Page 24 of Game of Love
I thought Pa would have spoken to me last night after I got home from the club but no, he’d called and avoided talking about it. So, here I was.
“Jia, now is not the place for this discussion. Nor is it the time.”
“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 the 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.
