Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Vegasyn??” blurts out Brock. “The fuck is that dumb shit? It’s just Vegas with an ‘yn’ on it. Stupid.”
Elias climbs to his feet, comes up to Kyle. “What else did Tristan tell you? He mentioned some kind of Lord …? Who is this person? What do they want?”
“Who cares,” spits out Brock. “Do these people even know who I am? My dad owns half of Vegas. He runs half of Vegas.”
“Well, welcome to the half he doesn’t own or run,” retorts Elias, getting tired of Brock.
Brock turns to him. “Don’t these people know who you are? Your mother’s a big deal, too.” Brock goes up to the door and beats a fist on it. “Two of us are big fuckin’ deals in here! You’ll be hearin’ from our lawyers!”
Elias sighs. “I’m getting the feeling anger and indignation don’t impress these people. You already broke two chairs trying to bash your way out. I think it’s safe to say we won’t be getting out of this room until they want us to.”
“Fuck you.”
“We need to be calm and smart about this.” Elias turns to Kyle. “Try to remember. What else did Tristan say?”
“Fuck both of you.” Brock paces away, kicks at one of the broken chairs Kyle didn’t notice until now, sends it tumbling across the floor. “I swear to God, Kyle, if I get outta this …”
“Please stop blaming him,” says Elias.
“I shouldn’t’ve seen that video. Shouldn’t’ve come to find you. I should’ve let you stay dead.” Brock kneels in the corner at once. “God in Heaven, give me strength, please, oh Lord, hallowed be thy name, protect and watch over me, guide me back to your holy light, oh sweet, merciful Lord …”
“I don’t remember much else,” admits Kyle, feeling useless. “Maybe I’m no help at all.”
“You are, Kyle,” says Elias, bringing a hand to Kyle’s hair and gently stroking it. “Without you, we wouldn’t have the first clue what’s going on.”
“I’m really glad you’re here,” returns Kyle as softly.
Elias smiles. Then the smile twists. “But I told you not to come find me. I told you to move on. To forget me.”
Kyle takes Elias’s hand, kisses it, holds on to it. “How could I? You think I can’t handle who you really are?”
“Kyle, you don’t understand.”
“Son of the Trujillo fortune? Heir to everything that is the Scarlet Sands Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas’s dark new secret, the gateway to the underworld? I know enough. I even have an idea what you’re running from now that I’ve seen it myself.”
Elias sighs. “It’s not just my name or a hotel. It’s my duty, Kyle. My legacy. It’s so much bigger. I can’t abandon it again. My mother, she owns everything, she runs everything, and that includes me. I’m just another thing she owns and runs.”
“You don’t have to be.” Kyle clings tightly to Elias’s hand. “You need to talk to her. Tell her how you feel.”
Brock continues to pray mindlessly in the corner, kneeling now, hands clapped together and shaking, splinted one sticking straight out.
“Kyle, please,” sighs Elias. “It’s not that simple.”
“It can be. Let me talk to her, then.”
Elias snorts. “I doubt that’ll go over any better. You know how pissed she was with me when her henchman finally got me back? It’s been her mission to clean me up, shine me up like a trophy on a shelf, mold and shape me into a miniature version of her since I was old enough to wipe my own ass. It’s been this way my whole life. I didn’t even go to a real high school. Scarlet Sands? This is just her latest project.” Elias lets out a sigh, leans back against the wall, shakes his head. “I really miss my dad. In times like these, he’d know what to do.”
Kyle decides to bookmark that last comment. “She needs to see what her greed is doing to you.”
“Wouldn’t call it greed. Is there a word worse than that?”
“She’s breaking you, Elias. I came back to find you, and I find you on a damned rooftop full of lights, full of flowers, the only joy I sensed in the whole hotel. Is that where you escape to now? Without me? Without your house in Nowhere? Is that rooftop the one and only scrap of freedom you’re allowed?”
Elias gazes at Kyle, pain in his eyes.
Kyle takes hold of Elias’s cheeks, brings their faces close. “I am ready to say thank you now.”
Elias’s eyebrows pull together. “For what?”
“For saving my life that morning in the desert. I told you I couldn’t thank you yet. Well, I’m ready now. Ready to finally thank you. Elias Asad Trujillo, you saved my life, you stopped me from making a terrible mistake.” Kyle’s face hardens. “Now let me return that favor.”
Emotion swells within Elias. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Kyle’s lips, full, encompassing. Gratefulness for his life swells in his warm chest. Kyle feels every trace of it, like they sit before a hearth, warming their feet in the winter.