Sitting in a chair in my bedroom, sipping on some vodka to try to escape the thoughts, I could not and stood up. I walked outside, looking out over the Las Vegas Strip. This view typically invigorated me. It reminded me of what I controlled. It reminded me of how far I could come. Sometimes, when I looked up at the night sky, I’d think about how much farther we might go.
Tonight, though, it only reminded me that I was doing this alone after spending the morning with the most captivating woman I’d ever met.
“Fuck!”
I threw my glass of vodka onto the floor in frustration. I drew in a breath. How was Delilah affecting methismuch? I had a temper, yes. We all did. But Dante aside, all of us were very fucking good at channeling that temper into proper control. We were not the Black Reapers. We were not the King’s Men.
We were the Vales.
And yet, there the shattered glass was, lying on the floor from my hot temper, broken from the pressure of the situation.
This was unlike me. I was better than this.
And yet… yeah, fuck, I did miss Delilah and her wit. I missed how she could give me just as much pressure and fire as anyone else. I missed getting a taste of my own medicine.
And if I missed that permanently by not doing what Delilah wanted, if I lost her…
I could not fucking believe the comparison came to mind, but there were hints of what it had felt like losing Virgil. It wasnotthe same, and I would not say that unless Delilah and I got married and something fucking awful happened. But she was the first person I felt emotions over possibly losing since Virgil, or at least the first person I allowed myself to feel emotions about possibly losing.
That thought was fucking ludicrous.
But it was also an eye-opener. I was immersing myself in a game that I had never played before, and in such a spot, the worst thing to do would be to pretend to figure it out. I needed advice, not from a business adviser or a board member or even an old friend. I needed advice from… someone I did not want to call, did not want to admit looking up to, but could not avoid.
I needed Cassius.
I had only sent a simple text asking Cassius to come to my penthouse. Ten minutes later, I heard the elevator doors to my penthouse opening. I was well aware it was not from anyone else arriving.
“You seek my counsel?” Cassius said as he approached me. At this point, I was leaning on the railing, still overlooking the Strip, breathing slowly to get a hold of myself. The last thing I needed was to let Cassius say something that gets under my skin. “You seem agitated.”
“That obvious?” I said with a chuckle.
“I grew up with you, Adrian,” Cassius said. “Just as I did with Dante, Lucas, and Virgil. I know you all as well as anyone alive today.”
Fair, I suppose. And I had called him for this exact reason.
“How’s Sarah?”
“Good. Wedding planning moves along nicely, and we’re thinking about trying for kids soon. I’m surprised you asked.”
Trying for kids? Already?Fuck. Cassius was moving on from his single days so fucking fast. If I didn’t know him better, I might have even said that he’d wanted the family life farther back than Sarah. At least I could say that wasn’t the case for me.
I was pretty sure, anyway.
“You’re surprised I asked,” I said with a chuckle, “as if family doesn’t ask each other how they’re doing.”
“What, am I supposed to believe the King of Diamonds is interested in that which isn’t flashy?”
“No more than I am to believe the King of Hearts has settled for a heart versus as many hearts as possible.”
Cassius chuckled, keeping that ever-present smirk about him. God, that pissed me off.
“When you find the right heart, it doesn’t matter how many are out there, you’re good with the best,” Cassius said. “But before you move on, care to say what happened with your glass? Doesn’t seem very diamond-like to have broken glass.”
Fuck.
I hadn’t even bothered to ask anyone to clean it up. Probably because even though I had staff to do it, it felt too much of a “me” thing to put on someone else’s shoulders.
“Shit happens,” I said.
