Dead by the River – Chapter 1
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Touching down in Bulgaria was always a routine that Sofia enjoyed. For one thing, she was landing in Sofia, the city after which she was named. When she was a child, it was all anyone talked about; her father’s relentless business drive and how he named his daughter after the city he hoped to one day own. Now, although she was nearly 30 and her father was an old man, he had made good of his dream. No one owned cities, but if anyone was close to doing so, it was her father, Ivan Angelov.
Between his many businesses – some legal, others decidedly not – Ivan knew what was happening from the street café to the underground poker club. He ran at least one of every business worth owning on every corner of the capital city. The only problem was that he wasn’t sharing any of it. Despite his advancing years, Ivan remained fit and able. He also refuse help from anyone, especially his own children, who he kept on a tight leash. Ivan believed he was more than able to cope on his own without the aid of his son or daughter. Although he was approaching eighty, he was showing no signs of slowing down, nor was there any way he was going quietly disappear into any form of retirement.
The game Sofia had traveled from had gone disastrously wrong. Winning or losing money was something she was used to doing, but she kept a tidy profit. She also had an arrangement with her father that she would update him on the latest high roller cash game or big money tournament that she played. He bankrolled her and she kept any profit she earned. Playing the game in this way was tougher than she let on to friends.
The game in Barcelona had been a disaster. The cash game lasted less than two hours during which she failed to play a decent session, and the tournament later in the week had seen her bust just outside the money. By some miracle, she’d managed to keep the relationship intact with the game’s host, Antonio, but getting another invite would take time and effort. And time was something her father rarely afforded her.
On her way home, Sofia took an Uber and stopped at the local dress hire shop. She returned the glamourous gown that she’d worn to the cash game at Antonio’s private Catalan home. Sofia had memories of meeting a good man in the city that she loved, Sam, but the beauty and culture of the Catalan capital was like a fading dream as she handed back the dress and had her deposit returned. Back in Bulgaria, every Lev counted, and she never had enough to play the kind of games she thrived in. High stakes were suited to her temperament, style, and demeanor, but Sofia’s bankroll wasn’t as big as she let the world think it was.
It never would be until her father died.
Sofia stopped in at a hair salon owned by her friend, Saskia. It was on the outskirts of the capital, a little more back-street than high street, and a little less expensive. They had an agreement that Sofia always went there upon her return home from wherever she had been around the world. Frankly, she looked forward to seeing Saskia ten times more than her father and her stepmother Silvana, who came as a pair.
‘What has happened to your beautiful hair? These are split ends!’ cried Saskia upon seeing her best friend.
‘What can I say, the sunshine in Barcelona was too harsh for my skin and my hair.’ Sofia replied, settling into the chair and allowing Saskia to work a little of her magic. Sofia now wore a more conservative blouse, skinny-fit black jeans, and a beanie hat. In Bulgaria, she could be herself.
‘I think it isn’t the sunshine, but a man. Samuel, Samuel, Samuel.’
Sofia tried to bat the accusation away, but Saskia wasn’t having any of it.
‘Look me in the eye and tell me that you didn’t sleep with him. Aha! I know these things. So, tell me, how was Mr. ‘NASA’? Did he take you around the Milky Way?’
‘I think I broke his heart, and it was nothing to do with the bedroom,’ Sofia confessed, the worries of her latest trip a little less painful to recall now that she was back in her hometown. ‘We spent time together, but there was a murder in the card game. Can you imagine, an actual murder.’
Saskia didn’t believe any of it at first, but as Sofia recalled the death of Felix Jackson and how she and Sam discovered who was to blame for the heinous crime, it was clear that every word was true.
‘I should have told him my plans, but I had to protect Sam. I don’t think he’ll ever trust me again. I know Sam. If he doesn’t trust someone in his life, they are…’
Saskia swept the scissors along the ends of Sofia’s hair, snipping several of them at once with a clean, swift snip.
‘… Exactly.’ Said Sofia with a sad smile.
Saskia tried to lighten the subject as she was lightening Sofia’s roots, asking her about her brother, Georgi. No matter how tough Sofia’s life was, the love she had for her brother lit up her face.
‘He’s the same as always. I spoke to him while I was in Barcelona. I could hardly hear him – he was at the club.’
‘He spends more and more time there,’ Saskia nodded. ‘I saw him for his weekly haircut on Tuesday and he was here ten minutes, and from the minute he walked in the door to calling for his driver its always business with him.’
‘Dimitar always liked you, you know…’
Saskia waved away the compliment about Georgi’s driver, Dimitar, a small, almost mute man of few words was also an absolute brute running the action on the door of Glitter, the nightclub Ivan Angelov let his son Georgi run. Saskia’s cheeks glowed giving her away. Sofia knew that Saskia still harbored feelings for the brooding, moody Dimitar.
After catching up on the gossip from the past week, Sofia thanked Saskia, paid her – despite protests that she owed her friend nothing – and walked the short distance from Saskia’s shop to her apartment. When she had left University, it had been bought for her by her father, one of his many properties in the city. After he met and married his much younger second wife, Silvana, they made sure Sofia was charged rent, and it was steep. These days, making sure she kept up with the payments was difficult. Saskia told her that it would all be worth it once her father died, that he’d leave it to her in his will. But Sofia wasn’t so sure.
By the time Sofia arrived home, the weather had turned. Sharp, thin needles of freezing rain fell, Sofia flicked up her collar and hurried the last few meters to the door. She let herself in, dropped the keys onto the entryway table and entered her modest abode. Gone were any of the luxuries she might have enjoyed in Barcelona or other foreign city adventures. A high stakes poker player she may have been at the felt, but at home, she lived a frugal life. She had merely a dozen sets of clothes, mostly well-worn classic styles she knew could cope with the rotation.
She made food, a little bread, some olives and cheese. She had little else in and needed to conserve her finances. The last thing she wanted to do was go to her father, cap in hand. There would be an argument with Silvana, who enjoyed nothing more than making Sofia suffer while asking for the money she could help herself to every day.
Sofia washed up, cleaned the apartment and turned on the heating. Whenever she went away, she left the place without heat to save money. But the bones of the apartment were cold and the first night was always a chilly one. She admonished herself for wishing her father dead in order to obtain her inheritance. Was that too cruel? Of course.
Unbeknownst to Sofia, she was not going to spend another minute of her first night back home in her own apartment. She was startled by a hard rapping at the door. She hurried down the stairs and checked the peephole.
It was the police. There were two stone-faced officers. Deadly serious.
She felt really bad. Had she just wished death upon her own father? They knocked a second time, and she opened the door, smoothing her hands on the front of her legs out of pure nerves. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest.
‘Miss Angelov? Sofia Angelov?’
This is it, she thought. Here it comes.
‘Can we come in?’
‘Just tell me here. It’s fine.
Almost eighty; two days short of his traditional birthday poker game. The shock of it was hitting her even before they told her.
‘There’s been an accident, Miss Angelov. I believe Georgi Angelov is your brother?’
Sofia crumpled to the ground as the rain continued to fall.
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
