Breaking Beauty (Devils Aces MC): Vegas Titans Series

by Loren, Celia

  At seven twenty-two, Kellan Vaughn lurched through the entrance of The Windsor. He had to rack his brain for a moment for the secret code Lefty had told him the night prior, but soon enough, he'd gained admission to the first of apparently two secret elevators. He was nervous, for the first time this week.

  “You're not really dressed for the occasion, sir,” said the stone-faced elevator operator responsible for the second leg of his journey. To this, Kellan removed a cigarette from a pocket in his jeans, and lit it in the elevator. He blew a rude gust of smoke into the man's face.

  “That's what I think of your occasion,” he replied.

  Sour, he leaned against a wall of the carriage. His head was beginning to spin unpleasantly from the two or three cocktails he’d already downed at a bar across the street—liquid courage.

  After being discharged on the sixth floor, and much to the relief of the elevator operator, Kellan was led to a second set of elevators. These were narrow, able to comfortably contain maybe two thin men. It was here that Kellan began to notice other patrons of the secret bar upstairs—men in sunglasses were milling around the hall, checking their Rolex and Cartier watches, attempting at furtiveness. He saw now what the elevator man had meant: Kellan stood out in this crowd like a sore thumb. He felt in his pockets for the swiped pair of Hughie’s Ray Bans, hoping at least that anonymity would help ease the contrast. No dice: it appeared he’d forgotten his only disguise somewhere in his motel room.

  Just then, Kellan felt the fat whump of a hand on his back—turning, he took in Lefty DiMartino himself.

  “My friend! The ROCK STAR!” the large man stage-whispered, though his crackling voice drew sufficient attention from the silent crowd. Kellan hadn’t managed to tell his brother about the new friend he’d acquired on his sojourns around Vegas—he couldn’t yet gauge if having an ally in Lefty would be better or worse for their scheme in the long run. But suddenly, the omission seemed like a terrible idea. Walking into a secret club all bosomed up with the owner could easily throw his partner for a loop…

  “Glad to see you, Mr. Vaughn. And how are you finding my little hotel?”

  There was nothing for it but to play along. He couldn’t exactly blow a cover now.

  “It’s very nice, Righty. Perfect situation.” Lefty’s smile tightened, though he didn’t correct the misnomer. Kellan contained his inner triumph.

  Playing cards was all about what you got other men to think of you; what personality, what life, you were capable of selling to the world at large. Poker, especially, was simultaneously the subtlest game and the most direct microcosm of all human interaction: for everywhere everyone went, weren’t they simply trying to make something of nothing? Weren’t they trying to earn something, sell something?

  Kellan was a naturally gifted card player because he could read people’s needs and fears—he’d spent his whole high school life watching them from shadowy corners, then reinterpreting what he discovered on his trusty guitar. He’d gotten a valuable piece of information on Lefty DiMartino just now, seeing him flinch at his mispronounced name: this man’s ego—like his empire—was precarious. Lefty assumed everyone was afraid of him, and was immediately adrift when this assumption was challenged.

  Good to know.

  It was a tight, unpleasant ride to the top with Lefty sandwiched into the elevator beside him, and the close quarters caused Kellan to unwillingly divulge a little bit of his own “useful information”—he was certain the house boss could smell all the whiskey and smokes on his clothes. Then again, this wasn’t necessarily a failing. The more Lefty assumed Kellan was a troubadour schmuck, the less likely he’d be to connect him with Bryson’s anonymous, high-roller character. Win some, lose some...

  “Here we are,” Lefty pronounced when they’d reached the tip of the Needle. He swept his hands wide and looked majestic—like he was showing his young charge the Grand Canyon, or something. Someday, all this will be yours, sonny boy. Kellan suppressed a snort.

  His eyes danced over the floor. He considered the Needle from card-mode, seeking out it’s structural weaknesses, it’s assets. The glittery windows surrounding all the tables gave players facing them an advantage: there’d be no glare on their hand, and a slim possibility of discerning opponents’ suits in the reflected glass. They could also wear sunglasses and not look extra douchey. Kellan began to amble towards a far table, looking to work his way around the space...but again, Lefty intruded.

  “Not so fast, Rock Star. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. ADELAIDE!” The sound of the man’s rocky voice curled about her beautiful name made Kellan experience a brief burst of rage. But as swiftly as this instinct arrived, another took its place.

  Lefty was guiding her toward him, presenting her like a trophy. At first, he didn’t see it: this woman was blonde, thin, pretty—the equal of many other “dealers” roving around the space. But then he did.

  To begin with, her eyes were different than the others’; they were deep, wide, and extremely intelligent. In her gaze Kellan read fear, an opposing confidence, and a resting sense of humor.

  Her body was different. Trim and compact, while warm and curvy in all the right places. It was easy to see how Lefty had chosen her to work here, among the elite. She was a beautiful, beautiful woman. But all that irrational conviction that had been growing inside him over the past few days, that certainty that the Romy he’d forgotten from high school was in fact someone worth remembering, perhaps even the one who got away...the measure of that was plain, too.

  She was as radiant, as spirited, as curious as the woman he’d elevated to impossible heights in the past few days. The coursing realization of this fact nearly took Kellan’s breath away. That song he’d written? For a dream girl? This was her, standing in front of him. The certainty was sweeping over him. Only he couldn’t tell her how he felt—couldn’t, in fact, say anything to her besides the only appropriate thing to say to an utter stranger: “Hello...Adelaide, was it?”

  “This is Romy,” Lefty oozed. “And she’s one of our finest. Spin around, doll.” His ribbing was command. Though he couldn’t meet her gaze as she followed this humiliating instruction, Kellan couldn’t prevent his eyes from glancing at her comely behind...Jesus Christ.

  For her part, Romy hadn’t contained surprise so well. Lefty didn’t seem to have picked up on her shaking hands and startled look; probably because all the new girls acted like this for their first few shifts atop the Needle. But where Kellan had expected to find a smirk of recognition, even a bit of relief as she recognized her second savior, there was only shock. He tried to communicate something to her silently, with the pressure of his gaze. The contact reminded him—wildly, immediately—of high school. It was like they were sitting side by side on his childhood bed all over again.

  “Looks like I know how to pick ’em, huh?” Lefty breathed, with the leery quality of a voyeur. “We’ll get you set up at Ms. Adelaide’s table. And if you’re any good—you just may get lucky.” He cackled then, and made to circle the room.

  But before Lefty was quite out of the triangle, a man in sunglasses appeared out of the darkness and wrapped his arms around Romy’s middle. She nearly shrieked at the contact—Kellan could see this in her face—but in a moment, they both recognized the figure for Bryson.

  “Hey, babe,” his brother was saying. He kissed Romy on the cheek. Lefty turned back to the group, looking intrigued.

  “I’m working right now, honey,” Romy managed. She shook like a leaf. So this was a measure of the plan they hadn’t gone over...Romy and Bryson were feigning to be a real couple. Or perhaps they were a real couple. Perhaps they’d already made promises and exchanged sweet nothings, perhaps it had all escalated way past his brother’s infatuation. Though he’d been plagued by images of just these scenarios all week, Kellan felt his stomach lurch when confronted with the pair of them: brother and adored. He tried again—in vain—to communicate with Romy in silence, but her eyes had seemed to seal up. While she was
likely still afraid, she’d made a decision to show this fear to no one.

  “Splendid!” Lefty said, after a few seconds’ pause. “I love nothing more than a little client-to-kept socializing. Just so you know, though, sir...Mr…”

  “Weller,” Bryson said swiftly. “Tyler Weller.”

  “...Mr. Weller. Just so you know—your lady friend here is held to the constraints of her contract. Which include our tournament rules.”

  “Oh, I’m familiar,” Bryson said, making a valiant attempt to keep the fury from his voice. He forced a chuckle. “It’d be greedy to keep this princess all to myself, too. Wouldn’t it, baby?”

  Romy’s lips were set thin, but she also managed to play along. “Yes, Mr. Weller.”

  “Excellent,” Lefty said by way of conclusion. As he turned, he patted Romy fondly on her ass. Like he’d ruffle the fur of a retriever.

  The trio had maybe a second and a half to check in with the plan, and they couldn’t use words. Romy cast a shocked, hurt glance at Bryson; Bryson—by way of a double apology—looked to his brother and shrugged. Kellan frowned a little at the pair of them, then scooted towards the far corner of the room. As always, he could read everyone better from the corners.

  So things were off to a rocky start. Still, Kellan thought, swiping a cocktail from a passing tray which a waitress buoyed through the Needle, let the games begin. There was more on tonight’s table than there ever had been before.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  As soon as she had a moment to spare, Romy ducked into the Needle’s only slightly “private” area: a small, wretched corner of the main bar’s liquor closet. She ducked low, so Zaida wouldn’t see her shudders of—rage? Anxiety? She didn’t know what to feel, trapped in this orbiting hell with a lover, countless predators, spies, and...an ex-lover? It seemed a preposterous thing to call Kellan Vaughn, whom she’d “loved” with the timid desperation of a lonely teenage girl.

  As she had so many other times throughout this week of training, Romy felt suddenly and unabashedly foolish. Of course Bryson had been cagey about his partner; of course the partner was Kellan. And it was a credit to her frenzied, spliced mind that it hadn’t even occurred to her that these two brothers had carried on being brothers long past high school—while Romy had so inconveniently forgotten most of them both.

  She had a matter of seconds left before her departure from the floor became comment-worthy—so, Romy pretended to futz about with a few of the shiny-blue bottles of top-shelf tequila and vodka. Think, Adelaide, she urged herself. Use that giant, masters-degree brain of yours.

  But no particular plan seemed to materialize. There were only a few seconds left now—and how was she to proceed? What would the new, unexpected face at the table mean for the plan?

  Taking a calming breath, Romy reached into her mind and pulled out...a memory. It pushed across her powerfully, bearing with it an urgent kind of clarity…

  “It’s a Fender Strat that I’m dreaming of. Only, they’re the most expensive. By lots.”

  “One day.”

  “Yeah, one day.” The tall, thin boy with the mop of endearing spirals raked around his face smirked down at the girl—his way of smiling. With a paring knife, he expertly sloughed away the first layer of skin from the curious-looking fruit in his right hand.

  “Pomegranate?”

  “Never tried them before.”

  “They’re really good! Here—hold out your hand.”

  The girl had. He’d neatly placed five or six gem-like seeds into her palm. Then he’d laughed at the expression she made, swallowing the strangeness down.

  Today was one of dozens of possible, identical days spent keeping one another company in the court-yard. Though Reno’s weather didn’t much vary, she could see it all in hindsight unfolding like a movie montage of the seasons changing—only this story was Kellan in flannel, Kellan in another flannel, Kellan in a light coat, Kellan in flannel. Kellan’s long, spindly, musicians fingers—how they appeared crooked in certain lights. The dashing flick of that persistent paring knife, scraping away apple and orange peels, pears, slicing away pieces so it was easier to share.

  She remembered the sweet, perpetual furrow in his little artist’s brow: the way he was never quite satisfied with anything. How he spoke about his parents fondly, but with the firm assurance that he’d never be like them. How he listened to Romy speak about her miserable foster life—something she scarcely liked to do. In fact, hadn’t this courtyard been the scene of certain confessions? Secrets from her past that no one else—not Bryson, not Paulette—could ever know? What about this boyish rocker had been so enticing?

  “Are you doing anything after school today, Ro?”

  “Studying. The usual, blah, blah, blah.”

  “I have a present for you, lady. You should roll by Casa Diablo.”

  She recalled her heart shifting in her chest, like some object tumbling in a purse. “I should check with my…”

  “It won’t take long. And it’s nothing creepy, I promise.” Kellan’s face had flinched then—he had that endearing habit of showing his own gaffs on his face, often before anyone else had noticed them. “I mean—not creepy. Why would it be creepy? Just please...say you’ll come.”

  And what had she thought then? Flustered, frantic teenaged Romy? Sex had been on her mind the way it was on everyone’s mind in high school, but hadn’t she thought of this lanky boy as more of a beautiful person? Even akin to a girl, someone to envy over adore? Still, the picture of him was rending her mind. Somehow.

  And of course she’d followed him to the affectionately-dubbed Casa Diablo that night. This was before poor Kelly had even received his motorcycle license, so Romy had driven them both in her foster mother’s beat-up two-tone pick-up truck. They’d listened to Nirvana on the drive over, banging their heads with the simultaneous glee that only seems to occur when two misfits find one another. He’d told her jokes; she’d laughed.

  “It’s in your room?” she’d demanded, at the entrance to his house. There was a grandmotherly quality to Casa Diablo. His mother had been singing over the stove. Much of the furniture was covered in plastic. There was the rich, hearty smell of stale cigar in the air. The way he’d nodded at her hadn’t been scary. She’d been wary of everyone’s intentions since birth, practically—but she’d trusted Kellan Vaughn just then, in his foyer.

  When he picked up the guitar—not the Fender, not the wannabe fender, but the rickety twelve-string acoustic he claimed to have bartered a Crow Indian man for—Romy had felt another unusual trill of feeling. His bedroom had been Spartan. No posters on the walls or photos in frames, everything just so. The only thing that gave the circumstance away was the pervading odor of teenage boy. A smell that bothered plenty of girls (corn-chip-y, composed of all the wrong deodorants…) but one that Romy had loved. Still loved, to this day.

  Kellan had played his song with little fanfare. He hadn’t introduced it. He hadn’t even looked into her eyes, really; had preferred to mumble his chorus to the floor. But at the spastic end—when he’d looked up through his greasy hair to gauge her interest, a face full of hope—she’d been so compelled that she’d leaned forward on the bed and told him straight, “I love you.”

  And for a split second, that had hung in the air: the you dangling, dangerous. Romy realized her mistake in the split second, and tried to repair the damage: “It. I love it. I mean I love it, Kellan, that song—I love it so much.”

  If he was crestfallen, if her words had broken him—a Vaughn man wouldn’t show it. Instead, he’d set his guitar aside, and planted an earnest, sloppy teenage boy’s kiss somewhere to the right of her mouth. He’d been Romy’s first. Sure, she’d kissed plenty since that day—the Pomegranate and Song day—but she could still recall the inviting, spongy feel of his warm mouth. The thirst behind it. The youth...

  “What in HELL is going down here?” called Zaida, in her limping English. Romy was so startled that a sleek bottle of Skyy began to slip through h
er fingers. With cat-like reflex, her mentor seized the glass before it shattered on the floor.

  “Your table is needing you! What in HELL…”

  Romy stood quickly, and re-composed her features with haste. Looking up, she saw that the Needle floor had rearranged itself into top tournament form. All the window tables were taken up by sprawling games. Millionaires and B-Listers, hotshots of all colors...they were ready to gamble their money, hoping to make something from nothing.

  She cast about for Kellan and Bryson, who were doing a good job pretending to be strangers. Kellan was nursing a tall pour of what-looked-like-whiskey, while Bryson was glad-handing a bartender. Yet they were zeroing in on their allotted spaces, feigning casual.

  Zaida gave Romy a sharp flick at the base of her neck, and a last withering glance. So, she straightened her spine. Made for the table which would determine her fate.

  But suddenly, Romy felt another hand on her body—and this grip was somehow even less pleasant than the bony rattle of her supervisor. The pressure behind this hand was harsh, insinuating a large man. She could feel slightly sticky fingers through the patches in her leotard.

  “Remember me, sweet-cheeks?” appealed a voice by her ear with hot, rank breath. The. Dap.