Love’s Gamble

Chapter 11

Freema had managed to get a pot of twenty seven thousand dollars so far. She had a feeling in the back of her head that she should stop, yet at the same time she felt like she was unable to stop. She, for some reason, felt like the only thing that she could do right now was to play on and keep winning more and more money.

Twenty seven thousand dollars. She looked at the chips in front of herself, her eyes wide. She couldn’t believe how much money she had won so far. The seven men that she had played against were now five, and these five were stubbornly refusing to give up. Every time they ended up broke they just bought back in. The current pot was twelve thousand dollars. Freema had a fair bit of money in there, but she was prepared to lose the money. She knew that she had to let something go in order to get something back. She had won every single game so far, if she lost a couple grand it would give the others confidence. It would make them feel like they had a shot at beating her. It was a laughable proposition, but she knew that they were too arrogant to realize just how good she was. They were still attributing her numerous victories to beginner’s luck, and it was all working in Freema’s favor.

She lost the pot, and saw twelve thousand dollars go to someone else. Her heart fell as she looked at the pot go. She had twenty five thousand dollars now, but she didn’t mind. She looked at everyone at the table. Such rich men with so much to lose. She knew that if she kept working them she might just end up walking away with nothing short of a hundred grand. That would make it a lot easier for her to run away, although she would want to work a bit more. There were five other places in the city. If she got the same winnings from each one of them, she would have more than enough to head to Bombay, buy a nice house there and open a shop. She would have enough to live the rest of her life in comfort. She would have enough to never have to look back at the life that she had left behind.

For there was nothing for her here. The man she loved, Ken, was just another person that she would inevitably end up hurting. The people that she considered her friends were not really her friends, they didn’t really care about her. She had no family, she had no job. She had nothing. Running away was the only thing that she could possibly do and she thoroughly looked forward to doing it.

She looked around. It was time for the next game, and there was going to be a lot more blood this time around. The faces of pretty much everyone around her were determined. They felt like they could beat her this time. She would use this. She would get them for everything they had. She would bleed them dry and make them walk home.

Freema was on a roll, and this was truly an understatement. She was playing better than she had ever played before. She knew that this was the only thing she knew how to do, and so she was putting all of her effort into doing it.

The game was afoot. She drew her cards.

*****

Ken went up to the guard in front of the big wooden door. They had gone to two places so far but they had not had any luck in finding Freema. They knew that she was in one of these places, they just didn’t quite know where exactly she was.

It was not easy looking for her like this. Ken was starting to feel like he was never going to be able to find her without getting seriously injured. The previous den that they had gone to had had a particularly mean guard and he had almost fired his weapon at them.

He walked up to the guard and said, “I am looking for a woman. She has dark skin and probably a great deal of money. You will have never seen her before, this is probably the first time she has ever gambled here. Your bosses probably let her in because they thought that she was going to help them earn some money from her. She probably gave you a run for your money too and made you feel pretty stupid for thinking that you might be able to disallow her from entering the den.”

The guard looked at Ken and grimaced. He was tall, black and was wearing shades that were so dark they were practically mirrors. He did not say a word, he simply looked at Ken. Ken did not look away, however. He looked the man straight in the eye and said, “I am looking for her. I am going to find her. If she is here, tell me. If she is not, I will go away.”

There was something in Ken’s eyes that made the guard realize that he was not to be fu*ked with. He shook his head, saying, “We ain’t seen her here.”

“Fine,” said Ken, turning around and leaving the alley in which the gambling den was located. Something had come over him, something that was beyond anything he had ever felt before. He was starting to realize that he had had the ability to be assertive all along. He had just needed to apply this skill in certain areas, and he needed to be in a situation where his assertiveness was absolutely necessary. He had the power in him, and he was going to use it to find the woman he loved.

*****

Freema now had winnings totaling forty seven thousand dollars. At this rate she was going to own the place. The other gamblers were rather angry and she couldn’t blame them. She was cleaning out their bank accounts and they had no idea what was going on.

“We play again!” said Hiroshi, angrily throwing the buy in onto the table. Freema calmly threw her own buy in as well, as did the four other players.

She was feeling indestructible. She felt like there was nothing in the world that could harm her right now.

The game was starting to heat up, but Freema had it all under control. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew that she could take all of the risks she wanted. At this stage of the game, there was nothing really that any of these men could do. There was no way they could predict her moves, there was no way they could figure out what she was going to do. The only way Freema would lose, so to speak, would be if they all stopped playing and didn’t allow her to make as much money as she would have been able to make otherwise. She had to make them keep playing, and so she let herself fail every once in a while.