“If only I could be so lucky,” I mutter as I look around the restaurant. “But there’s a chance they won’t kill him too, right? I mean . . . what if he hands them a few million he can scrape up and works out a payment plan? He makes a good enough salary that if he stopped spending his money so frivolously, he could get them paid off other ways.”
“That could happen too,” Dennis agrees. “You gotta figure those people who take bets are businessmen too. They could extend part of the repayment and call it a loan. Attach a ridiculous amount of interest to it. They’re in the business of making fast money and look at return on investment too. His bookie could go to loan shark pretty quickly.”
“Fuck,” I grit out. “I hate this shit. Hate seeing justice for Sela and happiness for us both just within our reach and about a million fucking things that could go wrong. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Look, man,” Dennis says, and his voice is so empathetic it gives me pause. “You know I understand how you’re feeling right now. I’ve been in your shoes, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from avenging Rosa. I had her father and brothers behind me, but I’m the one who sleeps the best at night for ending the fuck who took her from us. No one will understand what you’re going through better than me. But with that being said, you’ve got a lot more to lose that I ever did. My love was what I had lost. Yours is still very much alive and the biggest part of your happiness. Shit goes down in a bad way and you get caught for this, you’re going to lose something that’s far more important than what little bit of peace you’ll get from ending JT.”
And he’s nailed the dilemma. Balancing pros and cons, trying to figure out what my priorities are and where I need to be focusing my attention. Avenging Sela and ridding this world of JT, or living happily ever after with a kernel of regret for letting him go free. Those are my choices and they are not easy ones to make.
“Regardless of what you decide,” Dennis continues in a low voice, “you’ve got to let some time pass before you move on it. You’ve got to start publicly repairing your relationship with him, and get some distance between you and the tension you two have exhibited to others over the past months. It might mean you need to continue working side by side with him for months to make sure you are shown in the best possible light. Think you could honestly do that?”
“No,” I say immediately. “I can’t be around him. If JT stays in The Sugar Bowl, I’m going to need to walk. I can’t live that type of lie.”
“Then my advice is still the same,” he says. “Let JT buy you out. Make it amicable. Part on good terms. Then you walk and don’t look back. When some time has passed, and if you still need vengeance, then we’ll talk some more and I’ll get you set up.”
After the waiter brings out our meals, which look delicious, and leaves, I ask Dennis, “So what’s up for you after your trip to Vegas?”
“I’ve actually got a wedding to attend in Ireland this weekend, so I’ll fly out from Vegas to New York, and from there into Shannon. My cousin’s getting married and I will take any excuse to get back to the motherland. While I’m not a big fan of weddings in general, Irish ones are a hell of a lot of fun.”
“Yeah . . . red hair, fair skin, tough-as-nails attitude, and boyish charm. I kind of pegged you as Irish,” I say with a smirk as I cut into a huge scallop. “But I don’t detect an accent.”
“I was born in New York, but both my parents are from Ballinderreen, a little village in County Galway. They’re Irish folk musicians and emigrated to the Big Apple to see if they could find their fame and fortune there.”
“And did they?”
“No more than what they found playing in the local pubs back home,” Dennis says with a laugh. “But they liked the opportunities, especially for their kids, so they stayed.”
“You go to Ireland a lot?” I ask.
“I do,” he says while lifting a bite of steak to his mouth. “And I don’t