Chapter 15 Adrian
Adrian
“An interesting question,” I said.
I actually had figured this topic was going to come up at some point.
When we realized the Morrils would wage a PR war against us—better than an actual war, something we couldn’t discount in the long run, especially as more and more men in Black Reapers jackets appeared in the city—we listed out every past event they could use as blackmail against us.
Not every item had to be actual blackmail, but every item could be twisted to make us look bad.
Virgil’s death was one of them. The purchase of the Hilliard Entertainment Corporation, the one Delilah had just referenced, was one of them. And there were others that had more to do with my brothers than me, though an attack on one of us was an attack on all of us.
“I’m going to give you the honest answer, and whether or not you believe it is up to you. You’ll get different perspectives from whoever fed you this, obviously.”
“I’m aware,” Delilah said. “You don’t need to tell me how to do my job.”
I chuckled. Right, of course. Delilah looked a little firmer after she said that, as if she’d needed to regain her footing. Reasonable, I supposed. I still had plans beyond this. No need to blow it up so early.
“Something that goes without saying, Delilah, is that the diamond trade, the diamond business as it were, is a ruthless one,” I said.
“When our youngest brother was killed, we all vowed we would pursue our ambitions without hesitation and without fear of failure.
After all, there was no worse fate than what happened to Virgil.
If we failed in trying to build the strongest casino empire in Vegas, who gave a shit?
A business failure was nothing compared to the loss we felt.
“In any case, Cassius, as the oldest, became the mastermind of sorts. Dante became the strongman, and Lucas became the plotter. But the task of making us look good, of charming those we might eventually overtake and negotiate with, fell to me. That meant that as we grew, the smaller casinos that might have threatened us became targets for acquisition or, failing that, targets for destruction. But something interesting happened with the Hilliard Corporation and Aces Up Casino.”
I didn’t think I’d shared this story with anyone before. Certainly, no journalists. My brothers knew the story, but they mostly knew it as a series of facts and events. They’d never known it as a narrative, or at least never had it framed for them as such.
“If you would,” I said, pausing for a second. “Turn off the recorder for a second. I want to tell this story off the record before I tell it on.”
Delilah hesitated but did turn it off. I figured she knew I would tell it on the record; I just didn’t want my first time sharing it to be with someone who affected me the way she did.
“See, most families in Vegas are like us,” I said.
“I could sit here and bullshit you about valuing our employees, doing good for the community, blah blah blah. You know what’s good for the community?
Maximizing our profit by creating the most extravagant experience while also only paying what we have to, not what we can.
I know, it’s terrible to say, and if our employees heard it, they’d raise a fit.
Maybe even understandably. But we didn’t get to the top by playing nice.
Neither did any of the other families, the Morrils included.
“But there was one notable exception. The Hilliard family.”
I took a second to think about how to present this. No bullshit, just the truth.
“They owned Aces Up Casino on the north side of town, not quite where we are but more out in Henderson,” I said.
“A lot of our employees, after being with us for a couple of years, would go over there. Unlike us, they paid their employees extremely well. They didn’t have ambitions of expanding beyond Aces Up.
The Hilliards had actually owned the casino since, well, since Vegas was ever a thing.
I looked at it and came to a conclusion that I never had before.
We would never win a PR battle with them. ”
I laughed. How about that for a twist? The King of Diamonds, admitting that in the past, he’d encountered a diamond he knew he could never scavenge.
“A family-owned business? With strong employee morale? And a long-standing history? I knew a losing battle when I saw one. But then I used the other part of my title. CFO. I dug a little deeper. And to no one’s surprise, it was a company that was in serious trouble.”
“Was it?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “As time goes on, no one wants to go off Strip. Everyone complains about prices, but everyone wants to be where the show is. Aces Up was a relic of the past, frankly. They were an entity headed for bankruptcy one way or another. We offered to buy them, yes, at a discounted price pre-bankruptcy, but we saw the writing on the wall. They refused. And, within six months, they were bankrupt.”
I shrugged.
“Now, this is the part where I surprise you and say we bid above market value at the time for the casino. This led some, who saw the sequence of events, to accuse me of using underhanded maneuvers to try to tank the business. And I’m not a saint.
Let’s be clear. If I had seen an opportunity to undermine them to purchase them, yes, I probably would have.
But the reality is, it was a business past its time, giving us an opportunity after the fact. ”
I leaned back and my chair and held up my hands, as if to say that was it. And it was.
“So…” Delilah said. “You mean to tell me that you acted out of the goodness of your heart?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I said with a laugh. “Remember, your recorder isn’t on. This is just for context as you do reporting.”
“Right,” Delilah said. She was off her game. Perfect. That gave me the opportunity if I wanted it.
“What I am saying is that just because we’re ruthless assholes doesn’t mean we are evil capitalist ruthless assholes,” I said. “Sometimes, even us ruthless assholes are capable of being surprisingly protective and embracing heroes.”
Delilah nodded. She still seemed off a bit, as if she didn’t quite believe it.
And that’s when the confluence of her state of mind, my desire, and the topic at hand gave me an idea I could finally seize on to give us the best of everything.
The privacy I wanted.
The semi-public atmosphere Delilah wanted.
The complete stripping of bullshit both of us wanted.
“Allow me to show you,” I said. “I’ll drive.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, allow me to show you, as in, show you Aces Up Casino, and I will drive.”
Delilah’s jaw dropped. She grabbed her recorder, moving so slowly I genuinely wasn’t sure which way she would go.
“Don’t you have drivers?” she said. “Sarah said Cassius never went anywhere without having someone to drive him.”
“Of course,” I said. “Hiring a driver is the best way to buy back more of our time. But sometimes, driving is the most personal thing you can do for someone. And besides, it’s also the only way to ensure I can be as frank as I can be.”
“Meaning?”
“People talk, Delilah,” I said. “And most often, if it’s not your rivals talking, it’s your staff. Your driver. Your butler. Your cleaning staff. You want me to be honest, with no bullshit? I can only do that if it’s just you. Have the public setting but the truly private conversation.”
Delilah bowed her head in thought for a few moments before she nodded. A part of me almost let my smile go in full; Aces Up definitely would not be where anyone, biker or Morril, would expect us. We’d have privacy.
And if I showed her a hotel room?
I didn’t think I’d be able to restrain myself if we got to that point.
“Come,” I said, “I have a Lambo outside. I’ll drive us.”
“A Lambo?”
“A Lamborghini Aventador. You don’t think I’d drive a Honda Accord, do you?”
Delilah laughed, a laugh that was way too hard for the moment.
But she stood up from the coffee table, taking her blonde espresso with her and following me outside.
It only occurred to me then that she had not made any comment about the car when she walked in; that told me either she just assumed it was mine or had been so narrow-minded on coming in here she hadn’t even seen it.
The silver Lambo awaited us near the back, away from where any asshole might ding it or run into it. I opened the passenger-side door, almost feeling like a valet, and let Delilah in. Most of what I did was deliberate, but this just felt polite.
Like I said, I could be a ruthless asshole, but… fuck, it was like Cassius said. There was a difference between being a king and being an asshole.
I got in, turned the car on, and felt the engine powering on beneath me.
“Not bad, huh?” I said with a smirk.
“Not at all,” Delilah said.
“It doesn’t quite get the loins going like a motorcycle, but it can still excite.”
Delilah narrowed her eyes and shot me a warning look, as if to say, “Don’t push your luck.” Fair enough, though I still chuckled. I was still in charge here.
I drove out of the Bean Exchange lot, gunning the engine as soon as we hit the road. I knew how to get to Aces Up without a map, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as Delilah tried not to look impressed with the vehicle. She surely had to have gotten in other high-end cars before, I thought.
Or maybe she hadn’t.
Maybe this had been a boundary that she had set for herself that she’d just broken through. One of many yet to come, I thought.
I had many opportunities in the car to touch her, to hint at her, to gradually move my touches up and forward. But though I hinted at touching her, I never actually did. Two simple reasons.
One, car sex just sucked. Even if we started passionately making out after a gentle brush of the cheek or, even better, the thigh, a Lamborghini Aventador was not the type of car you fucked in.
And two, happily as a result of that, the tension only built further.
It was built on my terms, and not touching her while almost touching her allowed her to feel even less in control.
I had to remind myself a few times that this was the ultimate goal, to have Delilah under me as I fucked her.
Not to date her. Not to give an interview.
No matter how strangely enjoyable it felt or how my mind wandered from time to time.
After about twelve long, tense minutes of driving, I pulled up to the valet of Aces Up.
The casino was a relatively simple and, frankly, outdated design; it had a black-and-white color scheme, like that of a playing card.
That made it unique to some of the bolder neon colors of the Strip, but it was also cheaper.
Off-Strip casinos didn’t require the same glitz and flash that Strip ones did, but still, coming from Ruby made this feel like a drag.
But I hadn’t brought Delilah here to show her the design of the place.
I came around, offered her a hand, and lifted her out of my Lambo as the valet took the car.
I walked over to the front desk, announced myself as Adrian Vale, and received a key to the top-floor luxury suite, no questions asked.
Call it the perk of owning the entire casino; I didn’t need to go through a bunch of hoops to get the best room in the casino. I just had to say who I was.
“Notice,” I said, placing my hand on the small of her back. “The employees still here. The locals still here. The specials still running. The restaurants found nowhere else. Would this be a mark of a casino baron stripping the place for parts? Or is this something else?”
Delilah said nothing, taking it all in. I almost stepped to the side, letting her take it all in, but then I decided to do something else.
I decided to put some pressure on.
I decided to make Delilah into my diamond.
“Come,” I said, “let me show you the rooms. Let me show you the view the King of Diamonds gets.”