The Gambler (22 page)

“
When he started showing a real interest in his sister, we were so pleased. We thought he’d started seeing her as more than the simpleton he sometimes called her.” Andros moved in his chair and she didn’t need to look at him to know that he was pissed off by her words. It was very liberating to know that this man was the one looking after her girl. As cold as he was, it was a comfort to her to know that she could finally take a breath, after all these years of worrying. Jenna had been right after all; he really was her angel.

“Okay
, then what happened?”

“Well then, that’s when the trips out of town started
, and the being gone for days. Suddenly Alec was flushed with cash. I guess he was using her on his own at first, then to get what he wanted, he brought it to Bonata’s attention. We had no control over anything anymore, Paulie and I. They just took over. Paulie tried to say something once or twice; she was still his little girl after all. But Bonata said, or did something to him to scare him, and we had no choice but to drop it. By then, mom was making waves and no matter how we tried to deflect her she wouldn’t quit.”

“
Then Jenna started, I don’t know what you’d call it, communicating better. We still couldn’t get anything out of her unless we asked her the right questions, but she could tell us what she wanted. That’s where your name came up again after all those years. She’d mentioned you the first time when she was about sixteen or seventeen, and other than the cutout from the magazine that she had on her wall, we never heard a peep out of her about it again.”

“
Things went on as usual, and we started to learn to live with it. I had no idea that mom was doing anything, or that she’d found out so much, but the Bonatas did. I don’t know if Alec warned them or not, I guess now we’ll never know.” Her voice trialed off as she felt a moment’s sorrow for the son she’d lost. She knew she was partly to blame for what had become of him, that maybe if she’d given him more of her time…

“I don’t have time for you to daydream lady, where is Jenna?”

“I’m getting to that. Okay, so after mom got involved, some other things started happening. We found out that Bonata was using Jenna, he was hiring her out I guess you can say, to other men in his position and even some that you wouldn’t think would have anything to do with the likes of Alphonso. Jenna started acting really strange, she still couldn’t quite put her words in order, but she was learning how to communicate better. She would do that texting thing, have you seen her? The girl is amazing.”

“
Then she started showing an interest in all these things that she’d never done before. We couldn’t tell anyone what was going on, not even mom. Bonata had made some threats after Paulie and I tried to keep Jenna from going over there any more. We’d socked away most of the money he’d paid us in a special account for our girl, it wasn’t enough for the rest of her life, but it was a nice little nest egg. Bonata wouldn’t have it. Things started getting out of hand quick, then a few days ago, they took my husband so that Jenna would have to do the job she’d been hired for.” She became agitated at this point and couldn’t sit still. It had all come down to this…

“What job?”
He sat forward in his seat as his heart gave a sickening thud in his chest. All this time he wasn’t sure where the fuck Paulie Petridis had been. He’d been sure that like his son, the older man was one of Bonata’s lackeys; but if she was to be believed, the whole family seems to have been held hostage by one man’s sick greed.

“You think they would tell me? All I know is that it was for some very important people. Jenna
, for the first time, was really adamant about not wanting to do it. She had stopped confiding in me at this point, so I didn’t know all the details, but I knew it was big. Then she came up with a plan, it was all hers by the way. She told me in her own way that she was going to find her angel; that her angel would help. That night at the casino, when you met, that was no accident. She knew you would be there, I don’t know how, maybe that was your usual night to be there, I don’t know. Anyhow, I had to convince Alec to take her with him; she never played there for whatever reason and we never asked. Anyway, she believed that if she could just get close to you, that she could do the rest…”

“I’m sure she didn’t plan for your asshole son to knock her around.”

“I have no idea what she’d planned to do once she’d found you.”

“Okay so she found me, why didn’t she tell me about her father, why did she leave me in the middle of the fucking night?”

“Oh she’d never do that.”

“What?”

“She needed you to save her grandmother, but she’d never put you in danger by sending you after her father, you’re her angel.” She looked at him like he was supposed to understand that shit.

“What the fuck are you talking about lady? If she didn’t come after me to save her father then what?
Where did she go?”

“To kill them.”

He sat back hard, his mouth hanging open. He thought, for the first time in a long, long time, something had finally shocked the shit out of him.

“Come again.”

“She’s very proficient at fighting, she taught herself. She’d just watch hours and hours of those fighting exercises on the computer. She studies their movements she said, and in ten minutes, she can copy it. She tried teaching me but I’m no good at it, but our girl...” She shook her head in wonder.

Andros meanwhile was wondering what the fuck was going on around him? Everything he thought he knew was shit compared to what had been revealed. Had it only been a few days? And now his woman might be in danger. “Where is she?”

“I honestly don’t know, I have no idea where they’re keeping him; but I do know that whatever it is they want her to do, she won’t do it; so she’s gonna try to eliminate them.

Whatever they’re up to, they were willing to murder a US senator to shut her up. If she’d done the
expose` it would’ve shone the spotlight on certain people. Not to mention Jenna would’ve been caught up in the whole thing. I think their aim was to kill mom to shut her up once and for all, but I don’t think even she knows about this deal, whatever it is. I did get out of Jenna that it has something to do with a code though.”

He was up and moving before she was finished; she didn’t know where Jenna had gone to, but maybe there was something in Bonata’s files. He hoped so, because he had no other alternative.

He refused to panic, or to give up hope that he’d figure this shit out. He called in Garret and Jameson to help him go through the files once again, and hoped like fuck he found what he was looking for. The thought of her out there, one little girl trying to save her dad, made him proud and scared as fuck at the same time.

“I’m going to tan her litt
le ass as soon as I find her.” He mumbled the words to himself as he walked into his office.

He and his men combed through everything they could find, looking for a clue. When her grandparents woke up he didn’t tell them what was going on, he just let them believe that Jenna was tired from her long night
, and was still in bed. That wouldn’t last too long though, so he’d have to come up with something fast.

He was losing patience
, when three hours went by and they still had nothing. They found out a lot more about Bonata and his dealings than he wanted to know, but nothing on this job Jenna was supposed to be doing. His phone rang and he answered it distractedly while he scanned the screen in front of him.

“Hey boyo who’s in Cuba?”

“Gramps I can’t talk right now I’ve got a situation.”

“In Cuba?”

“What the fuck are you talking about gramps?”

“Well I have a tracker on your jet as you know, in case you go down or some fuck
, and the incompetent fools can’t find you. It alarms or some shit when it goes into international airspace, I didn’t know that. Fucking pentagon. Anyway it says that you’re heading to Havana, what gives?”

“Gramps I need your plane.” He was running and motioning the boys to follow him as he went. He asked gramps a million fucking questions but the old man didn’t have anything more for him. “How the fuck can she fly into Cuba, isn’t that restricted airspace?”

“Not if you go through Canada. Who’s she?” Well fuck.

He gave the old man the rundown and then hung up the phone.
There was a mad scramble as they headed out to the hangar where gramps kept his fleet of planes. Andros was making calls, trying to find any and everything he could about the situation.

Her mother hadn’t been of any help when he’d given her the location, so he was basically going in blind.
He didn’t even blink when she told him that yes of course Jenna knew how to fly a plane. That answered the question of how the fuck she’d been able to take his plane. Seems his little flower was just full of surprises; he was in turns proud of her and pissed the fuck off.

He knew where she was landing but then what? How the fuck was he supposed to find her after that?

In the end he’d left one of his men behind to comb through the files again, in the off chance that they’d overlooked something. She had a huge fucking head start and he was afraid they’d get there too late. Gramps was waiting at the hangar when they arrived. “What’re you doing here old man?”

“I’m coming along for the ride boy, now instead of wasting time arguing let’s go. You’re gonna need my contacts once we land, it’s not the same over there as it is here. We don’t have jurisdiction of any kind
, if you know what I mean; we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

He had a point but Andros
wasn’t too sure about having them both in danger. When had his life been taken over by these two anyway? He had a woman who doesn’t listen for shit apparently, and a meddling old man. In the end gramps got his way, which was no big surprise.

He didn’t let himself think about her, or what danger she might’ve put herself in. All the way on the flight, he kept trying to figure out who and where. He’d never heard of Bonata having any connections in Cuba, but then again he’d never been too interested in the other man’s dealings.

He felt stifled, caged and on the brink of losing his mind, as he paced back and forth on the jet. No one was saying anything; each man understood the severity of the situation. He hadn’t shared any of what her mother had told him, not quite sure that he wanted the word to go any farther than him.

H
e’d sent a man after the hit man just before leaving, since the guys had found him in a hole in DC. Hopefully he’d get word of that little issue being taken care of by the time they landed.

There was too much shit going on at once. Apparently Jenna had done enough on the computer, so that all the senator needed to do was follow the crumbs she’d left
to retrieve the missing files and carry on with her expose`. The older woman had tried telling him this news as he was going out the door. He really didn’t care about any of that shit at this point; all he cared about was finding her and bringing her home.

Gramps had a bead on the jet, and that was about all they had when they landed in the Havana heat
hours later. It was already morning; the sun was high in the sky. The only thing that kept him calm was the hope that maybe, whatever she had planned was for the cover of night. He was already making plans in his head to put some kind of tracking device on her ass as soon as they got back home

“Okay, we ask questions, someone had to see this shit land. We’ll go from there. No matter what it costs, get me the information.” Gramps was already on the horn trying to find her. There was the obvious language barrier that caused even more delays and added to his frustration, but throughout it all he kept a cool head.

He believed now more than ever, that she hadn’t come into his life just to leave. When Alice had told him about her all those years ago, moments
before she took her last breath, he’d had no interest in this unknown girl whoever she might be. He wanted his sister to live.

Wh
en she’d gone, the hate and venom had taken over. He’d put her words out of his mind, and on the rare occasions that they’d popped up over the years, he’d shoved them to the back of his mind. As time went by, he’d put it aside as his sister just trying to comfort him. It would be just like her to try, even as she lay dying in his arms.

Now to know that his Jenna was real
, very real; to have had her, smelt her sweet scent; watch her beautiful face as she laid sleeping. He couldn’t imagine going on without her.

“If anything happens to her here, I’ll finish what the fucking spooks started.” He checked the glock that gramps’ crooked ass contacts had let them slip through customs in Canada. He wasn’t sure how things had been squared away here in Cuba, and not for the first time he was glad the old man had insisted on coming. He would’ve found a way no doubt about that, but it would’ve taken him much longer.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to our girl stay cool son. There’s been only one sighting of a foreigner fitting Jenna’s description. She was seen half an hour ago heading into a cantina in the town square.”