My boyfriend from my younger days. He’d been a tough, ruthless man at the time, but still just a young man. His life could have taken several directions, not all of them successful, but all of them to the extremes. I’d told myself after that terribleaccident that took his brother’s life, I’d never rope him into my life. The less he saw of me, the better.
And in one respect, I succeeded. As far as I knew, Cassius never saw me again.
But then he became a billionaire, arguably one of the most powerful men in all of Las Vegas, and I couldn’t help but see him on a regular basis.
How could I not? The King of Hearts. That’s what the press, the YouTubers, the influencers all called him. “The most handsome billionaire ever,” they’d say, with his three brothers close behind.Should have been his four,I’d think whenever his family name popped to mind.
Sometimes, I’d let myself wonder what we would be if I hadn’t crashed that car. Married? Perhaps. With kids? Maybe. It was tough to get Cassius to be heartfelt, to say what was in his soul, not just on his mind, but every so often he’d drop hints. “It’d be nice to raise little ones,” he’d say. Or, “I don’t get people who never marry. Do it if your heart wants it.”
Too late for that now.
But even though Cassius undoubtedly hated my guts, as best as I could tell, he’d let bygones be bygones. I hadn’t fled Las Vegas because of him, though I certainly made sure to stay clear of his known spots.
Rather, I got the fuck out when it became clear retribution for my father’s legal efforts would be forthcoming. A prosecutor for the Las Vegas District Attorney’s office, he’d fought many times to bring down the man called King. He believed in justice, and when bikers from some clubs named Fallen Saints or Black Reapers came to town, he sought warrants for their arrest. I can’t tell you how many death threats he got, how lucky we were to escape to Phoenix—a city still full of bikers, but ones we were smart enough not to infuriate.
Now, though, King is dead.
Cassius still hasn’t come for my head.
And I’ve grown tired of running from the city I have always called home.
So, that’s what brought me here tonight. A grand opening of an art exhibit in one of the newest casinos in Las Vegas, an exhibit that had selected me in a contest to have my artwork displayed. I wasn’t stupid; I was aware that the Vale family owned theRubyand thereforeAllure.I knew I might be poking a hornet’s nest doing this.
But I was exhausted.
It was time to stop running.
Time to stop hiding.
Time to stop escaping.
That all said, I wasn’t completely stupid. Putting “Sarah Carpenter” on my name tag was the fastest way to turn that poke of the hornet’s nest into an outright swat, ensuring I’d get painfully stung.
True, there was a chance that when I got in front of Cassius Vale, everything would come crumbling down. He could demand I be escorted off the premises, sue for false advertising—I had no idea if that was feasible or not, but with a billionaire, anything seemed possible—or ruin me in some fashion. Cassius was not a man who could be deterred in person; he was too strong a man to do that.
And yet, a part of me almost wanted to have this confrontation. Part of me wanted to see what would happen if I came face to face with Cassius. Would he hate me? Curse my name and tell me to leave?
Or… maybe he’d be curious. Maybe he’d tell me he’d want to see me some more. Spend time with me.
Who knew what would happen if that passed?
The only thing I knew was there was no chance he’d say he missed me, he wished I was back, or something else nice. Cassius didn’t play nice with people who crossed him. He might occasionally do it in public if it served his bottom line, but this was not public, no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise.
But that was all a chance, anyways. “Sasha” got past that initial screening that Cassius had set up, likely by some software or lower-level manager. “Sasha” would fool enough people such that I could get a stand at the art exhibit. No matter how foolish I knew it to be, no matter how strong I knew Cassius to be, I had to get my foot in the door.
As I drove to theRuby,nervousness washed over me. Surely, I told myself, the real reason for my nervousness was the chance for my artist career to take off. Painters like myself only needed that one client, that one exposure piece to go viral to suddenly have a career. There were few better places to do it that were close to me than Las Vegas; true, Los Angeles had its own high-profile clientele, but many of those people came to Vegas anyways.
Surely, that was why.
Not because I might run into him.
Not because I might talk to him.
Not because I… I…
“You are mine. No one else can have you.”
“I don’t want to belong to anyone else, Cassius.”
