Chapter 32
RILEY
My father—or should I say, the man who spent my whole life pretending to be my father—looks like a ghost. His suit is wrinkled; Richard Blackstone, a man who would sooner walk naked into a board meeting than wear an unpressed shirt, is sitting behind his desk in a crumpled suit.
His tie is missing. His top button is open.
The shadows under his eyes are so dark they look like bruises.
He looks like he’s aged twenty years in just a few weeks.
“My girl,” he says. His voice trembles slightly, as if he already suspects this won't be a pleasant conversation.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Riley, I—”
“I speak first.”
I stop three meters from the desk. Far enough not to run into his arms if my body tries to do what twenty-seven years of habit programmed into it.
“You listen to me. When I’m finished, you can talk.”
His mouth twitches, then he nods.
“I’m here because I want to look you in the face,” I say. “Not because Vaughn sent me. Not because his lawyer instructed me. But because I lived under your control for twenty-seven years, and I believe I have the right to say goodbye in person.”
“Goodbye?”
“You heard me right. I’m here to say goodbye. To you. To this office. To the girl I was when I worked here.” I look around. The oil paintings on the walls, the Persian rug, the minibar with the crystal glass set.
Richard leans back in his chair. His hands grip the armrests. I know this posture—it’s his negotiating position. The businessman is taking over, even if the father is currently on the floor.
“You don’t know what that man did to you,” he says. His voice is firmer now. “Mercer is a criminal, Riley. He kidnapped you. He held you under duress. Everything he told you is—”
“The truth,” I say. “He told me the truth. For the first time in my life.”
Richard leans forward, reaches for something on his desk, and turns a flat-screen monitor toward me. His finger presses a key.
The image flickers to life, showing security camera footage. Black and white, grainy, with a timestamp in the bottom right corner. I recognize the place instantly—the Chapel of Eternal Love. The red carpet, the plastic flowers, Elvis in his sequined suit.
And there, in the center of the frame, I stand in my wrinkled green evening gown, the white feather boa wrapped crookedly around my head, heart-shaped sunglasses on my nose. I sway slightly as I sign the documents.
“Look at what he did to you,” Richard says in his warmest voice. The father-voice that says: I’m protecting you.
“You were drunk. You didn't know what you were signing. He exploited and manipulated you the whole time just to get to me.”
I look at the video, and the longer I watch, the more I realize my father is gaining hope.
He thinks this video is his trump card. His proof that Vaughn is the villain and he is the concerned father. He believes I’ll see these images and come home.
“Yes,” I say.
His eyes light up.
“Yes, Vaughn manipulated me.” I look away from the monitor and directly into Richard’s face.
“He got me drunk. He gave me a fake name. He married me to put pressure on you. He smuggled a postnuptial agreement into the paperwork that I signed blindly. He put me in a car and dragged me into the desert.”
Richard nods, looking relieved. He thinks I’m on his side.
“Just like you,” I say.
The nodding stops.
“You manipulated me too, Richard. Only not for one night, but for twenty-seven years. You told me the world out there was dangerous so I would live by your rules. You drove away my friends so I’d be alone. You gave me no space to live my own life. And the worst part is: you told me that was love.”
“It was love. It is love. I—”
“The difference between you and Vaughn,” I say, and my voice is so calm it surprises even me, “is that he told me the truth. He told me what he did and why. He showed me proof. He gave me the choice to leave.” I pause. “You never gave me a choice.”
Richard stares at me. His mouth opens and closes, but one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas searches for words and finds none.
I take a deep breath. Now comes the part I’m afraid of. The part that will hurt—not him, but me.
“I know I’m adopted.”
The air in the room freezes.
“I know everything,” I say. “Howard and Loraine Thompson. The debt, the blackmail, the conditions. I know you forced them to give up their child. I know you forbade them from ever looking for me. And I know Emilia couldn't have children and that you wanted a baby that belonged to you.”
“Riley, that isn't—”
“I was with them. I was in Oregon, in their house, at their kitchen table.
Loraine made me sandwiches and Howard showed me the wooden bench he built himself.
They lit a candle every year on my birthday.
Twenty-seven candles, Richard. For twenty-seven years, they thought of me, while you told me my grandparents were bad people and I shouldn't have contact with them.”
He lowers his head, his shoulders shaking. Richard Blackstone is crying. Silently, almost invisibly, but he is crying.
“Emilia loved you,” he says. His voice is barely more than a whisper. “When she held you for the first time, she said: This is my daughter. From that moment on, she was happy. For the first time in years.”
I feel my own eyes burn. Not because of him, but because of Emilia. Because of the woman who raised me and loved me, in her way, as best as she could.
“I know Emilia loved me,” I say. “And I loved her. That doesn't change. But it doesn't excuse what you did to other people. Whether it was the Thompsons, the Mercers, or me.”
When he lifts his head and looks at me, for the first time in my life, I don't see a businessman. Not the great casino mogul, but an old, tired man who is losing everything and knows he caused it himself.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks.
“I want you to call back Dominic Cross. Now. Permanently.”
“That’s already—”
“I want you to honor the contract. No contact, no investigations, no attempts to bring me back.”
“Riley—”
“And I want you to know that I don’t hate you.
” My voice drops. “You were my father for twenty-seven years. You taught me to ride a bike. You taught me to code. You sang every year on my birthday even though you can’t sing.
” A sad smile. “I don’t hate you. But I can't stay with you. Not anymore. Not after everything I know.”
“You’re my girl,” he says. It’s a plea.
“I’m nobody’s girl,” I say. “I am Riley Thompson. And from now on, I decide what to do with my life.”
In that moment, my stomach flips.
It comes suddenly and without warning. A wave of nausea rising from my core and lodging in my esophagus. My mouth fills with saliva. My face turns hot, then cold. I press my hand over my mouth and turn aside.
“Riley?” Richard stands up. “What is—”
“I need the bathroom,” I choke out, running to a door on the side wall. I burst in, fall to my knees before the toilet, and vomit until my stomach is completely empty.
I kneel on the marble floor, gripping the rim of the basin, my body trembling. My stomach cramps a second time, but there’s nothing left.
When I stand up, rinse my mouth, and head back to the door, Richard is standing in the middle of the office.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is a whisper. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
“I know,” I say.
Then I open the door and walk out.
Vaughn is in the hallway. Exactly where I left him. Three meters from the door, hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on my face. Griffin is beside him, briefcase under his arm. Cross is gone.
Vaughn sees me. He sees my pale face, my trembling hands, the moisture on my forehead.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Let’s go.”
I grab his hand and pull him toward the elevator. We walk through the casino, past table seven, past the bar, past the slot machines and the tourists and all the glittering, lying pomp.
I don’t look back.