Dialing his number, my jaw is already clenched. Agitation is already rustling through me like dry leaves.
“Who is this?” Ricardo snaps into the phone.
“Adrian Volkov.”
“Hah,” he scoffs. “Did she ditch your cheating ass yet?”
“I’m not phoning to fight with you, Mendelez. I’m phoning to tell you to get your fucking life together.”
“Huh?” he snaps, “What the fuck does that mean?” he asks, confused.
“Whether I like it or not, your daughter cares greatly for you. Personally, I don’t think you deserve her affection or patience, but you have it. How about you stop fucking everything up and start being the father you were meant to be years ago?”
“Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what kind of father I am!” he snarls angrily. “I took care of her on my own! I made sure she had food on the table! I…”
“Shut up and listen to me. You drink too much. You gamble too much. You are drowning in debt. You stink of failure and stale cigarettes. Go and stand in front of a fucking mirror and take a hard look at yourself, Ricardo. Tell me you are proud of yourself. I dare you!”
“So, what the fuck, man? Yeah, I drink, I gamble. It’s not out of control!”
“Itis out of control!”I snap. “How blind are you?”
“Ok, ok, ok,” he laughs dryly. “No, you’re right. I do need to sort my life out. How about this? You can settle all my debts for me, and then once that’s done, I’ll stop gambling. I swear it. Never again,” he says excitedly.
I sigh heavily, not blind to his opportunistic attempt to swindle me.
“Ricardo, no one can force you to be a better man. But I saw how much its broke Athena to stand at her mother’s grave the other day. She needed someone to talk to. She didn’t come to you; she went to her dead mother. Her mother, whom she hardly knew because she was too young, but a mother whom she will seek advice frombeforegoing to talk to her father, who is alive. It shocked me. And it broke my heart. She wants a parent. She wants someone she can look up to, and right now she’s choosing your dead wife over you as her guidance and support in life,” I say.
He’s so quiet on the other end of the phone that I think he might have hung up.
“Ricardo?” I say, annoyed.
“I’m here.” His voice is subdued. He sounds disarmed. “Did she really go to her mother’s grave?”
“Yes. She goes there whenever she feels overwhelmed and needs to reflect or find answers.”
“She never came to me or spoke to me about important things,” he sighs.
“How could she? You were drunk. And if you weren’t drunk, you found a way to use your connection with her to get something from her. Money. Things to sell.”
He sighs softly, falling quiet again.
I wait, listening to his breathing, my foot tapping against the floor to dispel the agitation I feel just having to talk to this guy.
“When her mother died, I lost everything.”
He sounds shattered. Broken. “That woman was my entire world. She was my life. My heart. My love. And she left me alone with a baby. Athena was only two men. I didn’t know what to do with a baby! And I was destroyed. I lost mylove…at first, the gambling was just something to take my mind off the pain. A little here. A little there. I won. I lost. It was exciting.”
He sighs. I wait.
“It spiraled quickly, though. Because I was too numb to make rational decisions, it was easier to gamble than to deal with a kid on my own. I made sure she was ok. She was always ok. But she wasn’t my first priority. The gambling was,” he confesses. “The debts start piling up very fast. I was drowning in them. I got an offer from a guy. I had no idea what the mafia was about, but it seemed like a good job, quick money. You know, once they suck you in, you can never get out. That was years ago, man, and since then I haven’t been out of debt. I failed my daughter. I amstill failing her. My wife would be furious with me if she could see me now. She would be so fucking disappointed in me. I do need to get out of this debt. I can’t believe I’m still in debt,” he sighs.
“Because every time you earn something, you throw it back into gambling,” I mutter without pity for the old guy. But I have to admit that I’m impressed that he’s able to reflect like this.
Ricardo huffs, sounding like he’s trying to push overwhelming emotions away. “What can I do? All I know is this fucking world. I know it’s a shit hole. I know these places I go to are shit holes. What do I do, man? How do I fix this?”
I press my fingers against my temple. I don’t want to be played, and I am fully aware that he is an expert manipulator. But if he is serious this time, if he really wants to change, then I need to help him only for Athena’s sake because I will do anything for that girl literally.
“Let’s meet up and have a talk,” I sigh.
