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)
A small wad of cash is on the kitchenette counter, where his phone and wallet sit neatly, awaiting him. He turns the phone on. Judging from the lack of messages, it seems the number of prank calls and interested press has greatly lessened overnight. Is that the work of Lord Markadian and his team, or has Kyle’s fifteen minutes of fame at last expired?
He realizes he doesn’t care.
Kyle leaves the room, takes the elevator down. Passes by a sad-faced woman in the lobby, two men talking business, and a teenager taking photos of the colorful flower and plant display. “Careful, they’re all deadly,” says Kyle absently as he walks by. “Everything here is.” The teen stops taking photos, frowns at Kyle as he walks away.
The woman at the front desk offers no smile, the same one who checked them in. “Did you enjoy your stay at the Scarlet Sands Hotel & Casino, sir?”
“No,” answers Kyle.
As if she didn’t hear nor process the answer, she asks, “Was Mr. Hastings able to find something adequate to enjoy on the room service menu?”
“He found more than he came here for,” answers Kyle.
Then, he is standing outside the front of the building, just under the large shaded front canopy, waiting for the car. The sun is up. The jacket covers Kyle completely, including a hood flopped over his head, sleeves coming nearly to his fingertips, his look completed by the pair of shades over his eyes like he’s nursing a hangover. At his side dangles the umbrella, unopened. One of the demonic statues stands to his side. In the daylight hours, the statues seem funny, out of place, as if caught being transported to a pretentious art gallery. When he gazes to the left, the sky’s midday glow. To the right, a demon’s erection in granite and polished limestone.
When the car pulls up, Kyle double checks the description in the instructions. Dark tinted windows. Black, unremarkable.
The window rolls down.
Elias’s face appears.
His warm, golden brown skin. Intense eyes. Big arm, hand on the steering wheel. Subtlest of smiles playing on his lips.
Kyle stares back, dumbfounded. “Elias …?”
“Hey.” He smiles, pats the seat. “You getting in or what?”
Kyle rushes up to the car and peels the door open, climbing into the car quicker than he should and nearly closing the door on his own leg. “Elias! I thought … I thought I’d never see you again. I was expecting some weird driver. How’d you—??”
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, shouldn’t you give me a kiss or something?”
Kyle climbs over the center console to press his lips against Elias’s. Emotions fill the car like hot chocolate in a mug, warm, sweet, and full of hearthside promises. Whatever nightmares had lingered inside Kyle from the night’s events are obliterated at the joining of their lips.
Kyle is practically sitting in Elias’s lap when the kiss ends. “Explain to me what happened,” Kyle demands. “What’d your mom say? Does she know who they are? Markadian and all his Vegasyn assholes? Does she work with them? For them? Why are you here and not with her and her henchmen who took you away from me? How are you here right now? Why?”
Elias blinks. “I’ll need a little time to get through all those questions. For now, why don’t you pretend to be a human being and sit in the passenger seat properly, do your seatbelt, and I’ll tell you a story over the next few hours as we make our way back home to Nowhere.”
Kyle kisses Elias instead. Again.
“Goddamn it, Kyle,” groans Elias happily as the two grind against one another in the driver’s seat, lips locked, kissing with such ferocity that their teeth ache.
The traffic is treacherous, proving difficult and slow as they make their way back to the highway. It’s while waiting in the line of bumper-to-bumper vehicles that Elias tells Kyle what he has learned in the very eye-opening past few hours.
“Wait a sec,” breathes Kyle, trying to follow. “Your mom doesn’t know what they really are, but she works with them?”
“I don’t know which ones she’s associated with or knows, but they’re all over the place. Investors, executives, staff, you name it. In fact, they’ve even infiltrated other casinos and hotels all across the city. Learned that from my new best pal George, who I hope dies a long and agonizing—Hey! Eyes off your phone, jackass!” he shouts at a car that cuts him off, sighs, and resumes. “Anyway, their money’s everywhere. Fucking demons.”
“So … I still don’t understand how that somehow gave you the freedom to drive out to Nowhere with me.”
“One of Markadian’s fancy suit-wearing underlings has a high-ranking position at Scarlet Sands apparently—Marketing and Promotions Director, something like that. He had a private discussion with my mom, and long story short, I’ve been sent on a long-term ‘field project’ as an ambassador for the hotel.”