“Exactly.” Ares smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. “Sun Tzu says, ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’ We don’t need to beat Henri at his game. We need to change it entirely.”
“Make it about his conspiracy, not our relationship,” Orion said slowly. “Shift the narrative from ‘powerful men exploiting employee’ to ‘CFO orchestrates hostile takeover using revenge vendetta.’”
“And suddenly we’re not the villains,” I said. “We’re the victims of corporate espionage and personal vengeance.”
“But we need proof,” Tashi said. “Real, concrete proof that Henri orchestrated the harassment allegations, the video leak, everything.”
“We’ll get it,” Ares said with certainty. “Henri’s been planning this for months, maybe years. That means he’s left a trail. Money transfers, communications, collaborators. Nobody pulls off something this complex alone.”
“And if Marta finds out Henri knew my mother?” Tashi’s voice was small. “If there’s a personal connection between us?”
“Then that’s the smoking gun,” Orion said gently. “It proves this wasn’t about business or morality. It was personal. Revenge for something that happened twenty-five years ago.”
“Which makes him look obsessive and unstable,” I added. “Not like someone who should be running a billion-dollar casino.”
Tashi was quiet for a long moment, processing. Then she looked up at us with those bright eyes shining with enthusiasm. “We lose the battle to win the war,” she said.
“Exactly,” Ares confirmed.
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime,” Orion said, “we prepare for the Gaming Commission hearing. We get our stories straight. We present ourselves as four people who fell in love unconventionally and are being punished for it.”
“We make them see us as human,” I said. “Not as powerful billionaires who think rules don’t apply to them. As people who made mistakes but didn’t break any laws.”
“And we wait for Henri to make his mistake,” Ares concluded. “Because he will. He’s already overconfident. He thinks we’re finished. That makes him sloppy.”
“‘When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil,’” Tashi quoted, surprising us all. “Sun Tzu. I did go to college, you know.”
Ares grinned. “That’s my girl.”
“We go large,” Tashi said.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“My three handsome men own a fabulous casino in the heart of Las Vegas. Let’s have a party. Call it a ‘Going Away’ party. And then we show everybody that we are committed to our polyamorous family. We’ll make it the biggest, most romantic event this town has seen, and that will sway public opinion. And the Gaming Commission will look like idiots for trying to discipline you while we give Las Vegas the biggest publicity boost it’s had in years.”
The room went silent.
Orion stared at her. Ares had gone completely still. And I—I felt my jaw drop open.
“You want to throw a party,” Orion said slowly. “While we’re facing a Gaming Commission hearing that could strip us of our license.”
“Not just a party,” Tashi said, her expression bright with the same fire I’d seen when she pitched the My Heroes Tour. “A statement. A celebration of love that is unconventional. We invite everyone—celebrities, influencers, media, and locals. We make it impossible to ignore.”
“That’s insane,” Ares said. But I could hear the respect in his voice.
“It’s genius,” I corrected. “Sun Tzu says, ‘Attack where they are unprepared, appear where you are not expected.’ Henri expects us to hide. To lawyer up and fight quietly. The Gaming Commission expects us to show up at the hearing looking contrite and apologetic.”
“So, we do the opposite,” Tashi continued, gaining momentum. “We celebrate. Openly. Proudly. We show Las Vegas and the world that we’re not ashamed of who we love or how we love. We make it a love story, not a scandal.”
“‘Going Away’ party,” Orion said thoughtfully. “As in, we’re saying goodbye to management but not to each other. Not to the hotel we built. Not to what matters.”
“Exactly. We present it in such a grand, glamorous, and Vegas-like manner that the media can’t resist covering it. #TeamTashi is already trending. We give them something to rally around—a fairy tale instead of a scandal.”
“The Gaming Commission meets in two days,” Ares pointed out. “That’s not much time to plan something this big.”
“We don’t need much time,” Tashi said. “We have the venue—the Olympus Royale ballroom is the most beautiful in Vegas. We have the connections—every vendor in this city owes you favors. We have the story—three men who fell in love with the same woman and decided to share rather than compete.”
