“This is my life,” I insisted.
“Jia… Armand is my right hand man. My most trusted. I have too much on my hands. I did good. Real good. Women aren’t supposed to mingle with business. This may be your life but it’s not for you to deal with and I’m not handing my wealth over to some schmuck who might pass the test but doesn’t share some relation to me in some way.”
What he said may have made sense to him, but it felt like doom to me.
“Pa, I’m a person, and your most trusted man cheated on me.”
He frowned. “Jia, you will get past that. Men are men. Shit happens. You make a choice to forgive and suck it up.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Suck it up? So is that what you want for me? A man that can’t be mine? Is that what you did to Ma?” I’d never asked him that before. I’d never had a reason to. Not until now and his face told all.
God, I was so stupid. Trying to see the good in the bad was different from trying to see the good in the darkness.
“You did… didn’t you?” I accused. I didn’t know why I thought it was a good idea to do this to myself. Get worked up over something I couldn’t control. Or something that didn’t matter anymore. Ma was dead, and she wasn’t stupid, nor the kind of woman to truly stay in the dark. Maybe she knew.
“Jia the past is the past. You suck up shit like that and shove it to the side because you have a strong man taking care of you. Strength is power. That is what I need for you. Someone strong that I can trust, and someone to look after you in case…”
His voice trailed off and I sucked in a breath.
“In case something happens to you?” I filled in, feeling the terror of that possibility tug at my insides.
Was that what this was? He looked worried. Pa never looked worried.
“This discussion is over.”
Frankie, one of Pa’s knights approached tentatively. “Boss, the first four are ready,” he said.
“Thanks, I’ll be out in a second,” Pa replied and Frankie went away. Pa returned his focus back to me. “You are to go home and stay there.”
I shook my head at him and did the opposite of what he said.
I walked in the direction that Frankie went and Pa caught up to me.
“Jia,” he snapped grabbing my arm.
I pulled away from his grasp and continued until we came into view of everyone and they all looked to us.
He took hold of me again but the obvious attention on us made his tension loosen.
I may have pushed his buttons but he never made a scene with me in public. I knew it was to do with that thing he’d threatened when he said ‘if I wasn’t his daughter’... As much as it terrified me to think of the hidden meaning behind the words.
A silence hushed across the large room filled with criminals from, I assumed, the Vegas underground. They looked to Pa and he leaned in close to my ear.
“Jia, you have seriously pissed me off. You will sit next to me in silence and stay next to me for the whole night. You will not make eye contact with anyone. Understood?” He hissed in my ear. The anger in his voice was evident.
I heard and understood what he’d said, but choose to speak to his inner heart. That was the best way I could put it when he got like this.
I leaned back and whispered. “I love you, Papa.”
Those were words I was hoping would reach him. The frown on his face told me he heard the words the way he used to, although he tightened his grip on my arm and moved with me to where he’d previously been sitting.
Frankie got a chair for me to sit on his left, thankfully not next to Armand who was on the opposite side of Pa.
Heeding the warning to not make eye contact, I didn’t look at Armand who cast a seductive glance my way. Stupid fucktard. I didn’t spare even a second to look at him. He was truly despicable and every time I looked at him I felt like a fool for being with him in the first place. I didn’t know what I was thinking at the time.
“Ready,” Pa roared and four men walked up to a table that was placed in the center with four chairs behind it.
There were four stacks of playing cards on the table. One stack for each guy.
I narrowed my eyes when I saw that. It was weird and I didn’t know what they were going to do.
Was it poker?
I wasn’t sure.
Four of Pa’s knights had been killed two weeks ago. Alex, Nicholai, Georgiou, and Lance. They were his foot soldiers who as far as I knew did most of the work on the streets and checked things out whenever there was a threat. All four were killed at the warehouse, gunned down. I wasn’t given much specifics other than that. It was sad when something like that happened. I had to say though that while some of them had worked for Pa for close to twenty years, I didn’t really know them. I knew them by sight but that was all. I called them the muscle.
Pa had eight knights in total. Four on the street , four always with him.
Armand, Frankie, Vinny, and Freddo were always around at the Marchesi because that was where we were the most. Those four were closer in the sense that they looked after the family and stood guard at the hotel and casino. They also travelled to the other sites and businesses.
There was a clear distinction but they were all still knights.
Armand may have been Pa’s most trusted, and a consigliore in the traditional sense, but to me he was the fucking joker.
What I was trying to figure out now was how a card game would initiate someone into the fold.
The men sat around the table and as Armand stood, another guy came from the corner carrying a tray with four cups that he set down in front of the men.
“Welcome to this very rare recruitment session,” Pa rumbled. He straightened up and looked at each of the men.
Each of them looked like something from a nightmare. No wonder Pa told me not to make eye contact. I doubted though, that any of these men would have dared to look at me directly.
Even if they didn’t know me, they saw I was important to Pa because I was sitting next to him.
I was watching whatever game this was unfold with curiosity, just staring ahead though. Not looking at anyone’s face in particular.
“Drink,” Pa instructed and the men took a cup each and drank.
I glanced at Pa when he shuffled and a wicked smile spread across his lips.
“It’s good to see you take instructions well. Now, now let the games begin,” Pa chanted. “There will be a series of games. If you survive you’re in. You have four minutes to solve the puzzles my trusted knight will provide.” Pa’s voice grew louder and Armand moved to the table and picked up the first deck of cards. “Your drink contained a potent concoction of viper’s venom. You will be dead within four minutes.”
I wasn’t sure who was more shocked - Me or the men.
Given that it was them who’d drunk the poison, anyone guessing would place their bets on them being the most shocked and not me. I would however beg to differ because I couldn’t believe my ears.
My father just gave those men poison to drink. Viper’s venom?
I winced but Pa grabbed my hand and gave me a crude hard stare, warning me without words to keep my silence. The stare told me to shut the hell up and if I didn’t he couldn’t guarantee what the hell would happen to me.
I looked away from him and gazed wide-eyed back to the men.
Armand had laid out the cards in some kind of sequence of three stacks each per guy.
I was a distance away but could still see the layout because the platform where we sat was raised. The first thing I noticed was that the cards weren’t ordinary playing cards at all. They looked more like tarot cards.
“The first to solve the puzzle will receive an antidote for the poison,” Pa continued. “The aim is guessing, the skill I’m looking for is attention to detail. It’s up to you how you gather the information required to solve the puzzle. The cards are face-down. I want you to find me three red queens.”
Wh
en Armand looked back to Pa with that smug smile, I hated that I knew this was part of the game. I knew too that these men wouldn’t be able to guess anything.
Armand then turned to the men who had started to look sick. One of them looked pale, the one next to him actually looked green. My hands started shaking and I held back tears.
The first guy at the left end of the table, who seemed to be the strongest, went first. He selected a card from the stack in the center and he was wrong. He selected another from the stack to the left. Wrong again. Stack to the right, wrong again. he continued searching. There were no red queens. It was all jacks and kings, Not even a black queen. It was clear Pa meant for him to go row by row, and as I watched the guy I started to think none of his stacks contained any red queens, let alone three.
The guy who looked green had been doing the same but stopped midway, stood up and just dropped to the ground. The guy who looked pale followed suit.
Tears ran down my cheeks and now I knew there was more reasoning to why I’d never been allowed to come here.
This was business.
God in heaven, this was business. A part of it.
The darkness.
The strong guy collapsed on the floor in a heap joining the others and the guy I hadn’t been paying attention to started shaking and screaming.
He screamed so loud it pierced through me. Armand ended him with a bullet to the head. Blood splattered everywhere and Armand just laughed.
Bile rose in my throat and my voice faded away.
Pa released me and stood looking on at the four dead men lying on the ground.
“I guess they didn’t make the cut,” Pa declared with a wicked chuckle. “It’s a lesson for the guys on the next round. If you want in, this is it. My test. I need the strongest. Who’s next?”
I didn’t think anybody would get up. It was clear this was some death game and Pa had obviously made an example out of the first four men.
I expected silence but shock flew through me when a blond man stood up from the back and walked forward. It took me two seconds to recognize him.
Mr. Gorgeous from the club!
What was he doing here?
I wasn’t sure if I should be annoyed, because he must have known who I was last night.
It was just as I’d said. This was Vegas, you only tended to see people a second time if it was intentional. No one knew I’d be here tonight, but the only thing that connected us was Pa.
Through my tear-stained gaze I watched him, and my heart stilled in my chest when he walked straight past the table, straight past Pa and Armand, and came up to me.
He stopped just in front of me and those eyes held me in place. They made me forget my prior thoughts of last night and meeting him.
There was something gentle in the stare that captured me and soothed me away from the horror that was taking place. He surprised me further by pulling a Kleenex from his back pocket and handing it to me.
I took it even though I was still looking at him, still looking at the brightness of the hue of his eyes. He moved away before I could utter my thanks and walked up to the man who carried the drinks.
A shudder swept through me when he grabbed a cup and knocked it back like a shot of vodka. He did it effortlessly, knowing it was poison. Then he took his place at the table, lowering to sit in the chair nearest Armand while two of Pa’s guys started clearing away the bodies of the fallen men.
Both Pa and Armand looked him over with curiosity, as did everyone else.
Who was this guy?
Why in the hell did he seem so fearless?
I thought Pa might ask for more people but it was obvious that no one else would be stepping forward tonight and if they did have plans to, they were clearly checking things out first before they put themselves in the danger of death like the first guys had.
Armand took a stack of cards and did the same set up he’d done before.
Three rows of cards laid out on the table before Mr. Gorgeous.
“Go on, find the three red queens,” Armand told him.
Mr. Gorgeous looked to Armand and surprised everyone when he picked up the three stacks and placed them back together.
He stood again and wowed everyone when he did some sort of shuffle with the deck that made the cards flicker out and back in again. As if each card were attached to a spring. It was fascinating and magical to watch.
“This is a job interview right?” he asked, aiming the question at Pa who looked well and truly taken with him.
“It sure is,” Pa answered.
“Great, so why should I work for you?” Mr. Gorgeous asked.
It was safe to say he had everyone’s attention.
Pa chuckled. “Boy, either you’re not very bright or you have a death wish.”
“I wasn’t aware there was any sort of threat here.” He threw back returning the smile and I knew I shouldn’t allow the beauty in his smile to do anything to me but I couldn’t help it.
Pa laughed louder. “We have ourselves a comedian here, people. A comedian I’m starting to like. If you don’t see me as a threat, then that’s good for you, but you may be wary of the poison. You should be aware that you have roughly two and a half minutes before you die like the others.”
“Thanks for the info, that’s sufficient time to establish whether or not I want to work for you. So tell me the job specs. Do I get a company car, vacation leave, stuff like that?”
“Vacation leave?”
“I play golf, and I have a cat who likes the beach,” Mr. Gorgeous answered as simply as that.
I almost laughed. There were a few snickers across the room.
“You get twenty five days and a company car.”
“Perfect.” He walked up to Armand and did that shuffle thing again.
This time he reminded me of Gambit from X-Men. My cousin Donny watched it religiously every day after school when we were kids.
This guy looked like the character with his mad card skills.
Once he shuffled the deck he gave it to Armand and walked right up to Pa.
I gasped and a ripple of whispers fluttered over the room when he reached into the pocket on Pa’s jacket and pulled out the three red queens.
“Here you go Sir, here are your queens.”
Everyone was stunned. I didn’t know how he knew.
Pa nodded and stunned everyone further by clapping.
“So, when can I start?” Mr. Gorgeous asked.
“Tomorrow at eight,” Pa answered and handed him a little white pill he pulled from his pocket.
Mr. Gorgeous took it, tossed it in his mouth and gave Pa a lopsided grin. “Cool, see you then.”
Before he left his gaze shifted to me, but only for a split second.
A split second, but heat washed over me.
All that time and I still didn’t know his name.
Who was he?
Chapter Seven
Xander
Considering I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her, I wasn’t doing a very good job.
Jia hadn’t left my damn mind.
Never mind the part about being totally taken by her beauty but I was as unprepared to see her last night as her father had been.
She really shouldn’t have been there and if I were him I would have done more to get her out of the place before the show began.
Fucking Ethan, forgot to tell me Giovanni was crazy.
I’d heard Giovanni had some unsavory habits, that he could be unpredictable. Last night however, was something else.
Even I had to admit that last night was of the inhumane variety.
It was clear Giovanni had no intention of showing Jia or anybody else any sympathy. I just chose to be the one to do it, giving her the compassion he should have shown.
Tonight was round two. A bigger night than last night for it being my first night on the job.
To make sure I went in with a level head I’d decided on having dinner with Wes first.
I watched
him cut into his steak and pop a slice into his mouth. He held up a finger and nodded with satisfaction.
“This is so good. Oh, so good. Better than what we would have gotten in Rio and better than sex,” he stated.
I shook my head at him. Wes and steak. I’d never known anybody to love steak as much as him.
“Man if you think a piece of steak can be better than sex, there’s something you aren’t doing right.”
He wagged his finger and blinked several times at me. “Nah man, I treat my ladies just right and I know what I’m talking about. This steak is divine.”
“God, you are something else Wes.”
I continued to watch him tucking into his meal.
I couldn’t blame him, it felt like days since we’d had anything decent. Even I was happy for the steak we were eating in the five star restaurant my best friend had chosen.
It was my treat for the shit we’d landed ourselves in.
I had to call it shit because, damn it to hell, what else could it be called with Giovanni’s crazy ass?
I’d never been in a situation like last night before, and thank God I’d developed a good stomach over the years to counteract the fucking poison I’d drunk.
Thank fuck I had, because I would have at least turned pale or green like one of the other guys.
The years of eating whatever I could in the desert and building up an immunity had made me hard. Would have still killed me within the four minutes though if I didn’t get the antidote. I could feel it starting to shut me down, but I put on a good show of playing Mr. Cool.
“You know what…I’ve been thinking about this whole mission,” Wes stated, cutting into my thoughts. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
Great, he seemed to be working overtime to rattle me. “Nothing ever feels right Wes.”
He leaned forward and set down his utensils. “Xander, it just feels like a big mess and I hate that there are no specifics. What about the bigger picture?” He frowned.
“Bigger picture?” I asked. I knew where he was going with this because I’d considered it myself. I just thought I had enough on my plate and wanted to focus on one thing at a time. Especially since I had just got my foot through the door with Giovanni.
Game of Love : A Mafia Romance Page 6