Chapter 31
RILEY
Griffin Calloway looks like someone threw a lawyer and a movie star into a blender and set it to the highest speed.
He’s sitting in the hotel lobby when we step out of the elevator at eight in the morning.
His tailored charcoal suit fits impeccably, worn over a white shirt without a tie.
His hair has more silver strands than black—apparently a trademark of the Chester Street Society.
The look is completed by a sharp jawline, alert blue eyes, and the posture of a man who enters courtrooms like other people enter their living rooms.
He stands up when he sees Vaughn, and the two men embrace in a way that summarizes decades of friendship in three seconds.
Then Griffin turns to me. His gaze sweeps over me from head to toe, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel at least briefly uncomfortable.
“You must be Riley,” he finally says. His voice is deeper than expected, with a slight East Coast accent. “Vaughn has told me a lot about you.”
“And he’s told me almost nothing about you,” I reply. “Except that you produce legal masterpieces that don't hold up in court.”
Griffin stares at me. Then a laugh breaks out of him, so unexpected that even Vaughn raises his eyebrows.
“I like her,” Griffin says to Vaughn. “I can already tell she’s better than anything you deserve.”
“Good to have friends like you,” Vaughn notes.
We sit at a table in the corner of the lobby. Griffin places a slim briefcase on the table and flips it open. Inside are documents, neatly sorted in plastic sleeves.
“The situation,” he says, shifting seamlessly into lawyer mode. “Blackstone has signed the non-disclosure agreement. Notarized. Legally binding. This means he cannot report Vaughn without the files on his own crimes going to the authorities. Vice versa as well. Mutually assured destruction.”
“But Cross—” I begin.
“Dominic Cross.” Griffin pulls a photo from the bag.
The man in it is likely in his mid-forties, with a buzz cut and a neck like a bull.
His eyes look like they’ve seen things that would send normal people to a psychiatric ward.
“Ex-Delta Force, then Blackwater, then private security. Blackstone hired him three weeks ago as his new head of security. Officially, Cross was instructed to cease the search after the contract was signed.”
“And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, Cross continued to investigate. Whether on his own or with Blackstone’s secret blessing, we don't know.” Griffin leans back.
“That is why we are going into the Onyx Grand today. Not to argue with Blackstone—but to determine if he’s breaking the deal.
If Cross is acting on his own, Blackstone must call him off.
If Blackstone is standing behind Cross, then the contract is breached, and we have the right to release the files. ”
“So today is a test,” I say.
“It’s a confrontation with legal backing.
” Griffin taps the briefcase. “I have three copies of the contract with me, an affidavit regarding Cross’s activities, and a prepared press release that can go to every newsroom in the country within ten minutes.
If Blackstone so much as lifts a finger, he’s finished. ”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then we go in, Riley says what she needs to say, and we walk back out.”
He says it as if today were a business appointment and not the confrontation of my life.
“What if things escalate?” Vaughn asks.
“With people like Blackstone and Cross, you never know. In other words: it could become life-threatening.”
I look at Vaughn. He’s sitting next to me, hands folded, his face showing no signs of nervousness. But I know the signs by now: the minute tension in his shoulders, the vein pulsing in his neck. He’s nervous.
I place my hand on his.
“Together,” I say.
“Together,” he says.
***
The Onyx Grand looks the same as ever, and I realize I haven’t missed it for a single second.
The golden facade glitters in the midday sun as we step out of the Mercedes. Valentino parks within sight of the main entrance—engine off, sunglasses on, ready to intervene at any moment. Griffin walks beside me, briefcase under his arm.
I’m wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, and sneakers. No heels, no green evening gown, no lipstick. I am not entering my father’s casino as his daughter, his head of IT, or as decoration. I am entering as Riley Thompson.
The sliding glass doors glide open, and the air-conditioned air hits me like a cold hand. The hum of the slot machines, the scent of expensive gin, the soft carpet under my feet—everything is so familiar, and yet so foreign again.
I’ve only been gone for a few weeks, yet it feels like an entire lifetime.
I walk through the casino, and memories strike from all sides.
Blackjack table seven, where I saw Vaughn for the first time.
The bar where we drank tequila. The exit through which we vanished into the night.
Every square foot of this building is part of the story that turned my whole life upside down.
Vaughn walks beside me. His hand is on the small of my back—the same spot as back then, when he led me through the crowd to the exit. Only this time, we are moving in the opposite direction. Not out, but in. Straight into the lion’s den.
The elevator takes us to the top floor. The doors open to a hallway I’ve known for years—thick carpet, muted lighting, oil paintings on the walls meant to simulate taste. At the end of the hall lies the door to Richard Blackstone’s office.
Dominic Cross is standing in front of the door.
He’s taller than in the photo and significantly broader.
He wears a black suit that makes his shoulders look even more massive, and a headset identifying him as security personnel.
His eyes fix on us as we enter the hall, and his body shifts imperceptibly into a stance I would classify as combat-ready if I knew anything about such things.
We stop three meters in front of him.
“Riley Blackstone,” Cross says. His voice is flat, accentless, emotionless. He seems anything but surprised to see us here, which is surely because the casino’s cameras have been recording us since we walked in. “Mr. Blackstone will be pleased by your visit.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I reply.
His gaze wanders to Vaughn, and something changes in his eyes.
“Mr. Mercer.” The two men study each other like two predators meeting in a clearing. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“And yet you didn't find me,” Vaughn says. His voice is calm, but every word has edges.
“I would have found you. It would only have been a matter of time.”
“Time’s up,” Griffin says, taking a step forward.
He pulls a plastic sleeve from his briefcase.
“Griffin Calloway, attorney. Your client signed a non-disclosure agreement with my client which, among other things, stipulates that no further investigations be conducted against Mr. Mercer or Mrs. Mercer. Your continued activities constitute a breach of contract, which entitles my client—”
“I know the contract,” Cross interrupts.
“Then you know you have to let us through.”
Cross looks from Griffin to Vaughn to me. He is a man who follows orders, and right now he has two orders that contradict each other: the official one saying the case is closed, and the unofficial one—if there is one—saying he should stop Vaughn Mercer.
I take a step forward and have to tilt my head back to look him in the eye because the man is a walking wardrobe.
“Mr. Cross,” I say. “I am Riley Blackstone. I grew up in this building. I programmed the security systems you are using to stop me. And I am telling you now that I am going through that door to speak with my father. You can clear the way, or I will have my lawyer send the press release that costs your boss his existence. Your choice.”
Cross stares down at me, and I can see his brain working.
Then he steps aside.
I exhale, my heart hammering so loudly Cross can probably hear it. But my face betrays nothing. Richard Blackstone’s daughter knows how to put on a poker face. That is perhaps the only thing I am grateful to him for.
I look over my shoulder at Vaughn. “Wait here.”
“Riley—”
“Please. I have to do this alone. He is—he was—my father. And I need to say this to his face.”
Vaughn struggles. I see it in the way his jaw tightens and releases, how his hands open and close. For thirty years, he has waited for the moment to face Blackstone. And now I’m asking him to wait outside.
“I’m right here,” he finally says. “Outside the door.”
“I know.”
I turn around, grab the door handle, and press it down.
Richard Blackstone’s office opens before me like the jaws of a beast that swallowed me for twenty-seven years.
I step inside.
The door clicks shut behind me.
And there, behind the massive mahogany desk, in a leather chair that costs more than Howard’s annual salary, sits the man who raised me, who locked me up, who stole me from my real parents, and who currently looks like he hasn’t slept in three weeks.
“Hello, Richard,” I say.
His eyes fill with tears.