Page 42 of The Gambler

“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.

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