“Not usually, but is this not theAllure?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.
2
SARAH
Iwas exhausted.
Just from today, I’d made the long drive from Phoenix up here. But beyond that, I was so tired from the last two decades.
From the terrible mistake I’d made, costing the life of someone who didn’t deserve to lose it.
From the failures of my father and his inability as a prosecutor to put the most dangerous man in Las Vegas behind prison bars for so long.
Run. Hide. Escape.
Those were the three most common verbs I’d used to describe my actions in the past two decades. Running from my past. Hiding from the King’s Men, from the Black Reapers, from dangerous criminal organizations. Escaping the haunting thoughts in my head.
Escaping the fact that no matter how much I tried to put him out of my mind, I never quite could.
Cassius Vale.
