Page 5 of The Right Garza
CHAPTER TWO
Fallen From Grace
Lexi
Seven minutes later,I’m dropped off at the crappy apartment complex we’re staying at in outer downtown central. We wanted to be close to the strip, but we were also broke as hell, so we settled for this place. Outdated, cracked, and crumbling in some places, and in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint.
Marco waits until I’ve let myself inside the apartment before he drives off.
I lean back against the door and breathe out a heavy sigh. I’m exhausted. Mentally drained.
If given the chance, would I have taken a different route than the one I started down five years ago? I close my eyes and think about my now cancer-free mama living in a house she no longer owes the bank for.
Nope.
It was worth it.
All of it.
If given the chance, I’d make the same decisions again and again.
Crouching down, I unzip my shoes and toss them aside before shuffling further into the apartment.
I was nineteen when Mama got the news.
Breast cancer.
In a household of eight where she was the sole breadwinner, it wasreallybad news. One of my uncles was undocumented and did nothing to contribute to the household. My aunt, engaged to be married to a shady loan shark worked as a cashier at minimum wage. My other uncle did construction work, but he also had three kids who’d eat the damn paint off the walls if they could, so everything he contributed to Mama went right back to his greedy ass gremlins. My older sister had just become a pregnant marine wife and was preparing to move to Washington.
Mama had a decent job as a restaurant supervisor but had to stop working after she was diagnosed. When I realized that none of my relatives living in her house and mooching off of her were willing to step up and offer support when the bills started to pile up, I knew it was up to me to ensure her survival.
That’s when I turned to the casinos.
See, back when I used to hang out with the Garzas, I’d learned a lot. Picked up a lot of tricks and tactics. Flavio Garza himself had sometimes walked in on our card games and schooled us in the art of cards.
He taught his sons and he taught them well. Passed on his gifts. Unlike me, however, they never used their gifts for anything other than rewardless fun.
But with a sick mama, a growing mountain of medical bills, and the looming possibility of homelessness if the mortgage wasn’t paid, what I had—the knowledge gained from the Garzas—was like a golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
So I took to the casinos. Nervous and guilt-ridden, but determined.
The more I got away with, the more confident I became. But I was still untrained, green, so in a matter of a few months, I was banned all over L.A.
Having family in Vegas, I started making trips here on the weekends, hitting up the casinos. That’s when Slim came into the picture. He caught me counting inWildDiceone night. But instead of booting me like the others, he offered me deal: If I worked for him, he would train me and protect me from getting caught. “With me,” he’d said, “you’ll make millions.”
Turned out Slim had been a counter himself. One who’d never been caught. He got rich from cheating cards, built his own casino, and now he recruits people like me to travel with him and hit up the big dens.
Young and desperate, I took him up on his offer and joined his team of four, and it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. We’d make thousands of dollars in one night. Hundreds of thousands in a week.
I learned there was a whole underbelly operation of casinos and “inside work.” Some covert membership club that Slim was a part of. What it meant for us was that the blind eye was turned on us—instead of being stopped, thrown out, and banned, we were ignored. Slim wouldn’t tell us what he gave the clubs in return, and we didn’t care too much. The money was good. Though, the protection didn’t cover all casinos, so some of them were real risks. Thrillingly dangerous.
‘Stunting for the gram’ was a part of it. We had to fit a certain image. What people needed to see when we were looked into was expensive brands and icy jewelry. Lamborghinis and million-dollar mansions. None of it was real, of course. All rented. But we had to look the part. Like idle trust fund brats with bad gambling habits and money to blow.
In the first year of working with Slim, I’d single-handedly paid off Mama’s mortgage, covered her medical bills, and hired full-time help while she went through chemo, since traveling with Slim meant I couldn’t physically be there for her.
To be able to do that, take care of my mama like that, was a kind of high I never experienced.
Within two years, I was close to becoming a millionaire as Slim promised. But I would learn thata lotcould turn tonothingreal damn fast.
