“No amount of money will buy your pardon?”
“No.”
Conrad rubs his shaky hand over his graying beard. “I have another offer.”
I don’t care what it is. Conrad can’t offer anything that I want more than Emma Lia. “Sorry. No negotiating.”
“I can help you to never be made a fool of again. Save you millions. I’ll come to work for you. Teach your people all of the tricks. Teach them foolproof ways to recognize false shuffles, roulette past posting, baccarat scamming, card switching, card counting, hole carding, dice slides, card marking, dealer exploitation. Anything you want to know. That’s priceless, Broussard.”
“It’s a good offer. One that I should take, but I’m not. No deal.”
I want Emma Lia more than I want to stop millions of dollars from leaving my casinos in the pockets of cheats.
“I will name names, Broussard. I’ll identify every gambling cheat that I know.”
I shake my head. “Not interested.”
“I can’t let you keep my daughter.”
“What are you going to do? Go to the police?”
“If I have to.”
“I have video surveillance of your son and daughter stealing from me. Hours of footage. Trust me. It’s enough evidence to send both of them to jail for a long time. And if I reach out to other casinos, they’ll have surveillance of them too. You’ll lose both of your children. Is that what you want?”
He stands and pulls a Glock; although shaky, he aims it directly at my face. He has a fifty-fifty chance of hitting me. “I will kill you if I have to.”
It isn’t myself that I think about as I look down the barrel of that Glock. “Do you believe that’s what Emma Lia wants? For her ailing father to spend the rest of his life behind bars?”
“I love my children. I would sacrifice myself for either of them. But I’m sure that’s not something that you’d understand.”
There is no one that I love more than myself. “You’re right. I don’t understand the mentality behind that kind of sacrifice. There’s no one on this earth that I would sacrifice myself for.”
“I don’t want to kill you, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail. I just want my daughter back.”
“There are two choices where Emma Lia is concerned. She stays with me, or she goes to jail.”
“What does she want?” he asks.
“We were going to discuss the terms over dinner tonight. I was planning to let her make the decision.” And if her answer didn’t include choosing to stay with me, I was going to convince her one way or another.
“Why do you want her to stay with you so badly?”
“I don’t think that you, as her father, really want to hear the answer to that question.”
“I should kill you and make the decision for her.”
“Yes. You probably should.” And he would if he knew what I had planned for his little girl.
Conrad lowers his weapon, defeat etched in the lines on his face. I almost feel sorry for him. “Emma Lia is precious to me.”
I wish that I could tell Conrad Grant that no harm would come to his daughter, but the opposite is true. I plan to hurt her. Often. And in many different ways.
“May I see her?”
“Yes… but not with that gun.”
Conrad places the Glock on my desk. “Take me to her.”
