Page 4 of Savage Revenge

Rolling my eyes, I smirk and shake my head, turn up Taylor Swift, and sing along toBad Bloodas I head toward my apartment.

I’m being ridiculous.

Elliott offered to take me hiking. He didn’t ask me to marry him. I might have a slight crush on the man, but I’m realistic enough to know that he’s probably only looking for a good time.Guys like Elliott Carver don’t settle down with women like me. And it’s been long enough since I’ve had sex that I’m okay with that.

Besides, I’m due for something exciting to happen.

CHAPTER 3

Cash

NUMBNESS IS MY NEW NORMAL

No matterhow bitter I make my espresso, it still tastes like nothing. Just heat and emptiness. I take another sip, hoping the scalding liquid might shock something back to life. Pain. Anger.Anything. But it doesn’t do any of those things. It does nothing except sear the inside of my mouth.

I don’t flinch. Don’t curse. Don’t even feel it.

Because I’m fucking numb.

As I stare at the sparkling blue water of my in-ground pool, I see nothing.

Hear nothing. Not the wild animals howling in the desert. Or the fountain that’s sending a waterfall cascading into a lower pond.

People say losing a parent is one of the hardest things you can go through. What they don’t tell you is that it feels like my organs are being carved out with a dull knife. Because the one person who has always had my back is suddenly gone, and I don’t know how to cope.

My dad wasn’t just my father. He was our anchor. The glue. The crown of our empire and the one who held this family together, even after my mom died.

Our attorney gave me the papers this morning that made me CEO of Savage Entertainment, with the four of us having equal shares in the company. Xander was named as COO, Kian as CFO, and Beckett as CSO. It wasn’t a surprise. These roles were pretty much ours already. My father had been getting close to retirement and was only a few months from handing me the reins.

I was thrilled to take over my dad’s spot so he could retire after working his ass off for so many years. He could go fishing like he always wanted to. Although I still don’t know where the hell he was planning to do that around here. Whenever I asked, he’d smile and say it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he was going to have fun and live his life to the fullest because my mother had made him promise to do that when he turned seventy. She made him agree not to work a day after his seventieth birthday. And he was going to uphold that.

Until someone took that opportunity away from him.

The city lights glitter in the distance as a cool breeze floats through my backyard, making the pool ripple slightly under the moonlight. It’s breathtaking, even from here. No matter how many times I’ve seen it, there’s still something special about the glow of The Strip. It’s home. Where we’ve spent most of our lives, learning the ins and outs of the world of gambling and business. Casinos, hotels, strip clubs, and restaurants. We have it all. Savage Entertainment is the biggest holder of businesses in Las Vegas. And for that reason alone, we’ve always had a target on our backs. Only now, someone has gone too far.

My fingers tighten around the espresso cup as my heart pounds harder and my throat starts to tighten. It isn’t until I hear the sound of my cup cracking that I hurl it to the ground, finding small comfort in the mug smashing into a million little pieces.

What the fuck am I doing out here? Wasting time when I should be searching for my dad’s murderer. That’s what. They should already be dead by now, yet we’ve been letting them walk free for days. Probably thinking they got away with it.

How the fuck is it that there are millions of cameras along Las Vegas Boulevard and we can’t identify a single thing about the person?

I pull my phone out and send a message to my brothers.

Cash: Meet me at Dad’s house.

Then I stride into my house, ignoring the shards of ceramic scattered all over the ground, and grab my keys and wallet. We’ve wasted enough time wallowing.

All I know is someone out there did this.

Someone who knew my dad.

And I’m going to destroy their entire life, just like they did ours.

“What are we doing here?”Kian asks as we stand in the courtyard outside our father’s mansion.

None of us have gone inside since he died. And the thought of going in there right now to the dark, empty rooms makes me want to vomit. The police didn’t find anything out of place in his house when they searched it, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t miss something.

“We need to discover who did it. Whoever it was, Dad had to know them. Let’s do a sweep of his computer and phone, andwe might find something that will give us answers. We have a lot of enemies in this city, but most of them don’t have the balls to actually kill someone.” I slowly climb the steps and take a deep breath as I enter the door code.

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