Love’s Gamble

Chapter 10

Freema walked up to the poker den, her heart in her throat. She did not have the time to start having second thoughts now, but she couldn’t help but feel apprehensive about the whole thing. She was extremely nervous. This was not the sort of thing that she was used to. She was a very good poker player, this much was certain, but at the same time she had never really played a poker game where her life might end up being in jeopardy.

She entered the alley and saw that there was a guard standing in front of the rusty metal gate. He turned his head to look at her through sunglasses covered eyes. He was stocky and solid, and his bald head only added to his image as a very formidable man. Freema knew that she could not mess with this man. She knew that she was going to have to tread carefully right now, lest she end up causing some serious problems for herself before she even started playing the game.

She walked up to the guard and said, “I want to play.”

“Get lost babe,” said the guard with a sneer, looking away after speaking. Freema felt miffed but she knew that there was going to be no point in being petulant. She was going to have to approach this in a different manner. She was going to have to be a lot more assertive right now.

“Listen,” she said. “I have money. And I want to play.” She brought out the wad of cash and waved it in front of the guards face. The guard looked at her, clearly annoyed that his attempts at intimidating her were proving to be unsuccessful, but he had no choice but to enter the room behind the door and ask his bosses about what he should do.

He came out with a rather sheepish expression on his face and said, “Right then. You can play. But the buy in is not going to be cheap, are you sure you can afford it?”

“I’m sure that I will be able to manage,” said Freema with a scornful laugh. The guard, thoroughly chastised by this point, opened the rusty metal door and allowed Freema inside.

*****

Ken was starting to go crazy with worry. He had no idea what was going on anymore. After he had told Freema about his ex wife she had just… left. He had no idea why, and she had not answered any of his calls or responded to any of his texts since then. Today was the second day that she had not responded to him and he was starting to think that something truly awful had happened.

In an attempt to assuage his stress he went to her place but he found it empty. He wondered what was going on. He wondered where she could be. He wondered if he was being creepy or weird by behaving this way. He certainly didn’t want to behave in such a manner. He did not want to behave creepily at all, he just wanted to know what was going on with Freema.

When he was unable to find her at her place, he went to her office the next day. She was not there, and her boss told him that he had fired her. Ken started to panic once more. What was going on? Why would she get fired just like that? Her boss had not been forthcoming at all, but Ken needed answers. He wanted to know why she would not tell him about the fact that she had gotten fired. He wanted to know why she was shutting him out of her life. He was starting to get the feeling that she was AWOL because of a lot of different factors. These factors had also resulted in her losing her job, but the first casualty might have been their relationship. She might have felt like the relationship was getting too stressful for her perhaps, or that it was becoming the sort of thing that she simply could not deal with. He wished that she would talk to him.

After discovering that she had been fired, he sat at a bus stop near her former place of work and tried to think. What could be going on with her that was so terrible that she was not able to talk to him about it at all? He felt like he was being a bad boyfriend to her, that he was forcing her into this situation.

Ken was desperate for some kind of answer. He needed to find Freema, he needed to know what was going on with her. He thought about who he could approach to find out where she was but he came up blank.

And then, all of a sudden, he realized. Her gambling group. They must have some information to tell him, anything at all that would help him find out where Freema had gone. If not that, then at least the information that they were going to give him would allow Ken to understand why Freema had acted the way she had.

He headed to the Totoya. It was going to be a while before the gamblers got there and he knew that he was not going to be able to approach them in the middle of the day. They all had day jobs, and they all needed to work hard at their jobs otherwise they would not be able to focus on their gambling. He was going to have to wait for a few hours, but it was worth it. Once the gamblers got here he would ask them about what was going on with her. He had a feeling that there were some things that she had not told him, some things that she was keeping from him. He hoped that her friends would be able to shed some light on these mysteries.

*****

“So,” said the man who was clearly in charge in the gambling den. “You want to play poker with us?”

He was a Japanese man judging by his features, and he had a lot of muscle on his body. His hair was long but collected into a neat pony tail. He had a hard look about him, the look of a man that would not be averse to using violent means to get whatever it was that he wanted.

“Yes,” said Freema, not missing a beat. “I want to play poker with you, and I have the money to buy in.”

Freema threw the wad of cash onto the table. She knew that there was no way she was going to be allowed to play with these guys if she showed even the slightest bit of hesitation. She was going to have to make herself seem powerful, strong, the kind of person that you would not want to fu*k with. She was all of these things and more, she just had to show these guys what she was made of so that they would respect her.