CHAPTER FIVE
Ryker
Takingthe stairs two at a time, I head back down to the garage and then push the elevator button to make my way to the second floor.
I see the camera lights flash, telling me they’re back on.
I don’t love that I’m deceiving Dimitri. He was the man who’d pushed for me to take over the Palace. My brothers would not have put me in charge otherwise and it was an assist that I greatly appreciated.
But in the quest for independence, all is fair.
It’s not that my partnership with my brothers hasn’t been profitable. They have worked tirelessly to bring all of us the kind of wealth that is almost unimaginable, by negotiating our family into a half dozen profitable casinos, two of them connecting to an underground tunnel.
If Vegas visitors loved the convenience of overpass walkways, they adore the tunnel. Equipped with moving walkways, there is no concept of day or night, it’s just all fun as they quickly move from casino floor to casino floor.
These moves have made us billionaires.
But as a researcher, I have always had an eye for detail, and it’s the details that have doubled the Palace’s profits even in the short three months I’ve been at the helm. Imagine what I could do with our other businesses if they allowed me to take charge. But they don’t.
My plans are much larger than that.
Like I said, it’s not that I don’t love my family, but I’m tired of living in their shadow. It’s time for me to have a deal that’s all my own.
The elevator opens and I step into the lobby of the second floor, which we’ve converted into a meeting space.
The building is nearly empty and used only in emergencies like these.
A month ago, Dimitri had come to my family with the proposition. He owned three mid-level casinos that his father mostly used to wash money. He’d sell us two casinos if we’d give him access to the tunnel with his third.
It was a win/win proposition. With a property on the tunnel, he’d make more money than all three properties combined.
And for us, we’d have access to more Vegas real estate that we could, with proper management that his father had never allowed him, turn them into money-makers.
Dimitri is an intelligent man, he could have made money with them himself, but his father tied his hands, using the casinos to wash the Bratva’s dirty money.
Selling the properties, technically in Dimitri’s name, had been his move to put his father on notice. Dimitri didn’t work for the Bratva anymore.
The affair had culminated in Dimitri’s father confronting his son as he’d held a gun to Sasha’s head and then tried to kill Dimitri.
Bastard.
I hadn’t been there when it all went down. But Tris and Gris had seen the entire thing, and they’d said it was as gritty as any shit my public father, the sixth Duke of Grandmont, had put us through.
Our “father” had been tough on all six of his “sons.” But he’d known that Killian and I weren’t his real children, and he’d been merciless on the two of us.
Dimitri stands by the back bank of windows, looking out into the twinkling lights of Las Vegas, his profile lit by the city lights.
He scrubs at his jaw, the tattoos that cover his hands dancing in the light.
I’m a man who likes a good tattoo. I’ve got a full set of ink across my chest. But I keep mine hidden in places they won’t be seen in a shirt and tie.
I’m business by day…
Dimitri turns to me, “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
I barely keep the grimace from my face. There is no point in delaying with pleasantries. It’s nearly midnight and I’ve still got a fair bit of work to do.
Then again, this is a test. An opportunity to see how receptive Dimitri is to my wedding addendum. “I’d like to request a change for the upcoming nuptials.”
