Master Of Games
Master Of Games
Sienna Snow
Contents
Gods of Vegas, Book 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Note from the Author:
Master of Sin
Master of Revenge
About the Author
Books by Sienna Snow
Gods of Vegas, Book 2
BY SIENNA SNOW
Copyright Page
Copyright © 2019 by Sienna Snow
Published by Sienna Snow
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All rights reserved.
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The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact author@siennasnow.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Cover Design: Steamy Designs
Editor: Jennifer Haymore
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www.siennasnow.com
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ISBN - eBook - 978-1-948756-10-5
ISBN - Print - 978-1-948756-11-2
Chapter One
Amelia
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“Amelia, could you at least pretend you want to be here and smile for the camera?”
I held in a groan as Sebastian Blake, internationally known photographer and a former high-school classmate, ordered me to smile for the twentieth time in the last ten minutes. Why the fuck I thought doing this magazine cover was a good idea was beyond me.
I was an Olympic gold medalist in taekwondo and a businesswoman, not a seasoned fashion model.
I shifted my shoulder, trying to roll the stiffness from it.
“Dammit, Amelia, stay still. I thought Greeks were made of sterner stuff. I will never understand how you could train for hours and bring home a gold medal, but you can’t handle a photo shoot. I didn’t fly all the way to Greece for the crap you’re giving me.”
“Bite me.” I glared at Sebastian. “You tell me how you feel after hours of standing in the same unnatural poses. Plus, I’m an American like you, and we’re delicate.”
Sebastian snorted and handed his camera to his assistant before asking, “Are you saying I’m weak?”
“Aren’t you the one who nearly had a temper tantrum because your legs hurt from standing too long in gym class?”
“We were in tenth grade, and I had a football injury. You’re never going to let me live that down.”
“You started it.” I smirked.
“Point taken.” Sebastian glanced around the room and said, “Let’s everyone take a break.”
I could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the crew as they filed out of the studio.
“And get this woman an energy drink or something. Wonder Woman here is definitely not living up to her name,” Sebastian added for good measure, knowing it would annoy me.
“You only wish you had my skills.”
“I do, but I also know when to take a break. If I could get you to relax, then you’d be my perfect woman.”
“Everyone can’t be good at everything,” I heard someone say from behind Sebastian, and my heart immediately lightened.
“Penny. Thank God. Are you here to rescue me?” I slid my feet off the chaise I’d sat on for the last forty minutes.
Persephone Kipos had been my best friend since childhood and was all-around the most amazing woman I’d ever known. She was the mastermind chemist behind Firewater, the whiskey that had taken the world by storm and made both of us filthy rich. Her for her incredible genius, and me for my initial investment in her labs.
She was also about to marry one of the sexy-as-sin Lykaios brothers, who ran dozens of entertainment and hotel venues throughout the world.
“Nope. You committed to this. Therefore, you have to see it through.”
I sighed. “Well, I hope you at least brought me a shot of ouzo, or something with alcohol.”
She smiled and gestured to someone behind her. “No, I brought you something even better. Though there’s a chance he could give you a cavity from all his sweetness.”
“Mama.” My son, Christopher, ran toward me and engulfed me in a tight hug. His striking blue eyes shimmered up at me, making my heart clench.
God, he looked so much like his father.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.”
I beamed down at my beautiful boy’s face. At a little over nine, he was on the cusp of transitioning from a little boy and to a teen, and soon he may not enjoy these hugs as much.
I glanced at Penny, giving her a grateful nod. Her phone rang, and she turned, leaving me with Christopher.
“Yia Yia Marie said you don’t like to take pictures and I was the only one who could make you smile.”
“She was right. You are my heart. Come.” I patted the sofa next to me. “Climb on.”
He jumped onto the cushions in the way only kids could get away with. He settled into my lap, and I couldn’t help but savor the comforting scent of my baby.
“Stay just like that.” The clicking of Sebastian’s shutter echoed into the quiet room. “This is the first genuine smile I’ve seen all day. That boy has you wrapped around his finger.”
“Yes, he does.”
Christopher grinned up at me, and I couldn’t help but kiss his forehead.
For the next twenty minutes, Sebastian held Christopher and me captive, and to my surprise, I had more fun than I’d had all day. My son had a way of getting me to relax, with silliness and laughter, just like his Papa had.
I quickly masked the pain that hit my heart as I thought about Stavros. It had been nearly two years since he’d died in a boating accident, and I missed him desperately every day. He’d been my rock when I’d found myself pregnant at eighteen with no idea what to do. He’d jumped to marry me and claim another man’s child as his own. He was so much more than I’d deserved.
Especially since he wasn’t the man I dreamed of at night or wished for with the heart of the eighteen-year-old who’d thought she’d met her soulmate.
“You’re free to go.” Sebastian’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Thank God.” I stood, helping Christopher down, and stretched my arms above my head to work out the kinks in my back.
“Mama, can I go to Peter’s house? He has a new Lego set that he wants me to help him build. Yia Yia said if you were okay with it, she would drop me off at his house and then bring me home before bedtime.”
“I suppose it is acceptable since you weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow. But remember, first thing in the morning, you have homework to get done for school.”
“Because they enjoy torturing you.” I ruffled his hair and then pointed to my mother. “There’s Yia Yia. Go have fun.”
My mom took Christopher’s hand and led him out of the studio, leaving me to find Penny before we headed to my villa.
“I can’t believe you’re going to work with him after all he did to you. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Persephone asked. About five months ago, my management company, Thanos Sports, had announced that our prized fighter Apollo Regalia was scheduled to take on Hugo Davis in an MMA heavyweight pay-per-view fight in Las Vegas.
The news wasn’t what annoyed Penny, it was the fact Collin Lykaios had just signed on as Apollo’s main sponsor.
Collin wasn’t her favorite person, and up until last year, he wasn’t mine either. The man had orchestrated the destruction of my relationship with his son. But then again, if he hadn’t forced me to leave Pierce, then I’d never have married Stavros or had almost ten beautiful years together.
“Yes, I know what I’m doing. Besides, I could say it’s your fault I made this deal in the first place.”
She frowned. “Explain to me how this is my fault?”
“Aren’t you the one who suggested I should look at other venues outside of Europe for my athletes?” I picked up a tumbler filled with ouzo, took a sip, and gazed out toward the Aegean Sea off the coast of Athens, Greece.
“I didn’t mean come back to Vegas or join forces with Collin Lykaios.”
“You’re just biased against him since you’re about to marry Hagen.”
In a matter of months, Penny would marry the eldest one of Collin’s estranged sons. Hagen was supposedly the darkest and most dangerous of the three brothers. I knew how wrong the assumption was. Hagen had made choices based on what life threw at him, but he was probably the least scary of the three Lykaios offspring. Hagen worshipped the ground Penny, or Starlight, as he liked to call her, walked on.
Pierce, on the other hand, was volatile by nature.
“No, that’s not true. I told you Hagen and Collin had come to a peace. They’re slowly working on their relationship.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“Collin is Christopher’s biological grandfather. Aren’t you afraid he’s going to find out you had Pierce’s baby?”
It was something I’d feared every day since I gave birth to Christopher, but I wasn’t going to tell Penny that. Besides, with Stavros gone, it was time to face the truth.
Pierce had a right to know about Christopher.
“No.”
“Whatever. You’re such a liar.”
“I’m serious,” I said defensively. “As far as the world knows, I was seeing both Pierce and Stavros at the same time. No one besides you, my parents, and Stavros knew I was pregnant before I married him, and I’d assumed you thought Christopher was Stavros’s from the beginning.”
It wasn’t until last year that Penny revealed that she had always known Pierce was Christopher’s father.
“I hate that you let everyone think you were an eighteen-year-old who slept around.”
“Well, it was better to let the world believe I was the whore of the sporting world than have my father fired and mother deported.”
Which had happened anyway. But Stavros had stepped in to help my parents settle back in Greece.
“And that’s my point. How the fuck do you forgive the man who essentially destroyed your life?”
“Because he came to me and begged for my forgiveness. He’s a broken man. It took a lot for him to face me and admit all his wrongdoing. He even went to my parents. The Collin of the past would never have come down from his pedestal to admit his mistakes.”
“Wait.” Penny sat up and gaped at me. “Say all that again.”
I set my glass on a nearby table and decided to give her the story. “Last year, when I was in Ireland promoting Apollo’s latest match, Collin asked to meet with me. He sent a note through my security detail saying he wanted to make amends for the pain he’d caused me.”
“Well, that makes complete sense—that was the same time period when he and Hagen began to talk again.”
“At first, I was hesitant. I hadn’t seen or interacted with him since the night he told me I had to pick between my parents and Pierce. But then I learned he had visited my parents. If they could find it in their hearts to move past the deeds of ten years ago, so could I. Therefore, I called him and agreed to meet for tea.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t temporary insanity?” Penny interjected.
“Whatever it was,” I continued, “I met with him and was surprised to find a very different man than I’d known ten years earlier. He was genuinely remorseful and knew what he’d done was unforgivable. He told me he caused me so much pain in order to protect Pierce and me. He only hoped one day he could make amends.”
I never understood how breaking Pierce and me up helped protect us, but there were so many things I hadn’t been able to grasp at the time everything went down. Instead of questioning my situation, I ran. Well not ran, but escaped into Stavros’s world. A place I never truly fit into but gave me the security I needed.
A look passed in Penny’s eyes that made me pause and say, “What? You know something.”
Her gaze went to mine. “I can’t tell you the details because it isn’t my story to tell, just know it’s true. He broke his relationship with his family in order to keep them safe.”
“I didn’t question him about it. I accepted his apology and decided to move on. Stavros taught me to let go of my anger years ago.”
I remembered the lengthy discussions I’d had with Stavros. He’d gotten me to see perspectives I’d never considered. The man had deserved so much more from me than I had given him.
“He truly was an amazing man.” Penny set her hand on mine. “Go on. Finish the story.”
I inhaled deep, pushing back the sadness. “It wasn’t until two months ago that we talked again. Apparently, Apollo had endeared himself to Collin over pints of Guinness while in Ireland, and Collin wanted to sponsor him in an international heavyweight fight. So, at the end of summer, Apollo Regalia and Hugo Davis will go head-to-head for the highest purse in MMA and boxing history.”
“With Hugo under Pierce’s management company, you’re going to have to face the past.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“It’s what’s best for Apollo’s career. My personal feelings have to be put aside.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that, but I see a few problems I think you’re conveniently trying to ignore.”
I crossed my arms. “And they are?”
“First, you’re still in love with Pierce.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Penny cut me off. “I know you loved Stavros. I’m not trying to diminish what you felt for him or hurt you, but you never loved him the way you loved Pierce.”
I held in a wince and felt a wave of guilt. She was right. I may have been a stupid teenager, but what I’d had with Pierce was never duplicated with Stavros.
Stavros and I had a friendship that developed into love. With Pierce, it had been all-consuming passion and a need I couldn’t explain.
“It was teenage love. I grew out of it. I’m a mother now and don’t have time for the past.”
“That brings me to the second problem—Christopher. The instant anyone takes a good look at him, they’re going to know Stavros isn’t his father. Here in Europe, no one knows better. As Christopher grows, he looks more and more like Pierce. The second he steps foot on US soil, especially Vegas, it’ll be obvious that Pierce and Christopher are related.”
“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m hoping that since Christopher won’t come to the US for at least five weeks after I get there, I can devise a plan to keep him out of the spotlight.”
“Too late.”
I fro
wned. “What does that mean?”
“You just did a mother-son photo shoot. Sebastian got some great pictures of the two of you, and there’s no doubt in my mind that those are the ones he’ll use. Christopher’s face is going to be on the cover of Vogue, the European and American editions.”
My stomach dropped, and a fear I hadn’t felt since I first found out I was pregnant filled my body. This was not how I wanted Pierce, or anyone else, to find out.
“Ame, it’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out.”
I stayed quiet for a few moments and then took a deep breath and said, “I should have known better than to think any business with a Lykaios would be easy.”
“This was in the making for a long time. Now you need to get to Pierce and tell him the truth before he finds out some other way.”
Chapter Two
Pierce
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“Hey, asshole. You better show up today.” My brother Hagen’s voice came over the phone the second I answered.
I pulled into a parking space outside of a giant warehouse on the outskirts of Vegas and turned off the engine. The last thing I wanted to do today was meet with my brothers, Hagen and Zack, for our weekly debriefing.
I was swamped with too much shit for a break. I had three contracts to review for amateur boxing matches, a racing event to negotiate, and most of all, I had to organize the final details of the heavyweight MMA bout between the European champ and my guy.