I chortled, but Adrian’s point was not wrong. Part of the appeal of being rich but not necessarily famous is I didn’t have the public watching my every single move. We could get what wewanted without too much press, without too much aggravating PR messes. We weren’t without them, of course, and in a sense I might have been courting one now.
But when it came to making money and exerting control over this city, we had just enough of a spotlight for those we worked with to know our reputation but not so much to draw outside protesters or forces that would slow us down.
Still, I knew Adrian’s point was not really a philosophical one. I sighed.
“You want to know the end point,” I said. “The end point is simple. Build her up as much as I can, especially in public. In private, I will admit, I might fuck her. But only to bring her closer and closer. The more exposure she gets and the more connected to me she feels, the harder the fall will be. The greater the justice for Virgil will be. And the more we can move on from this.”
I took a sip of a glass of bourbon, placed earlier by my waiter, letting the other three Vales digest what I had just said.
For whatever fucking reason, they looked like they’d swallowed days-old fast food. What the fuck was wrong with my plan?
“Does anyone care to say why you think I’m a fucking idiot?” I said.
“Careful that you don’t get her so close to the edge of the cliff that you fall off it with her,” Lucas said.
“The fuck do you mean?”
“He means, at some point, you’ll be too close for your own fucking good and you’ll fall for her,” Dante said, rolling his eyes. “You’ve never done anything like this before, Cassius. None of us have. Most of the women, you never let them get past two, maybe three encounters if they’re especially good. Much less the only serious relationship you’ve ever had. Much less the driver of the car accident.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I said. “You think I don’t know there’s risk involved in all of this? Fuck, Dante, our lives are nothing but risk. We own casinos, we built them up with serious chances of bankruptcy, and we did it all in a city riddled with terrible crime for years on end. You act like I’m a pussy who’s suddenly decided to take some risks, but you know full fucking well that I am risk defined. I do not fear it.”
All true.
All too much of a response. If this was in response to the business risk of launching a new casino or the relational risk of playing hardball with the mayor of Vegas, I would have been much more curt. My ramble as much as anything told my brothers—and me—that Dante’s words were a warning.
“Whatever you want, brother,” Adrian said. “Just be mindful of it.”
Fuck, I thought. They weren’t wrong. But I had never let a situation get the best of me before. Why the fuck would now be so different?
Topics shifted beyond what had happened in New York City, and within minutes, I got bored. My mind drifted to the prior night and the fucking sexual tension from the moment I first heard Sarah’s moaning. It hadn’t been the first time I’m teased a woman by forcing her to start herself before coming in. It was a power move, a way to say, “You think what you’re doing is good? Wait until I fucking start with you.”
So why hadn’t I done it with Sarah? What the fuck held me back?
Well, I knew the answer. The real one, not the one I’d give if someone asked me that question—even if that someone was Sarah.
I was human, I wanted Sarah for perhaps a bit more than just a vengeful fuck, and…
I was going to snap if I kept going.
But in this case, “snap” didn’t mean I’d lose my temper or go through with breaking someone. Here, “snap” meant I’d fall for her. I wouldn’t want to break her; I’d want to mend her to me. She wouldn’t just be mine for control, but mine for… for…
Fuck.
By the time my brothers left—which was not much later, as they seemed to realize that I was not paying close attention to their conversation—I knew I had to be really careful with my next steps. Fucking her was not some trivial, fleeting act of pleasure that would satisfy me for the night. Not with Sarah Carpenter, at least.
No matter what I said to myself, I knew the truth.
Get involved with Sarah Carpenter, and I would not escape.
I would not want to escape.
14
SARAH
Cassius, for once, did not have any galas lined up the following week.
But that didn’t mean that he didn’t have any events or activities lined up for me.
