Page 10 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)

the las vegas bachelor party

NICOLAI ROMANOV

Going to Las Vegas for John Borbon’s bachelor party week was my first mistake.

The private plane skidded to a stop on the runway, lurching me forward in my seat. My notepad slid across the dark wood table. I grabbed at the fluttering pages but missed. The sheaf flopped off the table and into my uncle’s lap.

Michel Pictet, the uncle in question, frowned and flopped the paper back on the table with an imperious wave of his hand, as if my notes offended him.

Silver iced his blond hair at his temples, and six decades of sun damage splotched his ivory-pale skin with brown stains.

“I don’t know why you bother with trivial details. We have people to do this for us.”

The people who did this for us were stealing from our charities. This particular river blindness foundation was showing no decent impact, but I couldn’t prove they were pilfering the coffers yet. “It’s important to keep up.”

“If you insist on delving into these minuscule matters, fine, but keep it away from me. I don’t have time for such nonsense. If there is a discrepancy, it’s probably a meager amount for us, anyway.”

“Probably.” Once the numbers were final, I could decide whether the theft was worth our time to pursue. Some skimming was expected, especially in areas of the world where colonialism had damaged the culture and pillaged the economy, but this charity was fully funded and yet functionally dead.

Which meant people weren’t getting their annual, single dose of a generic medication that kept them from going blind. It was so simple, really, and yet the meds were not getting to the afflicted people.

Because thieves were stealing the money.

At least my open laptop hadn’t flopped across the table and smacked Michel in the chest. He probably would have stomped around the plane, shouting at the cabin staff until the point had been made that he was deeply offended.

And then the staff would be obligated to be obsequious to calm him down.

And then he’d find other faults, real or imagined, to chastise them about.

And then I’d have to intervene and smooth everything over.

And then I would still wonder, on my return flight to London next week, if my food had spit in it.

I drew a deep breath, keeping everything about my face and posture calm and unbothered. I was a master at it, holding everything from irritation to rage behind a smooth mask.

The whine of the airplane’s engines fell from their landing crescendo, and the plane pivoted off the runway, bumping over the tarmac as it taxied toward the private terminal.

Michel said, “I don’t know why Don Badajoz insisted on having his bachelor party in the US, of all places.”

“If you see him, you know he prefers to be called John Borbon.” Or else I’d have to smooth that over, too.

“The States are so puritanical these days. Monaco would have been better. Or Paris. Or Singapore.”

His list of better options continued while I packed up, stowing my laptop and notes in my courier bag. I should just keep my uncle Michel away from John. “Yes, all right.”

“Even Moscow would have been better.”

I squinted at him. “Maybe for you.”

He brushed his hand through the air, flipping away nonsense. “Yes, well, I suppose it was important to John for you to come.”

Michel Pictet was my uncle on my mother’s side and thus a Dane by descent, so no one cared if he went to Russia, even though he should be careful, considering he had contacts like me in his phone. “Yes, it’s important to John for me to be here.”

John and I had been kids at boarding school together since we were five, and thus, he was closer to my heart than my genetically related uncle Michel sitting across the table.

“Well, it’s convenient that we’re holding a family corporation meeting here at the same time. Two birds, one stone, and all that.”

Uncle Michel was all about killing birds. “Yes, convenient.”

“And we can meet with other contacts while we’re here. Business contacts. You’ll have supper and afters at the Sanctuary tonight?”

It was best to stay neutral with Michel. “That’s the plan. John’s bachelor blowout starts late tonight.”

“When does Konstantin arrive?”

“Later today. He couldn’t get away before.

Exams, you know.” Konstantin, my rather younger brother who had chosen to go by the very Russian diminutive Kostya, was a junior at Harvard and had finally aged into the States’ puritanical drinking age.

Europe, of course, trusted its citizens more, even its younger ones.

“Will he be at the Sanctuary tonight?”

“He’s got a room there, so probably by nine or so.”

“Good. He should be present.”

Odd. “Yes, John’s been an important figure in Kostya’s life, too.”

“I meant at the Sanctuary club. I’ll be conducting some business there tonight, and you both should be present.”

The schedule micromanaging irritated me. Michel was acting as if I had nothing better to do than attend to him during the week.

John and I were booked for several business meetings while we were in the States, including the one starting in a few hours. Hopefully, I’d have time to shave in my suite at the Sanctuary before it started.

I flipped the strap over the top of the courier bag and buckled it. “I didn’t know you’d taken an interest in the family finances.”

“Well, there are other matters that people like me attend to.”

Which was what, spending the family wealth on depreciating assets and baubles to show off our wealth to the other billionaire denizens of the world? This wasn’t even Davos, where flying in on last year’s private jet model was terribly déclassé. “Your contribution is noted.”

He fixed me with an icy stare, his pale blue eyes just like my mother’s and mine. “Not all of us fiddle with numbers, Nicolai. Some of us bring the money to the table.”

And there it was, reminding me that my father had married Michel’s sister for her family’s immense but common wealth, as our family had done in every generation since World War I. “Yes, I’m well aware.”

“Interesting times, aren’t they, Nico?”

“They all are.” I absolutely was humoring him.

“Yes, but money is on the move, streaming upward. A new era of kings is beginning. We wouldn’t want to be left out. In that way, it’s good that we’ll be here in Las Vegas this week. Quite the opportunity.”

“With what, gambling? A sucker’s game for fools.”

Maybe that was waving the red cape in front of the notoriously testy bull that was my uncle, but the plane was rocking backward as it stopped. The flight attendant who’d been trying to catch my eye the whole flight was disarming the door and about to flip the steps down to the tarmac.

After the car ride and freshening up in my reserved suite at the Billionaire Sanctuary private club, I could escape to John’s hotel for a business meeting while we were in the States anyway.

The main bachelor party nightclub blowout wasn’t until the tomorrow night, though a smaller reception after supper that very night had been scheduled at the Sanctuary bar for the core of us who’d been at boarding school together.

Afterward, I planned to lock myself in my own suite at the Sanctuary, attend to business and John’s festivities as necessary, and hopefully dodge my uncle until we returned to Paris in a few days.

“No, Nicolai,” my uncle said. “Not gambling. Other opportunities. Opportunities to network and be seen. To form beneficial relationships.”

Ah, he meant what my father’s family had brought to the table, access, in lieu of liquid cash reserves .

Our wealth was tied up in property and antique jewelry.

Michel and other members of the Pictet family had immediately taken advantage of our family’s rarefied connections since their marriage and never paused. “Yes, true.”

“The meeting tonight is very important. I’ll need your presence. Konstantin, too.”

Probably with subtly shady members of his lower social class and the blue bloods of mine.

In the meantime, I had other business to conduct and a cavalcade of black SUVs waiting for me just off the runway. “I suppose I can pencil you in.”