Chapter 30
VAUGHN
Riley dozed off somewhere in southern Oregon, her head leaning against my shoulder, legs pulled up, the new phone in her hand like a stuffed animal. She spent the entire afternoon playing Candy Crush—no calls, no Googling, just distracting herself until her eyes eventually slipped shut.
Valentino swapped the plates at the last gas station. The new tags belong to a Ford pickup in Idaho that’s been sitting in a barn for two years. Valentino has contacts who handle such things, and I’ve learned not to ask questions.
The landscape flows past the window like a film on fast-forward. Oregon becomes northern Nevada, northern Nevada becomes central Nevada, and eventually, the first hint of Las Vegas appears on the horizon: a sand-colored nothingness transforming into a shimmering something.
I’m driving back to the city where it all began. Where weeks ago, I sat at a blackjack table counting cards while Richard Blackstone’s daughter watched me through a security camera. Where I got her drunk, married her, and kidnapped her.
And now I’m driving back because the woman beside me decided that we’re going to stop running. And because I—the man who has controlled everything for thirty years—am following someone for the first time in my life instead of leading.
It’s an unsettling feeling. And at the same time, a relief I didn't expect.
My phone vibrates. Griffin.
Tell me you aren't actually driving to Vegas.
I type back: We’re driving to Vegas.
You’re insane. Both of you. Blackstone’s territory. His cameras, his staff, Dominic Cross. You’re walking into a trap.
It was Riley’s decision.
Three dots. A pause. Three dots. Then:
Since when do you stop making your own decisions?
When he writes it like that, it actually sounds strange. Vaughn Mercer is no longer the one deciding?
But the answer to the question is simple: Since a woman with red hair and green eyes decided she was done letting men dictate what she should do. Which ironically means that my own loss of control is the result of her liberation.
Since I realized she’s right, I type. As long as we run, Blackstone has power. As long as he doesn't know if the deal holds, he won't call off Cross. Riley needs to look him in the face. And I need to stand beside her when she does.
Griffin’s reply comes after a long pause.
Understood. I’m booking the next flight to Vegas. If you’re marching into the lion’s den, you’re doing it with a lawyer at your back.
You don't have to come.
Don’t even try to talk me out of it, Vaughn. I’ll be there in six hours. Chester Street.
Chester Street. Our brotherhood’s code word. It means: I have your back, no matter what.
I pocket the phone and look at Riley. She murmurs something incomprehensible in her sleep and presses closer to my shoulder. Her hair tickles my neck.
“She’s got nerve,” Valentino says from the driver’s seat.
I look in the rearview mirror. His dark eyes meet mine.
“Who? Riley?”
“Who else. Marching straight into Blackstone’s casino. It’s either very brave or very stupid.”
“What do you think?”
Valentino considers for a moment.
Then he says, “Brave. It would be stupid if she went alone. She has you. And she has me.” He changes lanes to avoid a truck. “You know, Vaughn, fifteen years ago you told me that one day you’d go to Vegas to take everything from Blackstone. I imagined it differently.”
“In what way?”
“I imagined you going in, torching the Onyx, and dragging him out by his balls. Alone. Like always.” He looks at me in the mirror. “I didn't expect you to walk in with a woman telling you where to go, while you look like a man who’s happy for the first time in his life.”
“I don't look happy.”
“Yes, you do. It doesn't suit you particularly well, but you do.”
I suppress a laugh that vibrates in my chest. Valentino Ferretti, the silent Italian who normally speaks fewer words in entire days than other people do in an hour, is holding up a mirror to me.
“Valentino.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut the hell up and drive.”
He grins and hits the gas.
***
We reach Las Vegas shortly after midnight.
The city greets us the way it greets everyone: garish, loud, and completely indifferent to who you are or where you come from.
The Strip glows in the darkness like a thermometer that’s climbed into the red zone.
Neon signs, taxi horns, drunk tourists on the sidewalks.
Everything exactly as I left it a few weeks ago. As if nothing had changed.
But the truth is, everything has changed.
Valentino steers the Mercedes past the casinos, away from the Strip, into a quieter neighborhood. A hotel that’s clean and inconspicuous—no Meridian penthouse, no neon sign, no questions at the front desk. He booked it using one of his anonymous credit cards.
Riley wakes up as the engine dies. She blinks sleepily and looks out the window.
“Vegas,” she says, like someone meeting an old acquaintance and not sure whether to be glad.
“Vegas,” I confirm.
She sits up and brushes her hair out of her face. Her eyes are alert, even though she just woke up. The switch is flipped—the analyst is back.
“When do we go?” she asks.
“Tomorrow morning, once the casino starts filling up.”
“Griffin?”
“Lands at six AM. He’ll be waiting for us at the hotel.”
She nods. Then she opens the door and steps out. The warm desert air of Las Vegas envelops us—familiar, electric, smelling of asphalt and possibilities.
Riley stands in the parking lot and looks at the sky. The Strip glows on the horizon like a distant fire. She turns to me.
“Vaughn.”
“Yeah?”
“The last time I walked out of the Onyx Grand, I thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life.” She looks at the ring on her finger.
“Tomorrow I’m going back in. And this time, I know exactly what I’m doing.
Because of you.” She holds out her hand to me.
“Let’s sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. ”
I take her hand and we walk into the hotel. Valentino stays in the car—“Someone needs to keep an eye on the entrance,” he says, though I know he just prefers sleeping in the Mercedes to a bed. Some habits from the run he’ll never shed.
The room is small and clean. A double bed, a bathroom, a window overlooking a parking lot. No comparison to the Meridian penthouse and its absurd marble. But Riley takes off her shoes, drops onto the bed, and says, “Perfect,” and she means it.
I lie down beside her. She curls up against me, head on my chest.
“Vaughn?”
“Hm?”
“Are you afraid?”
“Of Blackstone?”
“Of tomorrow. Of everything.”
I think about it. The honest answer is: Yes.
Not of Blackstone—but of what tomorrow makes of me.
For thirty years he was my enemy, and tomorrow I will look him in the face.
Not through a voice distorter, not through six VPN layers, not from the safe distance of a phone line.
Face to face. And I don't know what happens when the man I’ve hated for thirty years suddenly stands before me with a face and eyes and a voice that isn't distorted.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m afraid.”
“Good.” She presses closer to me. “Then that makes two of us.”
She falls asleep faster than I thought possible. The woman who will march into her father’s casino tomorrow and tell him his life was a lie falls asleep like a child who knows someone is watching over her.
I lie awake staring at the ceiling. Through the window, the pulsating light of Las Vegas spills in, casting shadows on the walls. Somewhere a taxi honks. Somewhere someone laughs.
Tomorrow I go into the Onyx Grand. Not as a ghost, not as a phantom, not as a hardened card counter. But as Vaughn Mercer, son of Arthur and Elaine Mercer, husband of Riley Thompson Mercer—the man who took thirty years to understand that revenge is not a life purpose.