Page 28 of The Gambler

“Toss it, I want anything that even looks like a computer; any papers, and whatever’s in the safe. We’ve got five minutes left.” He walked away from the carnage and pulled his phone to call the house and check up on her.

They were in and out with two minutes left, not bad for a hit this size. He was going to have to look into his and Jenna’s security more strenuously. If it was that easy for a motherfucker to off you these days, he needed to be on his star player game. Then again, it’s like Garrett had said, everyone thinks he’s a crazy fuck anyway, so he maybe might take chances others won’t. Their lost!

He used his silk handkerchief to clean off some of the blood from his hands as they walked up the stairs to the helipad. The pilot already had the shit going, probably never turned it off. “Hurry the fuck up yous, I’ve gotta go find butterflies.”

He had a flash of the old places where he used to find them for Alice, places he hadn’t been to in years. Maybe he’d buy some for now, no. She’d asked him to catch her a butterfly. He found his first real smile then as his heart lightened if only a little. If she was taking instructions from his lil sis she was going to be a handful. He couldn’t wait.

His step was much lighter as he pushed through the door and jogged to the plane. It was the perfect time to go butterfly hunting.

They became more quiescent at night, making it a little easier to trap. He’d get her one or two for now, but he had an idea of how to keep her happy if butterflies were her new thing.

It was something he’d been working on for his sister while away at college that fateful year. He wondered what he’d done with those plans he’d drawn up? Probably destroyed in his dark rage like everything else on that night.

Gramps had said she was making waking noises, but the medicine had done its thing and she was still out. He didn’t want her waking up and finding him gone. That’s another reason he didn’t waste time with Bonata the fuck. “Shit; I didn’t see who all was in there, was old man Petridis one of them?”

“No boss he’s still on the loose it seems.”

He bet the wife knew where he was, and what about Minnelli and her sister, should he go after them? The search hadn’t shown any unknown devices in his house, so if she’d been spying she was doing it within the hours she worked with him.

Thank heavens he hadn’t spent too much time around her, or hadn’t been dumb enough to give into her subtle come-ons. If they’d thought he would spill shit after she’d fucked him blind, they were sorely mistaken.

He never said two fucks to any of the women he’d screwed around with in the past. Never had too much interest in anything they had to say. With his little Jenna he wanted to listen to her voice all day and night.

He called the men at the beach and got the confirmation; next he called his guys on the warehouse and apartment where the rest of the almost fifty Bonata men had been congregating, probably strategizing on ways to catch his ass, murdering fucks.

He got the all clear, his enemies were dust; her enemies were dust. He eyed the boxes of shit his boys had lugged on the plane behind him. He saw computers: laptops, files, and a whole assortment of shit that was meant to make him crazy figuring this shit out.

“Jameson, tell Frankie we have a change of plans, we need to swing by the old place.” The man nodded as he made his way to the cockpit to warn the pilot before takeoff. Only Andros would think it was okay to change flight plans in the middle of a flight.

The man would have no patience for the FAA rules and shit that you’d normally have to adhere to. Besides, the old place was Andros’s childhood home not far from where he lived now, and they had a lawn big enough to land.

It was coming onto dark now anyway so who gives a fuck? Frankie took the news in stride; he was accustomed to his boss’s mercurial ways, probably pulling a maneuver or some shit to outsmart an unfriendly.

He couldn’t be farther from the truth. Andros had already put the business of dispatching his enemies behind him. His only thought now was on seeing the smile on her face when he brought her her butterfly.

He smiled again and caught his men staring at him. “What the fuck?” Everyone suddenly found something else of importance to do.

Things sure were changing; their boss hadn’t pulled his berserker move, as they like to call it. And they’d done a hit without destroying the entire place; progress.

Maybe this Jenna Petridis would be good for him after all, good for all of them. She’d probably just added a few years onto their life expectancy, because just a few short days ago with the way things were it had been a toss up.

Chapter 16

It had been a while since he’d been back here, back to this place of darkness. He wondered now that he didn’t feel that sense of dread, of impending doom, as he walked through his old stomping ground. This place that had once held such joy and had, because of the evil of a few young men, become his worst nightmare.

It was here that he’d found her, broken and near death. Here that he’d left his heart. They’d come here so often before, to catch the butterflies that she seemed so obsessed with. She could sit for hours; just watching the things flit around from place to place, mesmerized by their antics.

He wasn’t surprised to find the old net where he’d left it, no one ever really came here; only him and the young innocent, who saw no danger in the dank darkness of the woods, with its overhanging trees, that kept most of the sunlight out in certain spots.

It was a lot worn and there was some damage, but it was lying there in its hiding place, as if he’d just left it the day before. He ignored the pain in his heart that came and went. He figured that would always be a part of him, until the day he died. But he noticed it wasn’t quite as harsh as it had been even a day before.

He knew just where to go to find them for her; he’d get just one or two for now, until he could make a place for them. Shit he needed the cage; he’d have to find something around the house to keep them in for now. He wasn’t sure about letting them just fly around the room, they might escape, and who knew how she’d react to that.

Always he was thinking of her and how to shield and protect her from all life’s little fuck ups. If he could take the brunt of all that life had to throw at them, sparing her any and all of it, he would be more than happy to take on all comers.

With his task at an end, he was suddenly in a hurry to be away from this place. He missed her, he realized, as he headed back at a fast clip to the plane that had landed on his parents’ lawn.

He couldn’t wait to see her, to touch her. “Find something to put these in ‘til we reach the house.” He passed his precious offerings off to Garrett who looked around like ‘what the fuck am I supposed to do with this shit?’