Page 4 of His Playground (Owning Vegas #2)

Chapter Three

I watch Jazzy as she sits on the floor of my office, drawing in a coloring book. She’s got markers, stickers, and all sorts of other shit spread out around her. The DNA test results came in a week ago. She’s mine. But I already knew that. I felt it.

“Fuck, shit,” I curse out when something dawns on me.

She jumps and looks up. “What happened?”

“I just realized something. You should be in school, right?” I ask her. “I mean, kids your age… they go to school.”

Her face drops. The smile that I’ve grown to love disappears. “I was hoping you wouldn’t think about that,” she says.

“You don’t like school?”

She doesn’t answer. But she does drop and shake her head.

I stand and walk over to where she’s sitting. Plop my ass on the ground and cross my legs to mimic her posture. “What’s wrong with school, Jazzy?”

“It’s just… I don’t have friends. Kids don’t like me, and they’re mean,” she says, still not looking at me.

They’re mean? I’m not in the business of maiming or killing kids, but that could change. “Give me some names and I’ll sort ?em out,” I tell her.

She shakes her head again. “Please don’t make me go back.”

“Hey, I would never make you do something you don’t want to do,” I promise her. “But I do wanna know what happened at school. Where did you used to go?”

I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. I can get access to the school’s files and find her mother’s name.

“Henry Walker Elementary, but I don’t have to go back, right? I can just stay here with you?” Jazzy says, finally peeking up at me. Hopeful.

“You don’t have to go back. What happened?” I repeat.

“They’re mean. There’s this one boy… he pushes me, and then this one time, he cut my hair,” she says. “He calls me TT.”

“What does TT mean?”

“Trailer trash, because Mama and me lived in a trailer.”

She lived in a fucking trailer? My blood is boiling. I had a daughter out there living in fucking squalor when I had the means to give her the fucking world.

“I’m gonna kill him,” I grunt.

“You can’t! He’s a kid like me,” Jazzy pleads. “And then you’d go to jail and I’d have no parent. Mama said if a kid has no parent, they go and live with other people who look after them.”

“Well, lucky for you, I’m not going anywhere.

But we do need to do something about school.

I can’t teach you. You wouldn’t learn much from me anyway.

But maybe we can go look at a new school?

” I offer. I could hire someone to homeschool her.

That would be the better option. She wouldn’t be subjected to little shits bullying her if she were here.

“Are kids mean at all schools?” Jazzy asks.

“I think people can be mean no matter where you go. You just have to learn to deal with them properly so they know not to fuck with you,” I explain.

“Like how?”

I smirk. “Now, that is something I can teach you, princess. How to fight back so no one can ever hurt you.”

“Like a ninja?” She smiles excitedly.

“Exactly.”

“Can we start now?” she asks me.

“Maybe tomorrow. Tonight, I have to go out. Lailani is coming to sit with you. You like her, right?”

“I like her,” Jazzy says. “Are you coming back?”

As much as she tries to put on a happy facade, this kid has some real abandonment issues.

She’s terrified I’m going to leave her like her mother did.

She doesn’t say it, but it’s clear as day.

For two weeks, I’ve slept on the floor of her bedroom.

Because every time she asks me to stay, I don’t have it in me to leave her.

“I promise I’m always going to come back. Here. I have something for you.” I stand, walk over to my desk, and pick up the cell phone I bought for Jazzy. I wave it in her direction. “You know how to work one of these?”

“Uh-huh.” She nods her head.

“I put my number in it. You can call me whenever you want and I’ll answer, okay?” I tell her.

“Anytime?” she says.

“Anytime,” I repeat.

“Okay.”

“You nervous?” Louie asks.

I look around the event space. The engagement party is being held here at Aces High. My engagement party. Everything is perfect. I made sure to have it decked out in lilac and white. Because I happen to know that lilac is my fiancée’s favorite color.

“Not in the slightest,” I reply.

“Why? You’re about to marry a stranger.”

“Yeah, about that… She’s not,” I say. I’ve never told a single soul about Antonia. Some things are not worth risking and she’s one of them.

Louie lifts a questioning eyebrow. “She’s not what ?”

“A stranger,” I say.

“You know her? How?”

“We had a thing a few years ago.” I lift a shoulder. “Let’s just say she’s the one I let get away, and when she finds out it’s me her father signed her over to, well, she’s probably going to want to kill me.”

“You couldn’t have given me a heads-up before now?” Louie grunts.

“Sorry, boss, been a tad busy,” I remind him. “Also, I found out something that might help us track down Jazzy’s mother. She was enrolled at Henry Walker Elementary. The school would have to have records.”

“They would,” he says. “Wait… Shouldn’t she be in school? She’s been hanging out with us for weeks.”

“Yeah, another thing. Are we still above offing kids? Some little shit was bullying her at school. She doesn’t want to go back.”

“We can’t kill kids,” Louie says. “But she’s also not going back somewhere that isn’t safe.”

“I know,” I tell him. “I’ll find an alternative.” I nod my head towards the entrance, where I finally spot my bride-to-be. “There she is.”

“Huh,” Louie says.

“What do you mean huh ?” I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s fucking stunning. She’s wearing a floor-length black dress that hugs all her curves. Her dark hair hangs in loose waves over one shoulder and her lips are painted a bright red.

“Good luck. I’ll be over at the bar.” Louie slaps a hand against my back before walking off.

I don’t move. I wait. It only takes a minute for Antonia to notice me and then she’s storming over. “Why are you here? You can’t be here,” she whispers but her expression tells me she wants to yell.

“Actually, I can be. I own the place, remember?” I reply.

“That’s not… Carlo, whatever you’re doing here, leave,” she hisses.

“You don’t know, do you?” I crane my neck to the side.

“Know what?”

I point to the sign on the wall beside us. It reads: Congratulations, Carlo and Antonia. “We’re getting married, babe.” I smile.

“No.” Antonia shakes her head.

“You did know this was your engagement party, right?”

“I knew that, but you? Why you? Anyone but you,” she stutters out.

“Ouch.” My hand rubs over my heart.

“This cannot be happening,” she says.

“It is,” I tell her.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” She sounds hurt.

“Would you rather it be someone else? If not for me, your father would have sold you to the highest fucking bidder, Antonia,” I grunt.

“At least it wouldn’t have been you,” she seethes.

My phone rings. I raise a finger. “Hold that thought,” I say as I pull my cell out of my pocket. Seeing Jasmine’s name on the screen, I press the green answer button and bring the device to my ear. “Hey, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”

“Am I allowed to have ice cream after nine pm?” she asks me.

I chuckle. Not really what I expected her to be calling me about. “You can have whatever you want.”

“Thanks. Are you going to be home to tuck me in?”

“I might be a bit late. But when I get home, I’ll come tuck you in, even if you’re already asleep, okay?” I tell her.

“Okay, see ya.” Jasmine cuts the call.

“Well, I’m so glad you could take a few hours off from whoring to be present at your own engagement party,” Antonia grumbles. “Just so we’re clear, you will never touch me.”

“That wasn’t a whore. That was Jasmine.” I should explain, tell her I have a daughter.

“I don’t care who it is. I also don’t care who you fuck or where you get your needs met, because it won’t be with me.”

Before I can get a single word out, Antonia is storming off again.

Well, that went better than I thought. I’m not bleeding.