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“Does she know?” Sitri stood and slipped on his leather jacket, readying for another strut through the hotel bar.
“In a manner of speaking? No. But she’s had the pleasure of meeting me.” Orobas flourished his hand vaguely to the room, then got to his feet to join our brother.
With a snap of my finger, the cash and trinkets before me dissipated into the void and to my home in Santa Monica. I set down the glass and watched the flame flicker a moment more, trying to decide whether I should join my brothers or inspect my new prize for myself.
Sitri clapped my shoulder, breaking my concentration. “Come on, Stolas. I wager by the end of the night, we could collect far more than a few new souls. You can play with your new toy tomorrow.”
Sitri was right. There was no urgency.
With a wave of my hand, the glass was transported to the safety of my home.
Either Orobas had conned me into accepting a useless human soul or it really was a prize worth the bragging rights. There was no use in worrying over it when I could easily double or triple my soul count in the bar or the casino.
I followed them out of the private room, and we reached an elevator filled with a drunk and giggling bachelorette party.
The bride-to-be eye-fucked Sitri the moment the doors opened.
The curve of his lip and the silent exchange between us told me that he was about to ruin a wedding and entrap the pretty young thing, all in one fell swoop.
The Prince of Lust was on the prowl, flanked by Greed and Gluttony. Las Vegas spread its legs and begged for us to ravish it.
A banquet for the wicked.
A city crafted for the Princes of Sin.
2
EVIE
My father’s new wife’s name popped up on my phone screen. She’d been texting me all day about a fundraiser she was heading. This call was to remind me of the time I was supposed to be there, but each message was heavily laced with guilt and obligation. He needed an appearance from the lone survivor of the heartbreaking boating accident that took my mother, older brother, and younger sister thirteen years ago.
If it hadn’t been for the inner tube I’d been in when the speedboat hit the rocks, I wouldn’t have had to dress up like a living memorial for fundraising events.
The coast guard had responded within minutes and hoisted me from the water, but often I wished they hadn’t. Some nights, I could still hear my mother screaming out my brother’s name. His body was lost to the ocean and never recovered.
Every benefit or fundraiser was another opportunity for my father to rehash the tragedy and reassure his constituents that he was still a family man. Though, the trail of ex-wives he was leaving up and down the Californian coast was more toxic than the plastic floating just off the state’s shores. I ran away to London for university after private prep school, but I hadn’t been able to get a foothold in the marketing industry after graduation. Without Daddy’s money, I was forced to move back to Los Angeles.
The reemergence of his one and only living child had stirred his campaign advisors to thrust me into the spotlight as often as possible. I agreed on the condition that he paid for my apartment and car. Los Angeles was expensive. I was working full-time at one of the top ad agencies and still barely making ends meet. If I was going to be paraded like a show pony, I wanted the prize money for it.
The event Rebecca was blowing up my phone over was Friday night. It was five days away, but every minute counted when you were the wife of a future presidential candidate.
I hadn’t seen the dresses she had picked for me, but I had no doubt they all were meant to age me down by about seven years. My father was getting older but wanted to keep his voters under the illusion that he was a spry man with progressive ideals.
That meant that I couldn’t look my age.
When approached by other politicians I had known most of my life, I was always offered the same dusty compliments: “You have grown into such a beautiful woman,” or, “Your mother would be so proud to see you now,” or my favorite, “I can see you got your father’s wits but your mother’s beauty.”
Constant reminders that I was merely a relic from a time when my father had been young, happy, and had it all. He’d enjoyed the attention of being a single father and widower until I turned sixteen. That was when A-line sundresses, kitten heels, and decorative hair clips became my permitted party attire.
I didn’t want to deal with the schedule Rebecca had come up with or the expectations she was passing from my father down to me. I didn’t have anything against her. As far as stepmothers went, she was the most tolerable. But she was only eight years older than me—another reason I had to appear younger than I actually was. Daddy couldn’t have the media connecting the dots that his wives were getting younger when he wasn’t.
I ignored Rebecca’s call and went back to mindlessly scrolling social media while the TV lit up my bare living room. Posts from a group of my old friends at a nightclub downtown showed up, and the caption from one of the girls snagged my attention.
Living life as high as I can.
Rhomi Polus was front and center, her phone held out to capture the chaos behind her. Several other people were in the blur of bodies and colored dance floor lights. She would consider herself an influencer, but she was just as much of a trust fund kid as I was. Her father and mine had put on several fundraisers together, but her lawyer father never bothered with politics because money got him much farther than a voting ballot ever did.
The club tagged in the image was only a couple miles from my apartment, and for a moment, I thought about getting off my couch and finding a dress to throw on. But sitting at home was far more comfortable than crashing a night out with near strangers.
