The Gambler (19 page)

He moved in closer to her as the other woman approached. “No lights.” He sent out that warning as the man made as if to hit the switch. “What’s going on, Jenna how did you get here child?” The two women embraced under Andros’ watchful eye. He had no idea what was going on, and was even more confused now than before. Hadn’t the mother claimed ignorance about this woman? So why was Jenna calling her nana?

“Somebody wanna tell me what’s going on here? How do you know Jenna?” He pulled her back to his side, his body still in a protective stance.

“She’s my granddaughter of course and who are you? Are you one of those ruffians?” He was pretty sure of whom she spoke, but he wasn’t giving anything away. Not yet.

“I’ll ask the questions lady. Now, you say you’re her grandmother, how come I never heard about you?” That was a stupid fuck question, he’d never heard about Jenna either, until a few short days ago; but nothing here was adding up, and he was fast running out of patience. He hated being in the dark about shit; that was the quickest way to get fucked.

“Because we’d been separated for a while when she was younger, but we’ve found each other again. Haven’t we Jenna?” She reached her hand out and touched the young girl’s cheek. It was dark in the room, and he couldn’t see the expressions on their faces very well, but there was no tension in his flower’s body, so he guessed she wasn’t feeling threatened. Now all he had to do was get to the bottom of what was going on and he could get her out of there as quickly as possible. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this turn of events, but time will tell. A fucking senator in the family, gramps will be pleased. The old fuck would have one more politician to hoodwink into doing his shit.

“Why was there a hit put out on you?” No sense in beating around the bush, time was a wasting and he wanted to be the fuck gone.

“What? I don’t understand young man. Are you saying someone hired someone to kill me?” She clutched at the front of her robe and looked around as if expecting the culprit to appear right then and there.

“Yes.”

“Look I can’t do this in the dark, couldn’t we turn on the lights so I can see to whom I’m speaking?” Did she think he was there for fucking milk and cookies?

“Look lady, this isn’t a social call. I’m here to either save your ass or put a bullet in you…”

“Angel nice.” She caressed his face and he took her hand in his. He wasn’t being anything until he found out this woman’s story. As far as he could tell, all the members of his Jenna’s family had been fucked in the head one way or the other. There wasn’t one mention in all the shit he’d found, that linked her to the Petridis family; so how could she be Jenna’s grandmother? To top it off, she was a politician and he had an ingrained distrust of them from the gate. He took Jenna back to the other side, out of the scope of the man he had outside, who he’d told to keep a bead on the senator until he knew what the fuck was up.

“Why do you think someone is trying to kill me?” She pulled out a chair at the table and sat, reaching out her hand for her husband who walked over and stood next to her.

“Your…Jenna told me.”

“I told you this might happen Cathy, I warned you how unscrupulous these people are.”

“Yes, but I’m a United States senator, who would dare do such a thing?”

“Bullets don’t give a fuck. Now I need to know what else you’re involved in and if Jenna is in anyway involved. We don’t have all day; it’s zero hour. The hit’s been sanctioned for today, which means anytime after midnight, which is now. Were you doing anything other than the expose`?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Don’t worry about that shit, just tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“It must be about that, it’s the only major thing I’ve been handling in the past year or so. But…”

“Okay, who did you piss off? I have some of the players but not all, and I still don’t know which of them put the mark on you.”

“This is all so confusing, I don’t know…I…my own daughter? Can’t be, she wouldn’t go this far surely.”

He got a bad fucking feeling at her words.

“Who’s your daughter?”

“Her mother of course.”

His mind started racing; Jenna wasn’t afraid of her mother, in fact she’d asked for her that first morning and a couple times since then. If the mother were involved wouldn’t she know? “Okay here’s the deal, we don’t have time to sit around here and wait for this fuck whoever he is to show up. Now you either come with us and I can get you to safety until we figure this shit out, or you can call whomever you need to to see to that shit. But I’m not keeping her around here for the fireworks.”

“I can’t just pick up and follow you on your say so…”

“Fair enough, let’s go.” He tried turning Jenna towards the door but she pulled out of his hands and ran around to the other side of the table, trying to pull the older woman from her seat.

“Nana, come.”

“That’s it, she wants you to come you’re coming. Boys take the old man back there to grab whatever shit they need and let’s go.” He pulled the pain in the ass senator up from her chair, and with her in one hand and Jenna on the other, headed out the door.

They made their way back down the hill after a tussle with the senator, who didn’t want to budge. He’d grown tired of her shit and dragged her out the house. He didn’t know who was coming or how many, and though he wasn’t afraid for himself, there was no way he was ever gonna have Jenna around that shit again. He was of a mind to leave a man behind, just in case the hit man showed up, but he nixed that idea in the end. There were other ways to keep eyes and ears on the place.

Jenna hadn’t said much after they got her grandmother out the house, but he did notice she seemed more relaxed. She kept looking back over her shoulder to make sure the woman was following, only because Andros refused to let her walk with anyone but him. He still wasn’t sure about anything, and wasn’t about to put her at risk.

They made it back to the jet, with the senator complaining all the way about being uprooted from her bed in the middle of the night. When he’d had about all he could take, he turned a cold glare on her. “Lady, do you get that someone’s coming to put a bullet in your head?” Jenna, sensing his agitation, started running her hand soothingly up and down his arm. He looked at her, her pain in the ass grandmother forgotten. How did she always know his moods? He gave up trying to figure that shit out and instead of arguing with the senator, decided to think about what the fuck he was supposed to do with her now that he had her.

Shit, he had her daughter locked away in a room in his house, two seconds away from catching a bullet, now this. What the fuck had happened to his life? Jenna, after pulling her shit and getting her way decided it was time to take a nap. She rested her head back on his shoulder; he took her hand in his, kissed her hair and rested his head back against the headrest.

By the time they made it back to the mansion he was dragging ass but he had shit to do. He thought he’d put Jenna to bed since she’d had another long night, but she had other ideas. “Come on baby, it’s bedtime for you.” He got as far as the bottom of the stairs before she stiffened up on him again. Shaking her head at him, she made a beeline for his office.

“Come senator, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this shit.” They all gathered around the room; the others had left for home. All except his shadows, whom he knew wasn’t about to budge, not once they were unknowns in his midst. He could’ve told them that he could hold his own against one old man and woman, but what was the use. They took their orders from gramps and he wasn’t in the mood for any of their shit right now.

Jenna took up her usual position in his lap and leaned back against his chest. He knew she was tired and he wanted to get her upstairs as soon as possible before it turned into a thing.

“Okay senator, start talking.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin, I still don’t quite understand what’s going on.”

“Start at the beginning, why did you start the expose`?”

“Well, that should be obvious, it was because of my granddaughter of course.”

“Explain.” She seemed to be taking her time getting her thoughts together.

“When Jenna was little, she was the sweetest little thing; sweet and innocent. That all changed when she was about sixteen. My husband and I started noticing the change. She’d be gone for hours, sometimes days…”

“Days?”

“Yes days, which was strange, because up until then I don’t think she’d ever been out of her mother’s sight for more than a few hours; she’d been homeschooled you see. Then suddenly I’d call the house and she’d be gone, and Sonia would give me all these vague excuses as to her whereabouts. You have to understand; my daughter and I had been estranged for many years. In fact not many people even know I have another daughter. You see she got involved with Paulie, that’s my son in law, when she was a teenager. I didn’t approve of him and she ran away.

She was gone for years, no matter how many people I hired I couldn’t find her. Then we decided that if she wanted to be gone that badly that she’d essentially disappeared, that we’d give her her space. For years I kept waiting for the phone to ring with news that they’d found her body in a ditch somewhere.

Then one day we found them; by then she’d had the two kids and was married to him. I didn’t want to lose her or my grandkids again, so I kept the peace. Jenna and I became very close. It was like having my own little girl again. If you’ve spent any time around Jenna, you know by now that she’s very innocent in some ways, almost childlike, but very smart in others.

The summer she turned sixteen, everything seemed to change at once. For one, her father started hanging around that Bonata character. I’m not sure what he was into before that unholy alliance, but I know they had a good life. Then he and Alec became very hush-hush whenever I was around. Jenna would be gone and nobody was saying anything. When I’d ask Sonia she’d brush me off and make up some story. I started getting suspicious and put out some inquiries of my own.

Now I knew that Jenna had an affinity for computers and any and everything that has to do with technology. All you need do is put her in front of one of those contraptions and it’s like a new child is born. I also knew from the snippets that were getting back to me, that some unsavory people might use that to their advantage and not in a good way.

We found out essentially that Bonata was not only using her, but also farming her out to others for a price. When I confronted Sonia, she accused me of lying and trying to make trouble. Then she threatened to cut me off from seeing Jenna. I tell you I don’t know what happened to my daughter. Up until then I would’ve said she was the best mother. She never let Jenna out of her sight, was always over her, making sure she was safe and happy. But something happened and she changed.

It’s not that she didn’t still love her daughter mind you, but whatever they had her doing, was more important than Jenna’s happiness and wellbeing. At least that’s what it looked like to me. I didn’t like the idea of her being gone for days on end with strangers, and when one of the investigators I hired asked for more money to follow her to Monte Carlo, I didn’t know what to think.

Instead, Hal and I decided to get on a plane ourselves and go see what was really going on. That’s when it all started, when we realized what those animals were doing. What started out as a grandmother’s curiosity became an international affair.

“What exactly did you find?”

“A ring; I guess that’s what you would call it. They set up a ring of these innocents, girls and boys alike, that they exploited. Some of the girls were sold into prostitution; I give thanks everyday that at least she was spared that. She had other more lucrative talents I suppose. She’s aces at the computer but there’s one other place where she excels.”

He had a feeling he knew what was going to come out of her mouth next.

“And what’s that?”

“Did you never hear her ‘code name’?” He braced himself and waited.

“She’s The Gambler.”

“Now young man, how did you say you came to know our Jenna?”

“She’s mine.” That’s all he’d say even as her eyes widened and she looked perplexed.

“So they used her to do what? Cheat people at cards?”

He should’ve broken every bone in Alphonso Bonata’s body. It was too late for that now, the fuck was gone; but there might still be others out there and he wanted their names. Since her lying fuck mother wasn’t talking, he figured this might be the only way to get the answers he needed. He couldn’t say that he was surprised by her little bombshell. But he had the added worry of who else knew her as The Gambler and who might have it out for her because she’d skinned them at the tables. No wonder he’d never heard of her, that they’d taken her out of town.

He had thought this shit through and knew he wouldn’t rest easy until everyone who knew about her talents
was done. The gambling thing was new, he thought he only had to deal with the hacking and shit, but whatever.

“Oh she doesn’t cheat, far as I can tell she just knows what to do, some call it card counting. But Hal has tested her a few times and he says that it’s a little more than that. It’s like she knows what’s been played, but she also estimates what each player is holding in their hand according to what they hold and what they throw away. I really don’t understand any of that; it’s all very confusing for me. But I do know she’s made these men millions if not more.”

“Okay so she was gambling, she wasn’t cheating, it’s not illegal. Why the expose`?” There had to be more to it than that. For him it would be the fact that out of all these millions she was being paid with chocolate, not to mention the fact that she was being used in a way that she wouldn’t have been able to understand. That more than anything else made his blood burn beneath his skin. He squeezed her as she sat there quietly, not interjecting, but following every word.

“I think there was more going on, like I said before, they were using some of the others as call girls, if you can believe that. Some of them were even being sold from what I discovered. Jenna was their meal ticket. Do you know that she’s been financing the Bonatas for the better part of five years? We’re not talking small change here. She was playing in the highest stakes games all around the world. Some of those games went on for days.

Some of the biggest names in the world were sitting at those tables. They had no idea that they were playing against someone with Jenna’s abilities. People lives were destroyed, some lost everything; when word started getting around about her, there were threats made against her life. But that’s not why I did this, I did it because of what I found when I started digging. Jenna unwittingly turned me on to some of the things that were going on.

On one of the rare occasions her mother let her visit my home, she was on the computer with Hal. Let’s just say she scared the ‘you know what’ out of him when she cracked into the pentagon’s database. He knew what he was looking at because of my prior work with the defense commission.

He didn’t let on to her that he knew what she was looking at, or that it was wrong, but through a series of questions, he was able to get out of her what she’d been doing. Up until then we thought it was just the gambling thing, and like you said, it’s not illegal per se, but it was still wrong for her to be used in that way, and I was going to find a way to put a stop to it. But when we found out what all they had her and some of the others up to, we had to make a move. It would’ve been unethical not to as a grandmother, and as a representative of our great nation.