woman beside him is stronger than he had calculated.
“If we go to Vegas,” he says slowly, “we’re entering his territory. The Onyx Grand is his fortress. He has cameras there, security staff, Cross. We’ll be outnumbered and without a fallback position.”
“We have something better than a fallback position,” I say. “We have the truth. And we have his signature on a contract that destroys him if he so much as lifts a finger.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure.”
He nods. “Then we’re going to Vegas.”
I turn to my parents.
“We’ll be back,” I say. “I promise. As soon as this is over, we’ll be back.”
Loraine hugs me once more.
“Take care of yourself, baby girl,” she whispers in my ear.
Howard holds out his hand to Vaughn, and they shake.
“Bring my daughter back safe,” he says. It’s a handshake between two men who are in agreement, even if they don’t necessarily like each other.
“I will,” Vaughn says.
In front of the house, Valentino pulls up in the Mercedes.
We get in and buckle up.
“Where to?” he asks.
Vaughn looks at me. I look back.
“Las Vegas,” I say. “We have an appointment with my father.”
Valentino raises his eyebrows, but when Vaughn nods, he shifts into gear.
The Mercedes glides onto the road, and Oregon disappears behind us. Ahead lies the desert I know, a city of lights that never sleeps, and a man in a golden casino who doesn't know his daughter is coming home.
But not to stay. To say goodbye.