Chapter 1 #2
I didn’t need to tell Ellie to leave. Like I said, she knew Cassius the billionaire well enough. She knew when I had enough.
Aside from my brothers, only one other knew Cassius the man. And… that woman… if I ever fucking saw her again…
“One last thing,” Ellie said. “You asked for a guest list of the women at the grand opening tonight.”
“You did?” Dante said, a bemused smirk on his face. I wanted to smack that off his face.
“Yes, I did, Dante,” I said with a sneer. “Call me curious. I like to know what I’m walking into. Don’t forget the time Adrian got ambushed by an undercover reporter. Or need I mention the time you got caught by an undercover cop?”
Dante folded his arms and squeezed his ribs. He wouldn’t strike me in front of Ellie; unfortunately, he knew I wouldn’t smack him in front of her either. You could say she kept family professional when it needed to be.
“Here you are, Mr. Vale,” Ellie said, handing me the list. As soon as she did, she left the room and shut the door.
“You’re never one to care who attends an event,” Dante said, but I ignored him. One, that wasn’t entirely true, and two, it was only true for events where I knew there was zero chance a certain someone would show up.
But I knew that a certain someone was from Las Vegas. I knew a certain someone wouldn’t be able to stay away from this town forever, especially with the Black Reaper-King’s Men chaos having wound down.
And I strongly suspected a certain someone wouldn’t be able to stay away from my presence.
I scanned the list. Actually, that was false; I skipped down the list, all the way down to the last names beginning with “C.” The rest, Dante was right about. I didn’t give a shit if an A-list actress or a famous porn star showed up anymore than I cared if my next door neighbor’s cousin showed up.
Sasha Carter.
I laughed.
“The fuck’s so funny?”
Sasha Carter?
No.
Sarah Carpenter.
The woman who always found a way to worm her way into my fucking thoughts. The woman who had been mine and mine alone two decades ago.
The woman who fucked everything up and had to flee before I became the monster she knew I could be.
Just two months later, when you got my brother in a car…
Sirens. Flashing lights.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vale, but your brother did not make it.”
“Cassius?”
“How the fuck can he not make it? Who the fuck was driving?”
“We have to do an investigation, Cassius. Your brother was the only one here.”
“He did not fucking drive. No, I know. I know. I know who fucking crashed this car.”
“Cassius! Hey!”
I shook out of my thoughts as Dante grabbed my shoulder. He relaxed when I looked into his eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking of, brother,” Dante said, his voice deep but subdued. “I keep telling you, best thing you can do—”
“Is forget it, I know,” I said. Of all of us, I had the hardest time. My little brother, Virgil, was the one I was closest to. Why? Who fucking knows.
But now that the driver of that car was back in town…
It was time for payback. Time to make her suffer for what she did. Time to get her under my grip, to show her pain, to show her who was in charge of her life. And it would not be her.
“I will be going to the gala tonight, Dante,” I said. “I have business to attend to.”
“You?” Dante said. “What’s really going on, Cassius? We have managers to take care of this kind of shit. Art galleries aren’t your thing.”
“Not usually, but is this not the Allure? Do we not want to send a strong message about how nothing else in Vegas will compare to what’s there?”
Dante pursed his lips. I snickered.
“Of course, you’re welcome to keep banging your head against a wall with Prince and Crush. Or, maybe you’ll be smart and go to Phoenix or California. Maybe the real Carters will be more receptive to you.”
“The real Carters?”
“Never mind that. Do with your evening as you wish. I will do with mine as I wish.”
Dante chuckled, shrugged, said, “Whatever the fuck you want, Cassius,” and then left the room. At least his visit hadn’t been a total waste. Five years, no tax burdens? Not bad, even if I wanted him to get six.
But that was the last thing on my mind right now.
Sarah Carpenter.
That was the first thing on my mind. I could fight it, but there was no fucking reason to. I’d fought her in my mind for two decades, and nothing I did worked.
But fate had a funny way of working, didn’t it?
I went to my desk and looked up Sarah Carpenter. It took a few more tools than Google, but luckily, being a billionaire had its perks. The picture painted was an interesting one.
First of all, no matter how much I hated her guts, she was quite beautiful.
Gorgeous dirty blonde hair, a smile that overtook my good senses, and piercing green eyes that worked just as well as the green in my bank account in getting people to do what we wanted.
She dressed in a manner that said she knew what she had, yet had standards well above a Vegas groupie or hooker.
If she was just Sarah, no last name, no history, I might have fucked her just for the bliss of that body.
Of course, she was more than that.
The second thing was her career path. She seemed to be a traveling artist, someone who hawked her paintings. And damn if her paintings weren’t just as stunning as that body of hers.
No, more than that. Powerful. Raw. Broken, even.
Like…
I chuckled.
Shame I’d have to crush her for coming back. Shame I’d have to show her vengeance for what she did to me and my family. Shame.
You shouldn’t have come back, Sarah.
But since you did, you’ll never go anywhere else.