Play Me Real (Play Me 4)

“Speaking of trash,” he says and he doesn’t sound nearly as intimidated as I’d hoped he would be at this point. “You enjoy taking it out, don’t you? How’s that little waitress of yours doing? I was hoping she’d be on tonight so we could…renew our acquaintance. She had such an ass on her. I enjoyed touching it the other night, enjoyed even more thinking about fuc—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because my hand is around his throat, squeezing, dangling him a few inches off the ground before I even know I’m going to move. “Say something about Aria again. I fucking dare you. Say something about her again. It’ll be the last thing you ever say.”

I’m walking now, half-carrying, half-dragging him to the closest wall. It’s got the added benefit of being out of sight of over ninety percent of the casino. I’ve got just enough functioning brain cells left to know that this is a conversation I really don’t want to have in public.

And then even that thought is gone and I’m lifting him up, holding his back against the wall as I get in his face. My hand is still wrapped around his throat—it’s what I’m using to hold him off the ground—and his breathing is becoming labored.

I don’t give a damn. I don’t give a damn if he can’t breathe, don’t give a damn, in that moment, if I end up crushing his goddamn throat. The man’s a monster—a rapist, a child trafficker, a drug dealer and God only knows what else. He’s a pathetic excuse for a human being, a disgusting little worm who has spent the evening fishing—just to see what he could catch.

Turns out he ended up catching a hell of a lot more than he bargained for and I have no problem being the one to drive that lesson home.

Behind me, I can hear his bodyguards yelling in Russian, can tell from the scuffling that they’re trying to get through but are being held back by my own security team—though who knows for how long that’s going to last. And while there’s a small part of my brain that’s still rational, that’s telling me I should put him down and walk away before things get any worse, it’s definitely not the part in control right now. Especially not when I think about him touching Aria, his filthy hands on her ass—or any other part of her.

“Hey, hey!” Suddenly there’s a hand on my shoulder and a familiar voice asking, “Everything okay here, man?”

It’s Ethan, popping up again like a bad penny. Or a best friend. “This is between me and him. Stay out of it.”

“I get that,” he tells me, but his hand is tight on my shoulder and he’s not letting go. “But why don’t you take a few seconds to decide if this is really how you want this to go. If it is, I’ll step back and you can have your security guys bring him somewhere you can beat the crap out of the bastard—hell, I might even help you. You’re a fair guy, so I’m sure he deserves it.

“But I’m just not sure choking him in the middle of the most popular casino on the Strip is really the way to go. If you want to stay out of jail, I mean.” His voice is totally cool, totally collected. But there’s an underlying tension to it, something that tells me he’s going to get in the middle of this no matter what I say. It pisses me off, makes me want to take a swing at him.

At the same time, though, his little speech gave me the time I needed to calm down, to think clearly. To figure out that Ethan is right, no matter how much I wish he wasn’t. Killing a man in the middle of my father’s casino probably isn’t the wisest choice I’ve ever made—no matter how much he deserves it.

I ease back on my grip a little. I don’t let him go, not completely, but I make sure he can breathe. It only takes a few minutes before the sickly gray color he’d been turning slowly dissipates, his face returning to its florid complexion fairly rapidly.

“Look, Rubinov, since you seem a little slow on the uptake, and didn’t understand what I told you the last time we talked, I’m going to explain again now. Slowly. And you’re going to nod if you understand what I’m saying. Okay?”

He doesn’t respond, just looks at me like he wants to kill me. In response, I tighten my hand around his throat, wait until he’s gasping. And then I say, “Nod if you understand what I’m saying to you—now.”

It takes a minute, long, precious moments ticking by while I wait for him to nod his head up and down. He finally does, so I loosen my grip on his throat again. This time he curses me loud and long and in Russian. I don’t understand a word he’s saying and it wouldn’t matter even if I did. I don’t give a fuck who he is or what he has to say. He doesn’t intimidate me. Not now. Not ever.

“You and your goons are going to walk out of my hotel under your own power. You’re not going to stop to collect your winnings if the

re are any. You’re not going to make a detour by the bar to pick up another prostitute or order another vodka. You are going to leave this casino. Now. Or I am going to have you carried out by my security. And if that happens, I promise you, your life won’t be worth the air it takes for you to breathe.

“Don’t look at them,” I order when his eyes dart over my shoulder. “Look at me. And maybe you’re so stupid, you don’t know who I am or what I can do. If so, that’s your own idiocy at work because you should always know your enemy before you decide to beat your chest and pick a fight. But you screwed up this time. You think it’s my father’s connections here in Vegas that you need to look out for, but that’s not the case. I don’t do things the same way my father did.”

I tighten my hand on his throat one last time, just to make sure I have his attention. “You’ve made your money by staying in the shadows, under the radar of Interpol and the CIA, Homeland Security and ATF and anyone else who might have a problem with your extracurricular activities.” He looks shocked, so I smile, but it’s a bloodless smile, one meant to intimidate him instead of set him at ease. “But, you see, I’ve spent the last ten years working in a field where I came into contact with people from those organizations every day. I know a lot of people who can make your life very uncomfortable. And I won’t hesitate to give them everything my head of security has dug up on you if I ever so much as hear your name in my casino again. You’ll be running from every alphabet soup agency in America, Europe and Asia before I’m done with you.

“So, before you come back here tomorrow, humiliated and pumped up and looking to get some of your own back, ask yourself if it’s really worth it. If your pride is more important than what having me as an enemy will do to your bottom line.”

I let him go abruptly, watch with absolutely no interest as he slides down the wall and struggles to catch himself before he hits the ground. He manages it, and when he finally stands up straight, there’s a hatred burning in his eyes that might give me pause on another day at another time. But right now, all it does is piss me off. As does his posturing.

“You say I don’t—”

“Get the fuck out,” I interrupt him. “I’ve wasted all the time I’m going to on you.”

And then, leaving both him and my security guys standing around with their mouths wide open, I turn and walk away. He isn’t worth anything more.

“Make sure he’s out of here in the next five minutes,” I tell Mickey as I pass her.

She’s watching me, too, but she’s got a smile on her face a mile wide. “I will, sir. Absolutely.”

I nod my thanks, and then head upstairs for a drink. Maybe two drinks. Hell, maybe five drinks. It’s definitely been that kind of night.

Ethan’s right behind me and we don’t say a word to each other until the elevator doors open into my private suite. I should go to my office—there’s a shitload of work that I need to plow through—though I’ve been working eighteen and twenty hour days since I got here, trying to bring myself up to speed.

But the truth is, I don’t want to be Richard Caine’s son tonight. I don’t want to be CEO of one of the largest, most lucrative casino and hotel conglomerations in the world. I just want to be me. Fucked-up, falling-in-love, totally-not-sure-what-to-do-about-any-of-it me. And I want to sit here and have a drink with my best friend and forget, for a minute, that assholes like Petrov Rubinov exist. Forget for a moment what happened to the last man I called my best friend.