“It’s just—” I exhaled. “I’m so busy being CEO—putting out fires, keeping everything running, trying to hold the world together—that I rarely get a moment to be human. When I finally feel something, I go a little overboard.”
“A little?” she said, the corner of her mouth lifting.
I winced. “Okay. A lot.”
She leaned in slightly, voice soft. “You took me to see the Grand Canyon in the corporate jet the day after you found out your brother had a rooftop dinner with me. That’s not a man who does anything halfway. Not jet trips. Not meltdowns. Not love.”
Heat flushed up my neck. “You knew?”
“Of course I knew.” Her smile warmed. “And I forgave you before you even apologized.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Thank you.”
She touched my face—gentle, deliberate. “You don’t have to be perfect with me. Just honest.”
I moved closer. She did too. The entire world narrowed to the inches between us, the soft catch of her breath, and her fingers curling into the front of my shirt. For the first time in days, I felt grounded. Seen. Wanted.
“Orion…” she whispered.
I leaned in to kiss her, but then my phone buzzed sharply against the table, vibrating with an urgency that sent a cold jolt through me.
I glanced down.
A text from Ares:Come to the employee elevator by the ballroom. Now.
Chapter 27
Tashi
The employee elevatordoors slid open the moment Orion and I reached them. Ares looked like a man walking away from a battlefield. His face was tight, pale under the bruises, eyes focused in that distant, calculating way he got when something had gone very, very wrong.
“Inside,” he said, voice low but urgent. “Now. Both of you.”
Leo and Neville were already in the elevator, waiting. Orion’s hand found the small of my back—steady, protective—and we stepped inside just as Ares hit the button for the roof access level.
The elevator lurched upward.
No explanation. No breath. Just that sharp, electric tension that said the situation had changed in a way none of us were prepared for.
Ares stood in the corner, his weight braced against the rail as if he was too keyed up to sit still. Orion watched him with a tightening jaw, and Leo glanced between them, quietly assessing.
I finally broke the silence. “Ares, what did you find?”
He didn’t look at me. Not yet. His voice was flat. “Confirmation.”
The elevator dinged.
The roof access corridor was cold and metallic, the air smelling faintly of jet fuel and hot engine oil drifting in from the helipad outside. Ares moved ahead of us, limping but purposeful, and pushed open the service door that led to the mechanical deck.
“Come on,” he said. “You need to see this.”
We followed him across the roof, the wind tugging at my hair and whipping at my clothes. The sky was still pale, morning blue, but down below, late sleepers or early risers walked the Strip lazily. It felt surreal being up here with them, like the five of us were perched on top of a secret no one else in Las Vegas could even imagine.
Ares stopped beside a squat metal housing on the west corner of the mechanical deck—a ventilation exhaust unit roughly chest-high, secured with a half-latched maintenance grate.
He pointed to it. “Here.”
Neville knelt immediately and flicked his flashlight inside. The beam illuminated a long, vertical shaft descending deep into the building.
