“I am a very busy man, this is true. But I am also someone who is best experienced in-person. Wouldn’t you say?”
“If you don’t mind, Adrian, I’m going to get to the point,” she said. “I had intended to ask more questions about your rivalry with the Morrils, but we got distracted.”
A very euphemistic way of putting it, but the dance sometimes entailed calling a duck a bird and a fuck a tango. So be it.
“You asked me at the beginning of our conversation, Adrian, if I’d had any encounters with the Morrils, and I said yes but I wouldn’t reveal my sources. Nothing has changed. However, in corroboration with other people, I have gotten a better picture of the man you are.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. There’s the public persona of the King of Diamonds you have. Then there’s the ruthless private businessman beneath that. And I think beneath that, there’s a person you barely let show.”
Clever. Fucking clever woman.
My admiration for her was genuine here, though I wasn’t going to tell her that. If I ever did, it sure as shit wouldn’t be on the phone. Something deep in my stomach stirred, something that said this might yet create a new type of diamond in me.
But it might also combust and explode, and it would depend entirely on the skillfulness Delilah and I exhibited here. I trusted myself; I trusted few others. Would Delilah be the exception?
“Before we get to the last part, tell me how you would describe the businessman you are?”
“How would I describe the businessman I am?” I repeated. “How would I describe it? I don’t need to describe it. You saw my office. You seeRubyfrom wherever you are. You see how I dress. That didn’t happen because Mommy and Daddy dropped a billion dollars into our bank accounts. That happened because my brothers and I are shrewd businessmen.”
“I heard a saying once, Adrian,” Delilah began, “that to become a millionaire takes patience. To become a multimillionaire takes patience and skill. And to become a billionaire takes patience, skill, and luck. So how would you define your luck?”
“We are in Vegas, are we not?” I said, but that was a mask. The question irritated me. We didn’t depend on fucking luck to get where we were.
If anything, with a dead youngest brother, an older weaker brother, and the secrets of the rest of the Vales, we had bad luck, and we still overcame it.
“We are,” Delilah said. “Some would say you are lucky to have started building your empire right after the King’s Men fell.”
“That’s not lucky, that’s identifying a ripe market.”
“Some would say you are lucky to have gotten the tax breaks and the media attention you have.”
“Again, that’s not lucky, that’s shrewd negotiation and PR.”
“Some would say you are lucky that you have not had your past mistakes and transgressions blow up in the public eye.”
I paused. That sounded an awful lot like a threat.
“Explain yourself,” I growled.
“Tell me about the small family casino business you ran into bankruptcy and bought out a few years ago.”
I laughed.Thatwas the mistake and transgression? Most people would hardly bat an eye at the war that was business, and the few that did were just screaming babies on the internet. If ever the public sentiment turned against us for something like that, it wouldn’t take much to remind them that business wars were far, far,farpreferable to motorcycle club wars or other illicit wars in the streets.
“That is just how business goes,” I said. “We did nothing illegal at all. You can search through every record and talk to asmany people as you like. We acted in our self-interest, they acted in theirs, and that was how things fell into place.”
“That last bit sounds an awful lot like luck.”
I sighed. She wasn’t wrong. I hated that she wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t. Not that I’d admit that to her.
But truly, she was fucking good. Rare was the person who could bring up something, make me think it was inconsequential, and use it to pin me later on. Rarer still was the person who sounded like she barely took any pride in it, as if verbal sparring like this was something she did on the regular.
“If you wish to call it that, that’s your opinion,” I said. “I made sure that we were well positioned to come out on top when things fell into place.”
“What about the reports of employees who left because of your presence?”
Delilah sounded nervous asking that question. She had good reason to be.
