“He’s my fucking brother!” I roared. “You question me. I find that disappointing.”
“You hid this from me, Cassius, until now,” Sarah replied. “Forgive me for wondering what else you might have been hiding. Like maybe what your true plans have been for me.”
“Would you believe me if I said they changed?” I said.
Sarah scoffed, but she didn’t say anything.
“I came to you intending to destroy you, Sarah,” I said. “I know you weren’t responsible for Virgil’s death. But he doesn’t die without getting in the car with you that night. I wanted you to feel the pain I felt. And then, wouldn’t you know it, I spent time with you. I began to see you weren’t the same woman as before. I began to see that you were a good, thoughtful soul. But now I see that you are not a trusting soul.”
Sarah bit her lip and glared into—not at, into—me.
“I fucking knew it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears, but nothing came out of her eyes. “You played this whole game to set me up to fall from grace. I fucking knew it. And you waited until we’d fucked to bring down the Reapers part.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but ultimately, I said nothing. There was nothing I could say.
“You wanted to ruin me, Cassius?” she said. “Stop pretending you haven’t. You have.”
There was nothing I could say because nothing I said would matter. The fucking Black Reapers…
We flew in awkward silence, Sarah retreating to the bathroom for frequent long stretches. It gave me plenty of time to confront the truth.
My desire for control and power—not over Sarah, but over a force I could never quell—had in fact given me exactly what I wanted at the start of everything. The breaking of Sarah Carpenter. And it had come just when I realized I’d never really wanted it in the first place.
Perhaps there was some solace in knowing it would never go past one night of deeply passionate sex. I could revert to who I was, put Sarah behind knowing we’d tried twice and failed both times, and move on with life. I could turn my attention to fucking crushing the Morrils once and for all.
But I knew the truth now.
I was rich beyond all measure, powerful beyond all comprehension, and in control of everything except myself and my true desires.
And that meant even when we landed and Sarah undoubtedly bailed, hoping to never see me again, I would struggle to ever forget her.
18
SARAH
Why didn’t I listen to Delilah?
Why didn’t I listen to all my friends?
Why didn’t I listen to myself?
I should have known from the start that getting involved with Cassius Vale, ex or no, billionaire or no, was a mistake. He could have simply been a billionaire I’d studied from afar, or simply an ex who worked a good but not great job, and in both scenarios, I should have run for the hills. Cassius Vale, by his nature, was a man who craved power and control, no matter whom it fucking hurt. Sure, maybe before I came into the picture, it was understandable that he wanted to control the Black Reapers. Maybe.
But I didn’t show up yesterday. He’d entangled himself in my life for a long fucking time now, or at least what felt like a long fucking time. He knew what the Black Reapers name meant to me. And he’d kept going.
There was nothing illegal about what he was doing, but he knew damn well how I’d feel about it. If there was nothing that could change who he was and how he saw them, then the only thing I could really control was how I acted and how I gotinvolved. And that meant as soon as we landed, I made a beeline for the private car, leaving Cassius behind.
He did not bother to pursue me. He only waved to the driver, who smartly did not say anything to me.
As we drove down the Las Vegas Strip back to my apartment, a small part of me wondered if I was letting my emotions and my thoughts get the best of me. In the same way that I had been involved in Virgil’s death but not actually caused it, the Black Reapers had been involved in the chaos and destruction in Las Vegas… but they had not actually caused it. That was the King’s Men, a group that no longer existed, not even underground.
They weren’t guilt-free. Members had threatened my father, and anyone that wore a club jacket and rode a bike was always going to draw a scowl from me.
And even more than that, even if the Black Reapers still existed, still caused violence, and were still the core party that had ruined my father’s life…
Cassius had been kind to me.
Forget the sex for a moment, great as that was at the time. Well, easier said than done, but I tried. No matter what he’d come into the relationship, or whatever the fuck you’d call it, intending to do, he had treated me well. He’d given my career the jolt it needed to grow. He’d taken me to multiple galas. He’d flown me to New York City. Yes, it had gotten weird, dark even at times, but the King of Hearts had treated mine well.
