Power Games. Victoria Fox

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       10

       Las Vegas

      ‘Angela Silvers! Just as pretty as I remember, hey, Don?’

      Carmine Zenetti, casino boss and hotel magnate extraordinaire, greeted them in his palatial office above the Parisian. Angela remembered him from her childhood—a squat, stout man with a black monobrow and hands like bear paws. She knew her father hated being called Don. Her father knew she hated every minute of being here.

      ‘No need to remind me,’ Donald said amiably, as he accepted a cognac and they were encouraged to sit. The panorama looked out on the dazzling Strip, where in the spring sunshine tourists milled amid the peaks and spires of the replica city. Giant billboards screamed news of the hottest show in town while glittering hotels ushered through the next bout of spenders. The air was charged with the sharp tang of money.

      Angela refused her drink. She had no appetite. Since her father’s revelation in Boston, she had barely let a thing pass her lips.

      ‘I gotta say, I’m glad you finally came around.’ Carmine smiled fatly. ‘All these years there I was thinkin’ we were meant to be, but you had me wondering there for a time …’ Carmine waggled a heavily jewelled finger at her father, one of a handful of people in the world who was permitted to do so, and chuckled. ‘But now you see it makes the best kind of sense. Zenetti and Silvers, united for the future.’

      Angela clenched her fists in her lap.

      ‘But hey,’ went on Carmine, eagerly rubbing his palms, ‘what are we waiting for? I know the guy you’ve really come to see.’

      Another, younger, man stepped into the room.

      ‘Meet Dino, my eldest.’ Carmine clapped him on the back. ‘Dino, you remember Don Silvers … and this, of course, is the gorgeous Angela.’

      There was a long silence.

      Dino was like something out of a catalogue—coffee hair, twinkling eyes, and a stacked body that was suited to perfection. He was an ad for mob fashion, gold rings glinting on his fingers, collar crisp, jacket pressed. Angela guessed he was in his thirties, indisputably handsome but so far from her type that even in a radically different context she could never have considered him a match.

      It didn’t matter who Dino Zenetti was. He wasn’t Noah.

      Her heart sank. How am I going to tell him?

      She played out her defence, each claim more ridiculous than the last.

       We can still see each other; it won’t change a thing. Dino means nothing to me. I’m doing it for the business, a transaction, no emotions, I swear …

      Even Noah Lawson’s boundless patience wouldn’t stretch that far.

      ‘Aren’t you kids gonna say hello?’ Carmine boomed, breaking the tension with a guffaw. ‘I tell ya, Donnie, this is like being back in the sixth grade!’

      ‘Good to meet you,’ said Dino, in a gravelly husk. He put out his hand. Angela shook it. She said nothing. Every instinct recoiled. It wasn’t too late, she could still back out of this; she could still change her mind.

      ‘I guess you two’re gonna want to get t’know each other, huh?’ Carmine thrust a glass into his son’s hand and supplied a wink. Their conspiracy filled her with horror. She wanted to run, never stop and never look back, until she reached his arms.

      If only that was all there was to it …

      ‘I want you to listen carefully,’ her father had said that night in his office, ‘for if you choose to accept, our empire is yours. Everything. You take over.’

      The words Angela had waited her whole life to hear.

      Her father’s confidence, his respect, his finally recognising what she was capable of, a bond between them of trust and belief, nothing to do with her brothers.

      But she could never have guessed at what cost.

      ‘The business is dying,’ Donald had explained. ‘I’ve been shielding you from it. I haven’t told Orlando, or Luca, or any of the board. I haven’t even told your mother. I’m telling you, Angela, because you’re the one I am counting on to help. We’re in bad shape. Real bad shape.’ He had wiped a hand across his face and she’d heard him swallow, СКАЧАТЬ