Chapter 19 Cassius
CASSIUS
Iwoke up on Black Friday alone.
A golden hue from the rising sun began to cast over Las Vegas Boulevard.
As I stood at the glass windows of the penthouse of Ruby, I watched as the lucky ones of the town scattered about.
Tourists who were married poured their money into gifts for their wives.
The single ones were sharing tales and laughs about the night before, even if over hangovers.
I sipped on a glass of water as I took it all in, wondering how the fuck I’d spend the rest of the day.
My seemingly perfect relationship had fallen apart because I had decided to tell the truth—no, because I had decided to pursue something I’d ultimately had to tell the truth on.
I could have easily moved on, told myself I’d let myself get too deep with Sarah, and fucked someone else.
But while that might answer who I’d fuck tonight, it wouldn’t answer the deeper questions within.
The last time I’d had this feeling, I was mere hours from seeing Sarah Carpenter for the first time in years, yet strangely, I hadn’t realized what that feeling was at the time.
Turns out, when you’re a broken man, you don’t always recognize if you’re broken.
I sure didn’t. You think you’re just a tough ass, a man who has accomplished so much because of your money and your status.
Don’t get me wrong, I was still the fucking King of Hearts, and I still intended to conquer the Las Vegas Strip and destroy the Morril family.
But I now recognized that my attempts to break Sarah were for vengeance on something that I could never get vengeance for.
I wanted her to feel the pain that I had felt when Virgil died, but that would not have given me the peace I’d sought for over a decade.
It certainly wouldn’t bring Virgil back from the dead.
Ironic, I thought. As a billionaire, I thought that there was no problem a bit of money and a dollop of power couldn’t solve. That was largely true, but there was a massive gulf between “largely” and “entirely.” Realizing that was one fucking painful way to start a holiday weekend.
So what was I to do?
Just live with the fact that Virgil was dead? Accept that he was gone, not fight it, not try to get vengeance? The man who had actually killed Virgil was still serving a life sentence without parole; justice had been very well served in that regard.
So…
Yes.
It sure as fuck seemed that way.
Instead of trying to dominate the darkness of my heart, instead of trying to leverage it to become as rich and powerful as I ever could, I had to face it, accept it, acknowledge it, and maybe even embrace it.
Fuck.
That sounded both incredibly stupid and also just perfectly right.
A part of me almost didn’t see the point. Sarah was gone. I had no reason to do it. Other women didn’t know this about me, and if they did, they’d be so enamored with my bank account and my penthouse they’d turn a blind eye.
Which…
Didn’t that make it all the more reason to look inward?
Fate was highly unlikely to give me a third chance with Sarah Carpenter.
Yet who else was there who would look past Cassius Vale, the billionaire, and see Cassius Vale, the man?
Maybe other wealthy women, but they might suffer from the same headaches as I did.
Fuck. I was ruminating too much up here. I needed to go away. I—
My phone buzzed on a desk outside my bedroom.
Curious. It was still not even eight a.m. yet; it wasn’t unusual for me to be up at this hour, but everyone had very clear orders not to call me until ten a.m. at the earliest unless absolutely necessary.
I liked to ease into my mornings and do work I needed to do alone without distraction, and only about four people would even merit looking at the phone before ten a.m. My three brothers and my head of security.
Still, with no real work to do—outside of the aforementioned nebulous goals—and welcoming a distraction from my mind, I stepped outside my room wearing nothing but my boxers and a bathrobe and grabbed my phone.
It was Dante. I felt a lump in my throat.
Of all my brothers, Dante was the least likely one to call me before ten a.m.; I’d had to remind Adrian and Lucas of my rules a few different times.
“It’s fucking early to be calling,” I said upon picking up the phone, hoping that would encourage Dante to get to the point.
“Where’s Sarah?”
“Not with me,” I said as my grip on the phone tightened.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Probably in her hotel room. Why the fuck are you asking me? Are you going to leak some shit to the press?”
“Dude, calm down. You know nothing ever leaves the conversation between us.”
I took a breath in. Dante was absolutely right. If journalists or even the police heard half of the bantered ideas we knew we’d never execute on but made cold jokes about, there was a decent chance we’d be vilified for life and possibly in jail.
“I’m asking, Cassius, because I’ve gotten word that she’s become a target.”
I froze. Dante almost certainly did not mean a target for a job.
“Go on.”
“Through some connections, we know that we have enemies in this city just by virtue of being the fastest risers on the Strip. People know about you and Sarah. They know that if they can’t hurt you, they can try to hurt those around you.”
“What the fuck does ‘hurt’ mean here, Dante? Do I have to worry about a fucking hit job on Sarah?”
“Brother, I honestly have no idea.”
Fuck. I could feel my face getting sweaty and my heart thudding in my chest. I had tried to stay above violence so much, outside of trying to corral groups that might have ties to occasionally being violent.
But now… when what was at risk was not casino property or even personal property but a person…
“The source I talked to said he was kept in the dark as much as anyone, but that they have plans to make us suffer. Slowly at first, they said, and then gradually.”
“Who the fuck is your source?”
“Someone who works for one of the casinos the Morrils own,” Dante said.
“But Cassius. I know it’s easy to jump to that family as the ones responsible.
I’ve learned long enough that everyone has eyes and ears everywhere.
Fuck, we have some of our best employees at other casinos just so we can get secrets.
This man may very well be a mouthpiece for the Morrils.
But I’d be less concerned with who was causing it than with how we can protect Sarah. ”
Be that as it may, I was just as happy to blame the Morrils as anything. Leo, especially, needed a fucking comeuppance for how he treated Sarah at the New York City gala. If I couldn’t slap him in public, maybe bringing in some help to grab him by the balls would do some good.
“And how would you protect Sarah?” I said, trying to remain on topic.
“Well, I think you know the answer,” Dante said. “But Cassius. I don’t think this is something you can outsource to others. I don’t even think me doing it is good enough. I think you, as the CEO of this whole enterprise and the oldest Vale in the group, need to be the one to reach out.”
Indeed, I did know exactly what the answer was. It was one I’d wanted for some time, but to Dante’s point, had always put in his or intermediaries’ hands to get done. I’d never gotten my hands bloody, or in this case, even in the vicinity of blood.
That needed to change. If it meant the difference between Sarah getting hit for reasons she didn’t deserve and Sarah being protected—even if I never saw her again, even if she cursed my name in public, even if she spat on my grave when it was all said and done—then yes, I was more than willing to get involved.
“I’m going to make some phone calls,” I growled. “Dante, continue finding out what you can, and get whatever help you need. I will get involved, but that doesn’t mean you or our security team can rest on their laurels.”
“You know who to start with?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll call you in a few hours to see how things are going.”
We quickly hung up after that, and I wasted no time heading to my office.
I had a few unused burner phones, ones that I only intended to break out in case of a professional or personal emergency like this.
There was never a reason to engage in seedy territory, even unofficially, when official means of money and power did the trick.
But call it my second lesson of the day, the first being what Sarah’s departure had taught me. When two powerful men squared off and money and strength were equal, apparently, one needed to bring in a different kind of weapon. Some might call it below the belt, some might call it unfair.
Who fucking cared? Sarah’s life might be on the line, and down the road, mine might be too. I wasn’t going to gamble on social niceties helping along the way.
I pulled out one of the burner phones and then unlocked another cabinet.
This cabinet had certain cell phone numbers written by hand, numbers of other powerful and violent people I could call in a pinch.
The thing about handwritten numbers was they could easily be burned or shredded; emails or computer documents that got deleted tended to leave painful trails that had befallen many of my fellow billionaires.
It might have been old school, but there was a reason in the old school, the mafia ran Las Vegas with almost no issues from the feds.
I found the number I was looking for, grabbed a burner phone, and hesitated for only a moment. When I crossed this bridge, there was no going back. I might win a short-term battle to protect Sarah, but others would see what I had reached for and might try to do the same.
What was Sarah worth?
Everything.
I dialed the number. The ringtone began. Then it stopped. I heard what sounded like a phone being moved and then heard the voice I wanted to hear.
“Hello?” the gruff voice on the other end of the line said. Not accusingly, but not welcoming, either.
“Prince, it’s the King of Hearts.”
A very, very long pause came. So long, in fact, I wondered if Prince had put the phone down and walked away, simply to let me hang up eventually. The only reason I knew he actually hadn’t was I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.
“The fuck do you want?”
I had to pick my words carefully. I knew trying to play the “billionaire buying the boys” approach would go terribly, but so too would a meek entreaty for help.
“A meeting with you and anyone else in the Black Reapers you want to bring,” I said, hoping that was enough to appease him. “I will come alone. But I want to speak to you.”
An even longer pause came. If this was part of Prince’s strategy, well, it had me on fucking pins and needles. I wasn’t used to waiting on other people. At least I hadn’t gotten hung up on immediately.
“And why the fuck would we give you that?”
“Because it’s not for me,” I said. “It’s for her.”
I didn’t bother to elaborate on “her.” That could’ve been referring to Sarah Carpenter or the First Lady of the United States. I was only hoping that appealing to the need to protect a woman of importance would reach Prince more than appealing to violence or power.
After all, it hadn’t been victory that had tamed the Black Reapers. It had been love.
Funny, I thought briefly, how that idea had seemed so repulsive just a month ago, yet now it was something I understood far more than I ever cared to admit—and I was still a broken heart.
“Tonight, at midnight,” Prince said. “Come to the clubhouse in North Las Vegas. I trust you can find it.”
“I’m sure I can,” I said. Dante would know where it was; it wasn’t exactly something Google Maps would turn up easily.
“Don’t be late.”
The line went dead after that. But that was okay. I wasn’t looking for a commitment over the phone. I was only looking for a chance.
A terrible irony, I thought as I broke apart the phone.
Sarah hated my guts for wanting to get them under my grasp.
Now, to protect her, I had to do exactly what she feared most. She wasn’t going to give me the benefit of the doubt just because it was more of a partnership than a controlling interest.
I could only hope that when she understood the full picture, she would understand.