Chapter Text
Dawn in Las Vegas brings no redemption; it only reveals with a harsh, merciless light what the neon darkness tried to hide.
The immense penthouse of the Mirage Grand, the crown jewel of Brandon Flowers' hotel empire, stank. It was a sickeningly sweet mixture of stale sweat, expensive French perfume, premium lubricant, and the unmistakable stench of alcohol evaporating through pores. Brandon opened his eyes slowly, his eyelids feeling as heavy as lead plates. The desert sunlight filtered through a gap in the automated curtains that someone had forgotten to close completely, piercing his dilated pupils like a red-hot needle.
His head throbbed to the rhythm of a funeral march. He tried to swallow, but his throat was parched, coated in a rough layer that tasted of bile and ash.
He didn't move immediately. He let his numbed senses take an inventory of the battlefield. To his right, the flaccid arm of a young woman, whose face was buried in the black silk pillows, rested across Brandon's chest. To his left, the heavy, irregular breathing of a man—a runway model or a failed actor, he wasn't sure—who lay on his back, his jaw slack.
Brandon turned his neck slowly, feeling his vertebrae pop. He looked at the naked bodies beside him and felt absolutely nothing. No lingering lust, no affection, not even the slightest spark of human connection. They were meat. Single-use tools designed to massage his gigantic and fragile ego; empty vessels into which he had poured his rage and despair the night before until he passed out.
With an abrupt movement completely devoid of gentleness, Brandon shoved the woman's arm away from his body. She let out an inarticulate groan and rolled over. Brandon sat on the edge of the massive circular bed. The cold of the polished marble floor beneath his bare feet was a momentary relief against the dull fever burning in his blood.
He stood up, swaying slightly, and walked toward the glass table in the main living room. The surface was littered with empty Belvedere vodka bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and, in the center, on a silver tray, the remains of his real breakfast.
Brandon picked up a black credit card, expertly but shakily lined up a thin line of white powder that had been left untouched, and leaned in. He inhaled deeply. The chemical sting shot up his nose, burning his sinuses, followed almost instantly by the bitter drip at the back of his throat.
He closed his eyes, clenching his fists at his sides as he waited for the impact. Five seconds. Ten seconds. And then, the engine kicked in.
The alcohol haze dissipated, replaced by a jolt of cold, toxic, arrogant electricity. His heart began to hammer against his ribs. He opened his eyes. His previously dull pupils now gleamed with a predatory intensity. The exhaustion was buried under an avalanche of synthetic dopamine. He was no longer a broken, hungover man; he was once again the god of Sin City.
He walked over to the wall phone and dialed the concierge. He didn't wait for the employee to finish the standard greeting.
"Send my personal security up right now. I want them to clear the trash out of my bed. Get them dressed, make them sign the NDAs, and throw them out on the fucking street in ten minutes. If I can still hear either of them breathing my air when I get out of the shower, the head of security will be fired before noon."
He slammed the receiver down. He didn't care about the money he gave them; he cared about the cleanup. He cared about the absolute power to use and discard.
Forty-five minutes later, Brandon stepped out of his private elevator onto the hotel's main executive floor. He wore a midnight blue bespoke suit that cost more than most of his employees' mortgages. His dark hair was slicked back, perfectly fixed, and his jaw was tense, clenched from the residual effect of the cocaine. He walked with long strides, like a vulture king inspecting his carrion.
The staff parted as he passed, pressing themselves against the walls, lowering their gaze. The fear was palpable. Brandon fed on it.
Upon reaching the management lobby, he stopped dead in his tracks. His hazel eyes, sharp and hyperactive, locked onto a minuscule detail. A maintenance worker, a man in his fifties wearing the gray company uniform, was finishing polishing a section of the brass baseboard next to the boardroom doors.
Brandon approached slowly. Silence fell over the entire floor. The assistants stopped typing.
"What is your name?" Brandon asked, his voice dangerously soft and controlled.
The man stood up quickly, turning pale. He took off his cap, trembling. "R-Robert, sir. Robert Miller."
"Tell me, Robert. Do you get paid to polish the brass?"
"Yes, Mr. Flowers. That is my job."
Brandon pointed the toe of his shiny Italian leather shoe at a tiny, barely noticeable water spot two inches from the baseboard. "Then explain to me why the floor of my fucking hotel looks like a bus station public restroom."
Robert swallowed hard, terrified. "I... sir, a drop just fell from the water bottle of... I'll clean it right now, sir."
"No, you won't," Brandon smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. It was a sadistic grimace. "You're fired."
"W-what? Sir, please, I've been here twelve years, I have..."
"I said you're fired," Brandon's tone rose, cutting through the air like a whip. "Pack your crap and get out of my building before I call the police for trespassing."
Brandon didn't feel a shred of remorse. He only felt the rush of control. The power to destroy a life with four words was better than any drug. He stepped over the imaginary stain and pushed open the double glass doors of the immense boardroom.
But the euphoria of his little display of tyranny evaporated the instant he crossed the threshold.
Unlike the terrified staff outside, the ten men and women who made up his board of directors did not bow their heads when he entered. They were seated around the massive mahogany table, and the atmosphere was thick, hostile, charged with a silent but definitive rebellion.
At the head was Charles, the Chief Operating Officer, a gray-haired man who had been a friend of Brandon's late father. Charles didn't look at him with fear, but with a deep, insurmountable weariness.
"You're forty minutes late, Brandon," Charles said, omitting the formal "Mr. Flowers."
"I was busy running the empire that pays your salaries," Brandon shot back, dropping into the chair at the head of the table, sprawling his legs arrogantly. "What's the occasion for this morning ambush? I don't have time for union complaints."
Charles slid a thick black folder across the polished surface of the table until it hit Brandon's crossed hands. "It's not the union. It's the bank."
Brandon frowned. He opened the folder. His eyes quickly scanned the first few lines, and ice settled in his stomach, neutralizing his morning chemical high.
"The numbers are blood red, Brandon," Charles continued, his voice hard, relentless. "You've bled the operating accounts dry to fund your parties, your obscene penthouse renovations, and your personal whims. Profit margins have dropped thirty percent in the last two quarters. The construction debts for the south tower are suffocating us. We are exactly forty-five days away from declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy."
"This is cheap fear-mongering," Brandon spat, slamming the folder shut, feeling cold sweat begin to bead on his forehead. "I can get a bridge loan in twenty-four hours. I have contacts on Wall Street who would kill for..."
"We already called your 'contacts'," interrupted one of the women on the board, Sarah, the CFO. "No one wants to lend a dime to a man who makes the tabloid covers high on yachts every other weekend. Your reputation has closed every door."
Brandon clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. His gigantic, fragile ego roared inside him. He was going to fire them all. He was going to make them crawl.
"I built this," Brandon hissed, leaning forward, his eyes flashing with dark fury. "I pulled you all out of sleazy dive casinos and brought you to the center of the fucking Strip. Nobody tells me how to run my..."
"It's over, Brandon," Charles decreed, standing up. "We've found one single lifeline. A tech investment fund with enough liquid capital to absorb the debt and restructure us. But since they don't trust you, or your judgment, or your supposed sobriety, they've set a non-negotiable condition for injecting the money."
Brandon froze. Panic began to claw at his throat. "What condition?"
"They are bringing in their own team to audit every cent, every contract, and every decision you make. An external auditor will set up shop here. He will have veto power over you."
"Over my dead body!" Brandon roared, leaping to his feet and kicking his chair back. "I'm not going to let some fucking bureaucrat come into my company and tell me how to breathe!"
"Your other option is for the board to vote for your immediate removal for negligence and fiduciary malpractice today at 3:00 PM," Charles replied, cold as steel. "And if we do, you'll walk out of this building with nothing but the clothes on your back and a legal scandal that will land you in jail for corporate fraud. You decide. The external team arrives in five minutes."
Brandon couldn't breathe. The trap had sprung. They had him surrounded, cornered on his own throne. He breathed heavily, feeling his heart pounding in his eardrums. His mind was racing a mile a minute. He couldn't lose the company; it was the only tangible proof he had to show the world that he wasn't a failure. That he wasn't the soft, useless boy his father despised.
He clenched his fists, reassembling his mask of arrogance, swallowing the venom. "Send them in, then. Let's see these supposed saviors."