CHAPTER THREE
“Didn’t I say no, Madison?”
“But Dad, it’s the chance of a lifetime.”
“That’s what you always say. And it always turns out to be a big waste of your time and my money.
No,” Jimmy said again over his car’s phone.
He was behind the wheel of his Maserati Gran Cabrio as he navigated the dark roads of Vegas on his way to his father’s hotel where he and his daughter shared an apartment.
Now she wanted to move in with friends again.
But the last time was an unmitigated disaster that led to stalking charges for one of her roommates and felony theft charges for the other one.
He wasn’t about to get on that emotional rollercoaster ride with her again.
“These are new friends,” Madison insisted. “They’re nothing like Jason and Tavia. We have so much in common.”
“That’s what you said about Jason and Tavia. The answer is still no.”
“But why? Just because it didn’t work out the last time?”
Didn’t work out was an understatement. “You’re a Gabrini, Maddie. There are too many vultures out there seeking you out because of your name. That’s why!”
“You’re overly-protective, Daddy.”
“The answer is still no,” Jimmy said as he blew through a green light with his high-revved sportscar.
But just as he blew through it, he could see one of those Tesla Cybertrucks speeding through that same intersection as if it had no stopping sense and was certain to smash into the side of his small car. Which, Jimmy, knew, would rip it apart.
But Jimmy wasn’t about to let that happen.
He pressed so hard on that gas that he floored it.
His car, that was capable of accelerating from zero to one hundred in three seconds, accelerated even faster than that and tore out of that intersection so fast and furiously that that red-light running Cybertruck missed a collision by even less than a millisecond.
When Jimmy looked into his rearview mirror and saw that truck blow through that intersection and kept on going, he pulled over and leaned his head back. He thought he was going to have a heart attack. A sure collision had been just that close.
“Daddy? Daddy?”
Until he pulled over, he didn’t realize Madison had been calling his name while he was speeding through that intersection.
“Daddy, are you alright? Daddy?”
“I’m okay,” Jimmy finally managed to say.
“What happened?”
“Some damn fool almost sideswiped me.” That, he knew, was also an understatement.
“Let me get off of this phone so you can pay attention to the road and stop worrying about me.”
Stop worrying about his baby? That will never happen, Jimmy thought. “Love you, bye,” he said, and ended the call.
He still had to take several breaths before he could regain his composure enough to drive again. Then he pulled away from that curb and left.
As he pulled away, that big, gray Infiniti SUV, idling in the parking lot of a Burger King at that same intersection, slowly pulled out of that parking lot and drove away too.