“Oh, dear God! Is Terry all right?”

“No, she’s not all right. She’s in the hospital.”

“How bad?”

“Bad, but she should recover.”

“This is all my fault.”

“I’m sure that’s true. Confession may be good for the soul, but it won’t help your situation. How much do they want for the boy? I’m sure they’ve contacted you about him.”

There was a protracted silence. “It’s a long story. You see, I have some gambling debts—”

“I’m up to speed, Devek. How much do they want for your son?”

“They want what I owe them.”

“And how much do you owe them?”

“A lot.”

“How much?”

“More than I have—”

“Devek, do you want my fucking help or not?”

“Two and a half million.”

Donatti’s heart skipped. He often worked with women—and men—who had racked up gambling debts. Casinos would call him and he’d pay off the debt at a discount, then the debtors would work off what they owed him by whoring. But even as someone who had done this for a while, Donatti was staggered: $2.5 million was a huge amount of debt.

Devek added, “That includes the interest.”

“That’s a shitload of money,” Donatti said. “How the fuck did they let you go so far?”

“No one was paying attention until it was too late.”

“Stop spinning me bullshit, okay? I don’t like it, I don’t like you, and I’m a millisecond away from hanging up. I have worked with casinos for over a decade. I own a casino. You are always paying attention. Why did they give you so much credit?”

“I come from a wealthy family.”

“Very wealthy, right?”

“Yes.”

“And they’re not helping you out?”

“My father is ill. He assigned my older brother executorship of all our holdings. He pulls the purse strings. And he’s angry at me right now.”

“He’s angry enough to let his nephew die for your sins?”

“He says he’ll give me a little to stall them. But he’s very, very angry. He has helped me out before, and I swore I would give it up. And I did give it up. But then things … spiraled. My fault, yes. The problem is now he doesn’t trust me.”

For good reason. Donatti thought a moment. “Why don’t you sign a promissory note to him?”

“I offered. He won’t take it.”

“Okay. I’m doing this for Terry, not for you, okay?”

“Yes, okay.”

“How about this? I’ll call him up and act as guarantor of the note. Anything goes wrong, you’ll have two people riding your ass.”

“He won’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s too angry.”

Had to be more to the story than what he was letting on. “What did you do to make him so angry?”

“I told you. I broke my promise about gambling.”