There was something indescribably brutal in the sheer simplicity of this finality. The news had not been delivered with warning, anger, or fury. I suppose Lucas was trying to warn me to some extent about the Morrils, but honestly, who gave a fuck? If wereallywanted to, we’d find a way to have all of them dead by the end of spring.
No, the lack of any emotion behind it made it clear.
My grand gesture, deliberately understated to avoid seeming like the King of Diamonds had driven this home, had failed. I had gone in the exact opposite direction of my usual persona, and still it had failed.
“… and I’ll talk to Dante about next steps. That sounds good?”
“Yeah, sure, sure,” I said, grateful to have caught just enough to make it sound like I’d heard enough. Lucas hung up shortly after, leaving me to ponder what the fuck had happened.
So if not the King of Diamonds persona… if not this letter… then what? It seemed like there was something I was overlooking, some part of Delilah that I had failed to appreciate both before and with this letter, that I could not quite grasp. A more rational person might have said this was the sign to move on, that the last attempt to win her back had failed and it was time to find someone else.
Fuck.
That.
I wouldnotquit this. If this spoke to my refusal to give up control, call it a stubbornness that took on more positive outcomes. If this spoke of my being a fool, well, sometimes risks looked like idiotic mistakes until they paid off. It was how we ran our business, it was how Cassius had gotten Sarah, and it was how I would get Delilah back.
But… how the fuck would I do that?
I couldn’t do it in my penthouse or atRuby.
But a stroke of an idea came to mind for where I might just get the clarity I needed to move forward.
About an hour later, after speeding through north Vegas at probably unsafe speeds, I tossed my keys to the valet at Aces Up, demanded a key to the top floor penthouse, and stepped into the room where I had come almost literally inches from fucking Delilah for the first time.
To be honest, walking in here, I was at first more pissed off than anything else. I had been a bit conniving, a bit ruthless,even a bit manipulative to get Delilah to this spot. And what had happened? I’d almost fucked her.
Almost.
Fucked. Not taken for good.
That… that was the heart of this, wasn’t it?
I hated Cassius not because I thought he’d gone soft, but because he had what I had always wanted. I saw Delilah as a woman to control not because I wanted the carnal thrill of fucking her, but because she was one of the few women that I actually could see spending the rest of my life with. I brushed off Lucas and Dante not because I was superior to them, but because I was drifting to a lifestyle that was unlike theirs.
And most of all, I wanted power not so much because I needed it, but because I feared what would happen if I let go.
“You protected your control. Your power. Your wealth. Your name. Not us.”
Delilah’s words echoed in my mind, an inescapable memory of an argument that could have burned me to a crisp. But it also brought me back to just before that fight, the night before when everything had gone so right.
“I no longer wish to control you, Delilah. I just wish to be with you. If that means you get Adrian Vale and not the King of Diamonds, whether that be in bed or on a plane or at dinner, then so be it.
“Now, this is the part where I give you a choice…if even that offer concerns you, or if you have too many doubts, then walk away. I have shown you more of myself than I have to anyone, perhaps even my brothers. I can do nothing more but to offer a progression. The choice, Delilah, is now yours. What will it be?”
As those words reverberated in my mind, I had to wonder—how had that note come across? From afar, detached, with powerful words but without me having to put myself on the line.I could have hired someone to write the letter. I could have even asked an AI program to write it. I hadn’t, but I could have.
My note had still been about having some measure of control, orchestrating a response on my terms, and subtly manipulating her emotions.
If I wanted Delilah Reyes once and for all, I had to go there—there being Reno.
But to leave my brothers behind for a spell? Especially when, if Lucas and Dante were to be believed, things were escalating more and more by the day?
“The Morrils came in? So what? You’re always going to have enemies when you have the money you have. You could have given up the lust for power and image. You could have, as you said, committed to fulfilling your real debt and being vulnerable, but a threat appeared, and what did you do?”
“Last time, Delilah, I chose to play a game that always meant losing you,” I said out loud to no one. I was alone; not even housekeeping was up here right now. “This time…”
I had to do things on her terms. I had to meet her where she was. I had to do it without any strings attached, without any opportunity to misinterpret what I was doing as manipulative or image conscious.
