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Chapter One Thea
As Shelby climbed into the car, I waved her off and turned to walk back into the hotel. Just then, I was confronted by two burly men, one of them stepping out in front of me.
"I’m sorry, we’re not booking in guests yet—"
The man grabbed me by the collar and yanked me towards him. My heart dropped. Over the years, I’d had some trouble living in Vegas, everyone had, but there was nobody here to help me right now, and I didn’t even know what I had apparently done to piss these guys off.
"Where’s your brother?" He demanded, shoving his face close to mine. I could smell his stinking breath like he had been drinking and smoking all night long. How long had he been waiting for someone to come out, someone they could intimidate into giving them what they wanted?
"I—I don’t know," I blurted out. It was the truth. I knew Mark had been in a meeting this evening. It was why he hadn’t joined Shelby and me for drinks, but beyond that, I had no idea.
"Come on," the man demanded, shaking me. I felt like a ragdoll in his hands, unable to do anything but go along with whatever he wanted. I swallowed hard, the tipsiness making it even harder to think straight.
"I’m sorry, I think you should go," I told him. I should have screamed and told him to get the fuck off of me and stay away or I’d call the police, but I recognized this type of guy. And I had learned a long time ago that you didn’t piss these kinds of guys off. Better to pretend you were the one who had made a mistake, even if it was anything but that.
"I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where your fucking brother is—"
"Gentleman, is there an issue here?”
Another male voice cut in, and all of us turned to see where it had come from. Behind these guys, a man had just stepped out of the hotel, and he eyed the situation before him with open distaste.
One of the brutes retreated immediately, as though he had good reason to be scared. The guy holding me, though, didn’t move.
"Stay the fuck out of this," he snapped.
I stared at the stranger, silently pleading with him to do something, anything to get me out of here. I didn’t care what it took, but I couldn’t just let this happen. I couldn’t just let one of my first nights at the hotel be soured by these fucking psychos. What the hell had my brother done to piss them off, anyway? I had no idea. But I didn’t want to find out...
The man stood his ground. He was a little older than me, maybe ten years or so, with bright blue eyes and hair shaved close to his head. The suit he was wearing looked expensive, which surprised me. It wasn’t that we never got any upmarket guests at the hotel under my parent’s ownership, but usually, upscale clients would spring for somewhere a little fancier.
He took a step towards the man hanging onto me, holding his ground. The stranger wasn’t scared of them, even though he likely should have been. In fact, he seemed almost amused by the whole thing, like the fact they thought they could handle him was humorous.
"Let her go," he ordered one more time. His voice was low and commanding enough to make me shiver. I didn’t know who the hell he was, but he clearly believed he had the right to call these guys out—and honestly, thank God he did because I wasn’t sure I would have stood a chance against them otherwise.
The man let go of me, and I thought about running past him and into the hotel, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to put the distance between us before he came after me. Besides, what if my brother was in there? I didn’t know what they planned to do to him, but it was clear they had nothing good in mind. I didn’t want to bring them right to his doorstep...
Before I could make a run for it, though, the guy who had been holding onto me made his move—and, in a matter of seconds, blood spattered over the concrete around me.
In shock, my mind goes back over the evening. I was having dinner with Shelby. I haven’t seen her in a few months. "Here’s to finally having you back!” she exclaimed as she lifted her glass to mine and touched them together.
I laughed. "You’re just happy because you finally get free drinks at the hotel again," I teased her.
She waved a hand. "Well, yeah, kind of," she replied. "But having you back isn’t so bad either, I guess."
I smiled at my best friend and lifted the glass to my lips. I had to admit, even though it felt like a lifetime since I’d last been here in Las Vegas, it was good to be back.
Hard to believe it had been nearly four years since I had been drinking with Shelby in this very spot, the family hotel I had practically grown up in. Back then, we never had anything other than sodas. My mom had always been hovering around, making sure we weren’t going to try and sweet-talk Harry, the old bartender, into giving us anything stronger.
I felt a pang in my chest when I thought of my mom. God, I was still wrapping my head around her not being here any longer—I had always imagined toasting with her when I had finished my degree, the two of us celebrating it finally being over.
But instead, just a few weeks after I had graduated, they had—I could hardly even think of it—I was still trying to grasp the reality. My parents, both of them, were killed in a car accident on the way back from some dinner with their friends. I could still remember the moment Mark, my big brother, had called me—hearing his voice, cracked and broken, telling me they were gone. Feeling like nothing was ever going to be the same again, and having no idea how I was going to survive it.
I had been planning to stay in my apartment in New York for a little while longer, but I knew I couldn’t leave my brother alone here to deal with all of this. I'd come back as soon as I had the chance to help him—make sure he knew how to handle all their business affairs. It’s what I’d studied, after all, even if I hadn’t expected my first job to revolve around handling my parents’ will like this.
Having left college and my New York apartment behind, I returned to Las Vegas and was staying in the small hotel my brother inherited until I could find a place of my own. Mark was already there working on a few ideas. He'd started converting one of the old meeting rooms into a small, bespoke casino, which was a good idea. Everyone in Vegas expected the hotels to come with casinos, and I was sure we would bring in more guests once he’d gotten it set up, even if I was still trying to work out exactly how he was going to afford it. Dad had left him the hotel but also a decent amount of debt. All I could figure was that Mark must have found a way to pay it off.
It was good he was looking toward the future. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do the same right now. It was so hard to think about what I was going to do next now that our parents were gone. I missed them so much, sometimes, it felt like someone had hollowed out a giant hole in my heart, and I didn’t know what could fill it. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could fill it without them.
But I knew they wouldn’t have wanted me to spend the rest of my life sitting around, waiting for something to change. My mom especially.
