Nathan

I walked into ‘Aspiration’ the gaming club that I owned. I would like to call it instead of cassino the way other people pronounced the name as if it was a disease. But in the end, they all came here to enjoy their night. Hypocrisy was everywhere, and now they hid behind million-dollar suits and shoes.

Those cranky old men whom we met at the meetings behaved as if they knew everything about business and the world. We are older; we had seen the world; we knew better than the younger generation, but in everyday life, they were the most fucked up. If you looked at their life, you would know how fucked up human relationships can be.

So here was a piece of free advice, never, not even accidentally, heed any attention when they gave you a reality check. Trust me, you would be content, lived a good life without these bullshits.

It was a little after 10 at the night. Mostly I liked to be home after spending my day in the office with meetings along with those files.

I would like to soak my body in warm water in my bathtub with jazz music in the background and a chilled glass of champagne in my hand. That was all I could have in my mind about half an hour ago, but after getting a phone call from Matero, my brain was running a marathon.

I looked around the first floor, which was just a large space with different kinds of tables for games that made me rich every time the players lost.

Gambling was an addiction. The most underrated one if you asked me. There were doctors, treatments, rehabs, medication for other addictions like drugs, alcohol, but nothing for a gambler.

Sad. Utterly heartbreaking.

If anyone knew you were gambling or who played with money at stacking, they would say, “leave it. It’s a habit that would go away if you tried to.” Only if they knew how hard this was. To stop oneself from this trap was much harder than drugs.

It was like a maze, the difficult one. No matter which route you took at the end, you came back to the starting point.

Once you started winning stacks, you would like to go for more. About, 80% of people went with double money after they win the first game while 95% went with all in.

Why?

Greed. They wanted to win more, to have more, more than they had a minute before, a second before, but this was where they made a mistake. In the race called achieving more, they forget what they had and how precious that thing was. Even if that was the smallest among the biggest kits, those things were valuable, beautiful, and they once made us happy, remarkably happy. Yet we threw them away for wealth.

And that was how rapidly greed blinded men when they saw money, and it destroyed them and everything around them.

I saw this picture every day. When someone won, the happiness in their eyes was so pure like a newborn baby, their eyes sparkled that you might sympathize with that bastard until you saw him losing every one of that wealth on the game.

There was a thing you needed to know when you gamble.

Stop. You needed to know the right time to stop. The ones who did were the real winner, at the end of the night they were the ones who walked out of this place with fortune. But the statistic was lower, I would say 1% of the population of this world was intelligent enough to do that. The rest of the 99% were just dumb.

“Boss.” Luka greeted me. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

Luka was the manager of this place. The first time I met him was when he was threatening my father to kill him in a dark alley.

It happened two years ago. My dad was nowhere to be found, mom was getting worried, and Luke and I were on the road looking for our old bastard. This man, my father, just vanished like white smoke. To be honest, I didn’t give a shit about what happened to him since I didn’t, if truth be told, have an affection for that man after seeing him over the years, but Luke and mom were pretty tense, so I was looking for him for them all around Chicago.

It was a hot summer night. The air was so humid that even if you stood still, sweat would cover your body in a second. The weather was at its best as the temperature was around 30 degrees celsius.

That day was the day Chicago scored with her highest temperature.

I was in West Garfield, that part of the area was a kind of shady. There were brothels, and prostitution was famous in that area. You could see women standing for customers on the side of the road every time you crossed the place, especially at night.

I saw my father’s car outside a building, but he was nowhere near. I waited some time in the car before getting out and finding where the hell he was. I was passing the alley where his car was parked that when I heard the noise, someone was rumbling. The lane was murky, filthy, and there was a foul odor. Someone could easily find there something like a dead rat or cat, and I was sure those things were there for a long, long time.

When I got closer, I saw a man was holding a knife in my father’s throat while my dad’s face was against the wall.

The man was younger than me, in his early or mid-twenties, with an impressive height of 6 feet 4 to 6 feet 5 inches, broad shoulder, a black man.

“What is going on?” I asked as I got closer to them.

“Nathan, help me, son.” My dad told me which was more like an order than a request. Even facing the danger, or should I say a life-endangering moment. Right then, that could be the last time he was alive, but this man forgot he needed to ask for my help. An order would not work here.

“You know him.” The man asked me in a panicked voice.

“Yes, buddy. Unfortunately, I am his son. Can I know why you are holding him this way? There must be an appropriate reason for this anger of yours. What did this old man do, buddy?”

Dad tried to move his face to look at me or scold me for why I wasn’t fighting with this man to save him. I was against this violence; I preferred to talk rather than use the fist.

Less pain, more brain, that was my style. Even when you do dirty works, stay classy, the rule that I followed.

Again, he tried to shift his neck, and his captor shoved him hard against the wall with a thud. Wow, I had wanted to do this for such a long time. That night was a treat for my eyes. The way I saw my father at someone’s mercy for the first time in his life, bought a smile to my face.

The great Richard Hall didn’t need anyone, he was enough, but the fear that I saw in his face that night made my heart dance in joy. If it were in my hand, I would have remembered him that night for the rest of his life.

Sadly, he was so full of his hateful ego that I wanted to punch his face right there.

“He comes to visit my sister every week in this building. Tonight she said no, but this bastard couldn’t understand that two-letter word and tried to force her in bed. Just because my sister sells her body for money, doesn’t mean anyone is allowed to do anything they want with her. She has rights like any other human being. She is a dignified, independent woman, just like your mother and sister. She is doing her best in her situation. Her way of earning money is wrong, I know that, but some people’s life isn’t made of roses. We need to walk on the thorns. I am going to kill this old fucker so he can’t do the same thing with other women in the future.”

Tears welled up in his eyes. He loved his sister, and I was convinced he would slit dad’s throat without any fear.

The most dangerous human beings in the world were the ones who had nothing to be terrified of, they didn’t give a damn about anything as they had already lost so much that they were willing to go out all the way, and I knew the black man in that dark alley was that man.

I didn’t give a damn if he killed my father or something, but I needed to think about my mother and my brother. While I had zero attachment or sympathy for this man, he did nothing praiseworthy other than betraying my mother again and again, and we didn’t idolize what he did over the years.

In reality, he was a big fat failure, a big duh. Someday I felt sorry for this man, and someday I was repulsed by him.

If it were in my hand, I would have killed this man a long time ago. We didn’t fucking need him in our life to have a happy life. Mom would have an amazing life even when he wasn’t around, she could date anyone she wanted. I would support her fully, and I knew Luke too.

A new life with a new man. It was better to be divorced or window than living in a miserable marriage.

It was a tempting offer, but I gave away my temptation and helped my father out of the hole that he made. I didn’t need to do much as a police car was passing; he saw us and helped us. He arrested the man, and I was on my way home with my father.

But I made my mind about the man.

The next morning I went to the police station and bailed him. He was with me all the time, but he came in handy when I opened this place. We worked hard to establish this place; it was his job to gather all the pieces of information about other casinos around Chicago.

The black man in that passageway is Luka now, the manager of Chicago’s most successful casinos.

It helped his family too. His sister stopped working as a prostitute and now lives in a decent apartment with him. They paid all their debt; it took them a year to wash away all the dirt from their hands, but they did it in the end, and trust me, that was all matter.

“I have some work with Matero. How is business today?” He walked to the elevator with me and pressed the button for me.

“Good. We have some losers who keep giving us money. Tonight is quieter than last night as it’s Friday but still good. Table three is doing all the work to fill our funds with money.” Luca told me.

“Who is at table three?”

“A man named Jacob. His millionaire wife filed for divorce this morning. He told this story at least five times, and now every single person in this place knows his sorrowful story, but if you asked me, I would say that man is full of shit. He cheated on his wife and then expected nothing of his consequences.” The disgusted look in his eyes was clear. “I guess he is mourning spending his money here. At this rate, he would be bankrupt by morning.”

Sarah Parker’s husband. That woman finally took the right decision by kicking this fraud out of her house. Choosing this dickhead as her husband was the most idiotic thing she ever did, but now that she was amended, I could forgive her for that. But I didn’t think Jacob would ever get my mercy. He played the way with Lyra that night and the previous few. I wrote his fate a long time ago, and spoiler alert, it contained misery and misery for him.

I hope she didn’t spare any money for him. That filthy bastard deserved nothing.

The gate of the elevator opened, and I took a step into the room and looked at Luca over my shoulder.

“Make sure that when he leaves this place, he has nothing in his pocket.”

He gave me a sharp nod, and I pressed the 4th-floor button.

Matero and I met during my trip to Italy six years ago. I was there for a business deal, and he was my translator and tour guide. After a week, he came back early in the morning. That was my last day in Italy. I had one last meeting to attend with some investors, and I was done with Italy, but when I saw him, it shook me.

His face was wounded. There were several cuts in his lips, the left side of his lip was swollen, one purple eye, forehead covered with a bandage, his hands were red as if blood clotted, knuckles cracked open. He was limping.

He looked like someone tried to kill him but missed by a few inches.

When I asked him what happened, he ignored me at first, but after some pressure, he told me his story.

Matero grew up in drugs, his father was an addict and a dealer. His mother was an elementary school teacher, a sweet, lovely woman loved and adored by everyone. His father saw his mother in a bakery shop that fell in love, knowing the difference between them, he acted like a real state agent to approach the woman. She was smitten by him, and within two months, they got married. That’s when his mother knew the truth, but it was late by then.

His father locked his mother in a room and used to give her drugs, so she stayed lifeless. She was with Matero after six months of their marriage and halfway became an addict. She gave birth and was an excellent mother until drugs consumed her alive, and one day she died because of an overdose. She was pregnant at the time she passed away.

All these things scared the fifteen-year-old Matero and decided to build his life away from this shit that took away his mother’s life. But the bastard of his father forced him to sell drugs among his peers, to his friends, to the kids who were his classmate. He even tried to give him drugs just as he did to Matero’s mother, but the old lost strength to the young.

One day Matero called the police and tipped them about his father, the men. He told the police everything he knew, also the name of those with whom his older man was working. The police arrested them, but the gang of drug dealers found out what Matero did. That’s when he escaped from his small town and came to Rome to build a new and healthy life for himself.

But the men were always after him, after leaving that crack place seven years ago he was hiding from them, educating him, finished college with the money he earned by working three jobs, made a comfortable life with his job as a translator for tourists, but they got their hands on him that night.

Last night, those people were waiting outside his apartment. When he was about to open the lock of his house, they came from behind and beat him to death. Knowing they would kill him if he didn’t protect himself, he acted to lose his senses after blood came out of his mouth. He fell to the ground and stayed motionless as if he was dead. He held his breath as long as he could so that it would convince him the men he was dead.

That was what happened, and they left after some time. He packed his bag and was ready to leave Rome to somewhere they couldn’t find him. Without thinking, I offered him a job, mostly because I admired his actions.

He desperately wanted to change his life for the better, away from sins, a normal life like other people, a better future, and that yearning touched my heart, so I gave him an opportunity, and he didn’t disappoint me.

First, he worked in our company as a security guard. He was there for three years before I moved him to the casino and gave him a new mission.

Mission: revenge, destroy Brian.

“What did you get?” I asked as I walked into the study room of this building. This room is only for the staff, mostly for me. Whenever I am here, I liked to stay in this room, drinking a glass of champagne, listening to jazz music. Oh, sweet heaven, one drink sounded marvelous now.

I sat on the couch away from him because I knew what would come out of his mouth. We had not been agreeing on our mission for some time now; he believed something while I had faith in certain things. We didn’t argue for that, but there was disagreement on the surface of our mutual trust.

“I don’t think Brian has anything to do with Olivia’s death.” He told me.

“What the fuck?” I frowned. “I am paying you to make that bloody prick’s life a living hell. Here you are defending him. I don’t like it.”

Unlike other people in this club, Matero wasn’t afraid of me. He knew me too well, saw me from too close, knew my family, friend, nemesis, and the life that I lived.

This man knew every little detail about my life, more than I knew about him.

He saw the vulnerable Nathan after Olivia’s death, the raw one whom I concealed from the world. I was mentally broken and emotionally wounded. I was lost after losing Olivia; she was the best thing that ever happened to me, and when she was gone, it broke me up badly.

That night, I lost my best friend and my unborn child, too. I saw the pictures of the baby; the ultrasonography gave you a sight of the baby perfectly well, and the moment I saw that little thing inside her, I fell in love with that. I loved my baby.

Olivia was my best friend, the mother of my child. We had never loved one another as a man and woman did, but there was attraction and respect between us, and she maintained that even after we had sex for the first time or the time she told me she was pregnant with my child.

I loved her as a human being, as a friend, so did she, and that was the only precious relationship I had with an individual other than my mother and my brother.

“You are wrong. You pay me to find out Olivia’s actual murderer. And trust me, Brian is not our man.” He crossed his hands over his chest.

“And why would your verdict be that? She was in his car, I’m sure he failed the break of that car, and Olivia told me it was Brian who gave her the car before leaving for New York.”

“Yes. I know that. Brian offered the car because Olivia’s car was in the garage. He provided her with the car so she could travel comfortably, not with the intention of killing her.”

“Looks like you believe that,” I murmured with a hateful smile.

“We have been looking into Brian for the last three months and got nothing. We went through him, again and again, to see if we missed anything, yet we got nothing on him. Do you know why?”

“I am sure you are kind enough to enlighten me about this.”

“Because we are looking for the wrong guy. Brian isn’t our guy, it’s someone else. I got a video that I want to see you.”

I walked to the table where the laptop was open with a video pausing on the screen. It was CCTV footage of a car repairing store.

Matero played the video, and I saw a man, around the early thirties, medium-tall in height, lingering around a car. He was wearing a black outfit with a black benny on his head. The car was Brian’s, the one Olivia used on the day she died. He looked around, left and right several times, and all of a sudden he opened the boot of the car and hid there. A few seconds later, a mechanic came and drove the car away.

“What does this mean?” I asked him.

“The car was in the repairing shop before Brian gave it to Olivia to use. And the man you saw getting on the boot was the man who drove the truck that night. He was the driver.” He took a long breath. “I checked his account to find any kind of involvement with Brian or McCoy. After Oliva’s death, someone transferred twenty million amounts into his account, but that didn’t belong to Brian or any of the McCoy’s.”

“Whose then?”

“No idea. The information is too tight about this transition. I need to hack the system to know the answer, but I think we need to find this man first. He is the answer to every question we had.”

“What about the hospital? They said they found alcohol in her system when clearly there was none.” I asked.

“I am working on that too.” He closed the laptop. “But trust me, Brian isn’t our guy. We are wasting time focusing on him too much.”

“Then go on. Do whatever you need to do. I will stay away until you got something solid.”

I wasn’t ready to come to the understanding that Brian had nothing to do with this, but I was ready to see out the box. I was angry and heartbroken with the situation, but I wasn’t going to be unfair to this. If it were someone else other than that person, I would pay the price that I decided.

No one could save him from me.