1. Adrian
Adrian
“Iwill not fuck around with this. Do not test what power can do, even in the face of supposedly good journalism.”
But that was nothing compared to the chill I wished to impart to the editor-in-chief of the Las Vegas Times.
“You understand, Mr. Vale, that what we write about the Morrils must be based in fact,” the man on the other line said.
Eric Smith, I think his name was. What a fucking boring name.
He was more difficult to control than most, but I’d find an angle.
It might take some time, but I would. “We can get sued for things called libel and slander.”
“I’m not a fucking moron. Do you think we got to where we were because we’re a bunch of dumbasses?”
Behind me, I heard the door to my office open.
I swiveled in my seat; Dante and Lucas were arriving.
Not Cassius, as usual. One, the fucker rarely came to our offices despite being in the same building, in fact only a few stories lower than him.
Two, the asshole was probably too busy playing the “I love you” game more with Sarah. Ugh, fucking hell.
“I do not doubt that you are very smart young men. I just think—”
“You want to cover tonight’s Allure charity auction, right?
” I said. I only brought out leverage if I had to; frankly, most people were so afraid of the implied threat of a lawsuit or good ol’ fashioned intimidation from Dante that they stepped down quickly.
I was just as ruthless as Dante, but I preferred to do things aboveboard.
Plenty of people might say I was an asshole, but no one could say I was sloppy.
“Yes, we have a credential already for that.”
“And who do you think is capable of pulling that credential?” I said.
The silence at the end of the line was immensely satisfying.
Fuck, it was almost better than sex, that moment when you realized you’d gotten the upper hand on someone.
“You know what, I’ll even strike a deal with you, because I’m a nice guy.
Have whoever is coming tonight write a nice piece about our family.
I’m sure you won’t have to work hard to find some good angles. ”
“I—”
“But it has to be nice, understand? I want anyone reading it to be so clear about which family is running Vegas the best that no one would ever want to utter the name ‘Morril.’ Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Well, Mr. Vale, tonight’s auction is to raise funds for youth artists, so I would imagine—”
“There’s nothing to imagine, Editor,” I said.
Like I said, an asshole, but not sloppy; calling someone the wrong name had a strange way of making people act irrationally.
An irrational blackjack dealer might annoy you; an irrational editor could publish bad pieces.
That didn’t mean he had power; we had me, Lucas, and Dante, that was power enough.
We just weren’t stupid.
“Do what has to be done,” I said. “I have to go. If you need anything, pass it on through your journalist tonight. I’ll see them at the auction.”
I disconnected the call and stood up. Dante had his arms folded and his sleeves rolled up; when he did this, the tattoos on his arms were visible.
He was smart enough not to do that in meetings with politicians, but he liked to do it around the office, just a gentle way to let our employees know that if they treated us well with good work, we’d treat them well. If they fucked with us…
Would you fuck with a man like Dante? The only ones who should say yes to that were the three of us.
Lucas was the most unassuming of all of us, but that only meant he had tricks up his sleeve.
Lucas was the one who could most easily pass for “Average Joe” while pumping gas.
Of course, he was a very handsome and well-dressed “Average Joe,” but he liked to lie low, the better to plan a massive surprise of some kind.
Lucas, in many ways, was responsible for negotiating an incredible deal on property taxes here; as simple as it was, he had collected some damning info on the Vegas official we were negotiating with simply by trailing him like a PI would.
“What?” I said simply.
“You know how the Morrils started out with the pussy shit article about Sarah?” Lucas said.
I nodded; how could any of us forget? It had been so bad, so mediocre, we’d shared bourbon at Cassius’ penthouse and mocked it out loud.
“Well, seems like they figured out they’re not going to win that battle. ”
“What a fucking shock,” I said. “I almost wonder why I’m playing this game. I suppose it’s a deterrent, but whatever. Anyway, I’m going to guess that’s not why you came in here.”
“No, it’s not,” Dante said. “It seems like they’re trying to go straight for us as a family. The rumors I’ve heard are that they’re trying to paint our family as a bunch of alcoholic sociopaths. Including our parents. Including Virgil.”
The first few sentences meant nothing to me.
Alcoholic sociopaths? Compared to some of the shit I’d heard that I supposedly shouldn’t have or even some of the shit said to my face, that was a downright compliment.
Our parents were dead, we loved them, and we’d fight someone if they talked dirty about them.
But they had taught us to let shit slide off, and at the end of the day they wouldn’t have cared.
But Virgil?
They were going to try to paint fucking Virgil as an alcoholic sociopath?
That would be a fucking step too far. Call us assholes, call us evil, call us everything wrong with America… we didn’t give a fuck. But there was ruthless, there was morally gray, and there was downright evil.
I understood that being a billionaire meant making envious enemies and having to fight bullshit. Fine. But to go after our brother meant a fucking war. This was going to escalate past mere press fluff one way or another.
“We will keep an eye on things,” I said. I was deliberately speaking less than I felt, but my tone of voice gave away how I felt . “Should the Morrils decide to pursue this path, Dante, Lucas, I trust that you two will know how to make them suffer. To really fucking suffer as we did.”
“Of course,” Lucas said. “You just ought to know what’s coming.”
I nodded and shrugged.
“Well, that’s one way to end a fucking workday,” I said. “But for now, I think it’s time we get ready for tonight, don’t you?”
Allure.
I had been the one to pick the name of our art gallery out. I wanted something that could have multiple meanings, that could be both a subject and a verb, and something that both spoke to art and, frankly, represented me. Of all the Vale brothers, I dressed the best and presented the best.
It’s not that the others didn’t know how to dress well. But a lot of that had to do with hired help. They didn’t have the instinct for it.
I did. I knew how to be flashy without being ostentatious or stupid; I knew how to present wealth without becoming crass.
Allure felt like the perfect name to describe the kind of guy I was; someone who would draw eyes, someone you could not take your attention off of, but not someone unnecessarily gaudy or trying too hard.
With Lucas and Dante by my side, I walked to the entrance, fully aware that cameras would snap photos of us. As we got closer and the cameras perked up, I put my hand to my tie, as if adjusting.
But really, they needed to capture my signature diamond cufflinks; made of real, authentic diamonds, imported from South Africa, this was the kind of shit you could only get with true money. You weren’t going to fucking Jared’s or Kay Jeweler’s and getting this good stuff.
I walked into the gallery, ignoring the questions. I didn’t need to call attention to us; I just needed the good photos to be captured. At some point, I’d do interviews. But first, I needed to give the impression it would happen on my time.
“Where’s Cassius?” I asked as we entered.
“He hasn’t arrived yet,” Lucas said. “He said something about coming later in the evening.”
“Of course,” I said with a sigh. If I were to give my brother the benefit of the doubt, I’d say that he was just arriving fashionably late. If—
“Adrian Vale?”
A woman’s voice broke through my thoughts, piercing the conversation between me and my brothers. I found the source of the voice immediately, and…
Holy shit.
I had seen many attractive women in my life, but there were few that reached that special tier of beauty, the kind that almost made me want to consider them my Queen of Diamonds.
Not in the literal sense; I was never getting married, never settling down with one woman.
But some just had that appearance and that magnetic charm that almost made me briefly question if I wanted to change my life trajectory.
Whoever this was, she was one of them.
She had a bronzed skin color that suggested either Hispanic or Mediterranean descent; I always had a thing for foreign girls, or at least girls of that heritage.
Trite as it might have been, there was something exotic about that, and it was even more rewarding that I usually got to fuck them.
She had perfectly curly black hair, piercing brown eyes, and a small but very confident smile that said she would get what she wanted.
If anything, I admired the chutzpah of someone willing to break up a conversation between the three of us. A nice rack, propped up by a nice green dress, made things a bit more forgiving.
“Can I help you?” I said. “Because I’d sure like to.”
“Charming, and yes, you can, but probably not in the way you wish,” she said. “My name is Delilah Reyes. I am a reporter for the Las Vegas Times. Can I speak to you on the record about tonight’s charity?”
I smiled at her, staring her down, trying to get her to flinch.
I had a certain smile I pulled out when I saw a woman I wanted to fuck; for ninety percent of women, they all but said yes in that moment; another nine percent said yes shortly after; and one percent had no fucking idea what they were missing out on.
“Nice smile, but it has not answered my question.”
“We will get to you when the time is appropriate, journalist,” Dante interjected. “In the meantime—”
“The time is appropriate,” I said. Perhaps I was a little too captivated for my own good, but I trusted I could keep my wits about me.
I’d encountered plenty of immensely attractive journalists that, ultimately, I’d never gotten to bed.
That was fine; I’d also encountered plenty I had.
The ones who weren’t going to fuck me, I picked up on quick enough.
I was polite enough, but as closed up as a delivery box at that point.
“Thank you. Lucas, Dante, if you don’t mind? I will speak to you both when I am done.”
Wow.
This girl really had some confidence. I knew that a trademark of any good journalist was a certain source of fearlessness, of willingness to confront the powerful and the corrupt with questions so blunt they’d make a police officer squirm, but even this was unusual.
Most might get me alone, but most would at least wait for the three of us to finish talking.
“Go on,” I said. “See if you can get Cassius down here faster. Man’s turned into a whipped slave at this rate.”
Delilah gave me a dirty scowl for that comment; was it offensive in some fashion? Ah, well. We’d find out soon enough if she was someone to be reckoned with.
“So, Delilah,” I said, pronouncing her name slowly, tasting it in my mouth. Fuck, it was good. “What are you here for?”
“I’m working on a column about Las Vegas society,” she said as we moved past several patrons. “Your family is rapidly becoming a major part of the Vegas universe. It felt appropriate to interview you here, when much of Vegas comes to you.”
“Indeed,” I began, “I would have you know that—”
“But before we get started, I really need to ask you something off the record, away from everyone. Now.”
Now? Now.
OK, fine. I was curious. This woman was either stupid or incredibly brave; it strangely made her even more attractive.
It was not sexually invigorating to fuck someone who did everything you said to; there had to be a little push and pull.
And fuck, if this Delilah was as confident in her job as she seemed, how good would she be in bed?
OK, more than fine. I’d play Delilah’s game. I had a feeling that when I finally did fuck her, I might be in a sexual coma for a day or two. Hispanic and Mediterranean women did have a way of fucking like their life depended on it.
We moved to a corner of the auction that was not particularly crowded. We were still in view of anyone who cared to look, but no one would hear us.
“What the hell have you done with Eric?” she said.
“Who?”
“My boss. You said that I could only come if I wrote something nice about your family? You understand one, I’d find my way in here if I really wanted to.
And two, that’s not how I work. I report the truth, and I sure as hell don’t work in trade.
If you want us to write a good, flattering story about you all, I need to learn the truth. So knock it off.”
I laughed. I actually fucking laughed.
But Delilah did not, and as I realized she was serious, I shifted too. I kept my smile. But Delilah needed to know how I operated.
“That makes you a good journalist,” I said, “but something you should know, Delilah. My family runs this town. We control it. I control the media narrative. You might be able to publish one column that undermines us, and it wouldn’t be fun for us.
But we have access to larger resources. We can play a larger game. ”
And then, just for good measure—both because I wanted to smell her perfume and to send a message—I leaned forward just by her ear.
“And with me? If you push me? I will control you, Delilah.”