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.

Dead by the River – Chapter 2

Sofia’s first memory was of riding a small pink tricycle up a garden path outside their modest two-bedroom family home. She was guided along the cobbled stones, not by the hand of her mother or father, but of Georgi, her older brother. She loved his energy, his heart, his sense of fun – it kept her childhood innocent during the period of time when her mother died and her father changed beyond all recognition. Georgi was the one to hold her when she cried. He guided and pushed her along on the little trike, standing to watch as the wheels spun and she advanced up the path, his image slowly fading in the distance to Sofia as she turned proudly to show that she could do it.

Whenever Sofia was with him, Georgi made her feel like he lived for making her laugh. He was five years older than Sofia and he was her hero from the moment she looked up at him and stared into his big brown eyes.

She looked at him now, eyes shut, his body lying still on a medical table in the small, tastefully lit room. He was still, just like when he slept.

But Georgi was dead.

Sofia confirmed Georgi’s identity, then was walked out into another room, guided now by the arm of a police officer. She was given a drink of water and told to take all the time she needed. It was the same phrase she heard when she crumpled to the floor at the bottom of her apartment stairs, crying tears she thought she would never have to cry. Georgi had been a constant presence in her life. From her first waking moments yo the shared secrets and memories. All of her best times. In a young life decimated by the loss of her mother to cancer, further punctuated by the pain of her father remarrying a woman who was a quarter of a century younger than him – closer in age to her than her father – her brother was her rock. Now he was gone.

All the police could tell her was that they found Georgi Angelov’s lifeless body on the banks of the Iskar River, the only river that started and ended within Bulgaria’s borders, flowing South to North into the Danube like a vein into the main artery.

Thoughts swam in her ears, her mind unable to process what she was being told. Georgi was dead. It consumed her every pore, flooding her system with grief. It was overwhelming. Finally, the thoughts formed a single word.

‘How?’

‘His body was found by the water’s edge, Miss Angelov’, the more senior officer informed her while she sat, numb, at the table inside the small room.

‘How did he die?’ she asked through a veil of tears.

‘There will need to be an autopsy before we can determine a method of death, Ms. Angelov.’

‘When did he die?’

‘We estimate that he died between 11pm and 3am last night. We’ll know more after the autopsy. Did your brother struggle to swim? Could he have fallen in and panicked?’

‘Georgi was a stronger swimmer than me, and I used to swim for the county trials. He didn’t drown. That’s not possible.’

The tears came again in thick heaving, uncontrollable sobs. The female officer, who wore a well-practiced mask of sympathy, offered Sofia a tissue. She shook her head. She didn’t want to lose the tears she cried for him. Georgi was everything to her. If he died on the riverbank, he had to have been killed, she was sure of it, but by whom?

‘Did Georgi have any enemies?’

Sofia heard the question but didn’t immediately answer it. She adored her brother, but could she honestly say that everyone did? Their stepmother was an enemy of them both. Sofia and Georgi had long suspected that their father’s second wife had designs on changing his will so that she was the sole beneficiary. Maybe their father Ivan stoically refused to cut out his eldest son, his family’s lineage, and Silvana had dealt with Georgi once and for all.

Georgi got along well with everyone at Glitter, the club he ran. Maybe a little too well. Could he have cheated on his latest girlfriend? Sofia didn’t even recall who he was seeing, such was the revolving door of Georgi’s love life. Then there was the club itself. There had been rumors of drugs being supplied at Glitter. Georgi had hardly denied the fact when Sofia pressed him at the monthly poker game that was hosted at the family home.

Their father always showed up for that – was that because he was the main supplier? Ivan Angelov would stop at nothing to remain the dominant man at the heart of the Bulgarian capital’s underbelly. But no. It was his home, that was all. Wasn’t it?

What about Glitter’s staff? If the club went under, they’d be out of a job and it was unlikely to look good on their CVs if there was any controversy around drugs. Sofia felt herself compiling a checklist in her head.

She told the police that no-one had a bad word to say about Georgi.

‘Drowning would seem unlikely, then.’ Said the male officer, making a note and sliding it across the desk to his colleague. Did they believe her?

If they found no other cause of death, they would fall back on the probability of him drowning. Failure to find any evidence to the contrary would lead to a verdict of accidental death and Sofia would be fine with that. She would grieve, but through the pain, she would be able to lead her own investigation. If the police dropped the case, it would give her the time and space to get the job done. She would never let go until she knew what happened.

Sofia wanted everyone else to step back and leave it to her. She would find out who did this to Georgi.

Then she would have her revenge.

*

When she left the police station for the second time in a week after what she was convinced was a murder, but the opposite of how it had been in Barcelona. The Catalan capital had been lit up with color and sunshine, the vibrant shades of the cultural city leaping out at her as she left a police station cleared of any doubt or suspicion. By comparison, Sofia left the station in Bulgaria’s capital to grey overcast skies and a busy road slick with rain and packed with dark cars. The darkest was by far the highly polished limousine that waited for her on the corner of the street. She recognized the vehicle and climbed into the back of the car. The driver nodded to her.

‘Is everything OK, Miss Sofia?’

She nodded, hating the way her father’s driver spoke to her, like she was the contestant in a beauty pageant, only there to bring glamour to the city Ivan Angelov had named her after. They drove away from the police station at speed, traveling towards the family mansion that Ivan Angelov had personally constructed over the past half-century. They rolled through the northwest of the city to the outskirts, towards the Iskar river where Georgi’s body had been found.

When they arrived, the driver opened the door for Sofia and let her out on the steps of the giant house. With a dozen bedrooms, five bathrooms and three floors, the Angelov home was the subject of deep scrutiny in the country. Far from being revered by the city, Angelov was regarded as more of a tyrant, someone to whom people were as tradeable as money, and as such he was not well liked.

Sofia knew a private, open side to him – the ‘Dad’ she’d known in the early years. But those years were a long time ago, and it felt like a different age. Since then, her father’s wealth had skyrocketed, but the man she had loved as a child had been replaced by a ruthless businessman, who had now been re-married to Silvana for longer than had been to his first wife, Sofia’s mother Agnes.

Ivan Angelov had opened the large double doors at front of the mansion by the time Sofia reached them. Ivan was a large man, well over six foot and not slim of girth. His hair was slicked back with so much lacquer that it looked immovable. His large body was in stark contrast to his hands, which were small and clasped at the front of his body as if he had never quite worked out what to do with them.

He invited Sofia in and before she got to him, held the door open and led her inside. She walked right in, safe in the knowledge that the driver would shut the door. The hallway itself was long and ornate. Two staircases framed the opulent hall curling up to the first floor. A balcony effect created between the staircases allowed one to stand on the walkway to the first floor underneath family portraits and look over anyone who was arriving.

Silvana Angelov was in exactly that position as she stood with her hands holding the gilt rail in front of her, looking down on her husband and his daughter as they entered the great house, and gazed up at her.

‘Sofia!’ she cried, and ran down the left-hand stairs, embracing her stepdaughter. Sofia returned a stiff hug, limbs by her sides. Ivan Angelov noticed but had long given up asking Sofia to be less icy or Silvana less obviously obsequious. It was a dance they were well practiced in, and could not be trained to try different steps.

They all went to the drawing room on the lower floor. It was the room where poker was played once a month, every month. A home game with many unique features and quirks that would not be allowed inside the walls of a traditional casino. In Ivan Angelov’s house, the only law was his and he liked it that way. The monthly game would have been the next night…but Georgi’s death cast a shadow over the room as they walked through.

Silvana fetched a whisky without needing to be asked. She brought Sofia champagne, which she knew she hated. It was too dry and gave her a splitting headache. But Sofia took the crystal glass by the thin stem and drank it down. The headache would be a welcome distraction in the morning, the oblivion she could reach if she consumed plenty, enough to make it worthwhile.

‘My darling Sofia,’ Ivan said, his large frame sinking into a chair.

‘Dad.’ She replied. ‘Georgi was murdered. I can feel it in my bones. Tell me you know something of why this happened.’

‘I know nothing. What could I know? He goes to work, he is happy, he comes in the next day. He is…’

Ivan Angelov was unable to continue. They were both in shock, processing it in different ways. Sofia had bypassed shock and moved straight to anger, where she had rooted her feet in lava. The fury was coming off her in waves. Ivan, however, was paralyzed by not being able to compute that his son and heir had left the world before him.

When they stopped crying together, they spoke of Georgi’s childhood, as if reducing him to his most innocent age would bring him back to life. Silvana brought the drinks. She had seen worse as a child in Russia, but it remained unsaid. In a way it helped; it did its best to lessen the impact of one death, even in its silent presence. Silvana’s whole family had been murdered, leaving her alone to survive. She fled Russia with only her wits, at the physical age of eleven and the emotional trauma of an adult.

On an evening shortly after his first wife, Agnes, died from cancer, Ivan Angelov found himself in a dusty strip joint well into his twelfth drink when he saw the desperate Silvana dancing. He bought the venue overnight, turned it into a wine bar and made Silvana the manager. He married her a year later. Ivan was the man who had saved her from a lifetime of trauma by making new memories. At least that was how she told it.

‘Father, we must not plan a funeral until we know how he died.’

‘He died in the river, Sofia’, said Ivan with an edge.

‘He drowned, poor child.’ Said Silvana, trying to comfort Sofia by putting her arm on her shoulder.

‘I’m not your child. And Georgi didn’t drown, I know it.’

‘You cannot know that.’

Sofia touched her chest with her own hand.

‘I know. Papa, you need to help me find out who did this. I swear to you, something happened to Georgi.’

‘Then you’ll have anything you need.’

‘Ivan.’ said Silvana, but he waved her off with a meaty hand.

‘Silvana. I know you mean well, but this is family. This is my blood. If you cannot understand that, you are not the woman I found.’

Found. Like a lost doll or a stray dog. Silvana said nothing, but Sofia felt like her eyes grew a dark frame under each of her eyelids.

‘We must cancel the poker game tomorrow night,’ she said. But Sofia shook her head.

‘The game goes on.’ said Ivan. ‘I want everyone here tomorrow night.’

Sofia nodded.

‘Poker shows a player’s soul. I will find out who is guilty when we play. All of us.’

Dead by the River – Chapter 3

A day later, the stage was set. The sun was dying in the sky when the dozen players arrived at the Angelov mansion. Sofia had spent the day thinking a lot about the death of Georgi.

There was no random element to his death. He was a strong swimmer. He worked deep in the city, miles away from the place where his body was found. He knew everyone in the circle of family and friends that Sofia did. She didn’t know how, but Georgi must have made an enemy.

It had to be murder.

Sofia was early to the poker night, and there was already an odd atmosphere upon her arrival. Ivan Angelov had summoned everyone to the house, in order to pay their respects to Georgi the way he would have wanted – together.

‘Sofia – you’re early.’ Said Ivan as he welcomed his daughter. The grief and pain of the previous night seemed to have floated up into the high ceilings. Tonight there was a practical air about her father.

‘Good evening, father. Has anyone said they will not be here?’

‘No one tells me they don’t arrive on this of all nights,’ said Ivan. ‘Everyone who I have told to be here has replied letting me know that they will. And who is this?’

Ivan extended one of his meaty hands to Saskia, Sofia’s friend from the hairdressers, who gazed up at the ceiling in wonder.

‘What a place!’ she exclaimed, momentarily ignoring the reason they were there.’ I’m so sorry for your loss.’ She shook Ivan’s hand, leaving her own hand a little too long in his for Sofia.

‘Please, follow me upstairs. I need a drink.’ Ivan replied, letting go of her hand. Saskia went to the left staircase and climbed it with the same energy and awe as a child would have walking through the door of a sweet shop. Ivan and Sofia followed behind her.

‘Father, I want to be sat at Dimitar’s table. He was Georgi’s closest friend in Bulgaria.’

‘If you don’t count his little sister.’

‘I was not with him on the day he died.’

‘You must forgive yourself. Travel is a part of your life I encouraged.

‘I’ve no need to forgive myself. I mean that Dimitar was around Georgi. Georgi’s last movements were to visit each of his businesses – and get a haircut.’

‘He came here, too.’ Said Ivan. ‘But I didn’t see him.’

‘Why weren’t you here? And why was he?’

‘Silvana told me he came looking for me when he arrived, but she said I wasn’t here. He came bursting in the house demanding to see me.’

‘Did you talk to him afterwards?’

‘No,’ Ivan said, but there was a hint of doubt in his eyes. Sofia wondered if it was really true. Establishing who was telling the truth would be important if she was to work out what had happened to her dead brother. Her instinct was to trust nobody.

When they arrived upstairs, Ivan made a point of serving Saskia first. Sofia hated this side of him, the seedy heart of her father. It was as if he had abandoned all morals and ethics when her mother died. Until death do us part, as they had sworn in holy matrimony. Death had parted them, and he was not the same man. As he smooth-talked Saskia while making her a cocktail, Sofia wandered into the next room, which was where the poker game would take place. Gilt lined most of the walls, doorframes, and the frames of several paintings that were dotted around the room. At one of the tables, Silvana was crouching over the dealer’s chair, checking that the deck of cards was ready.

‘What are you doing?’ Sofia asked.

‘Making sure everything is ready for Ivan.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means when did you ever do anything for somebody other than yourself. You’ll be playing tonight?’

‘Ivan wants me to. I am happy to serve too. We have only one member of staff to fetch the drinks. That may not be enough for your father.’

Sofia thought back to Barcelona when one waitress was enough for a six-handed cash game. Over a dozen players would be here tonight, but this was Ivan Angelov’s house – everything was on a grander scale.

‘I know this has something to do with you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you think I mean? My brother’s death. You wanted him out of the way for the will, didn’t you? So father would leave it all to you, his mistress.’

‘His wife of many years,’ Silvana spat back. Her back was up, like a cobra readying for a strike.

‘You don’t deny it, then?’

‘I do deny it. I have only ever loved Ivan. I do not want his money, no matter what you may think of me.’

‘I think you had the kind of upbringing that others see only in their nightmares.’

‘This is true. But I am grateful for the life we lead now. Together. You are looking in the wrong place, Sofia.’

Silvana stalked off in the direction of the kitchen, her plaited hair bouncing against her neck as she went. Sofia walked around the card tables. They had been handmade from mahogany by a Bulgarian artist Ivan had found on Facebook. For his age, he had always enjoyed technological advancement and Sofia glanced up at the pinhole cameras she knew were dotted around the old room. One in the base of a light fitting, another in the pelmet of a curtain. Several in the molded edges of the high ceiling, twelve feet up so they could capture everything.

For the first time, Sofia wondered whether her father could see the action while they played poker. Would he do that – cheat at cards, like Goldfinger when James Bond caught him cheating at the start of the film? Ivan Angelov loved that movie. He’d made her watch it as a child, pausing the videotape if she left the room for any reason so that she didn’t miss something clever. Maybe he didn’t miss a thing. She thought it unlikely despite the obvious possibility of it.

Pretty soon, the other players arrived, all of them at the invitation of Ivan Angelov. They all commiserated with Ivan on the loss of his son. Dimitar, Georgi’s closest male friend arrived, looking like he hadn’t slept in a month. His eyes were pink and bloodshot as if he had been crying over the loss of his friend. Or up all night planting his body next to the water.

Several other employees of the Glitter nightclub Georgi managed were there. Elena Petrova, one of the club hostesses, arrived in a black dress that left little to the imagination, covering as it was, about 30% of her upper body at best. She looked devastated as she cried on Sofia’s shoulder, but then Sofia watched her walk off to Ivan and perform exactly the same routine. Shaking hands, tears rolling down her cheeks, an embrace that fell right into a hug and a squeeze at the base of his back. It was like a practiced dance routine – step for step what she’d done with Sofia.

Was she faking it or were those her feelings coming out naturally to them both? Several of the hostesses were there, along with the predominantly male bar staff. They were usually a rowdy bunch, the life and soul of any party. Tonight, however, the tone was somber and everyone had read the literal memo from Ivan. Dark shades of clothing were worn. Inscrutable expressions of sorrow or shock were painted on the faces. Sofia couldn’t yet tell if any of them were genuine. She made a mental note to be sure to keep everyone’s drinks topped up, via Silvana or the staff.

One of the players caught Sofia’s attention as she had never seen him before even though she was sure that she knew all of her father’s poker friends. Even if he was an outsider, the chances of someone from the capital being unknown to her were rare and she’d never set eyes on the man before. Tall and rakish, he looked over 50, perhaps as old as 60. His smooth, tanned skin and relaxed, slim body alerted her to the fact that he was extremely comfortable in his own skin. Or a genius at pretending to be so.

Sofia got the perfect chance to speak with him when she was drawn to play at the same table as him. She introduced herself as he joined her at the closest table to the small mobile bar that was staffed by the waitress in the corner of the room.

‘I’m Sofia.’

‘’Ivan’s daughter? I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ said the man, giving her hand a soft but strong shake. ‘I didn’t know Georgi well, but I know Ivan. It’s a shock to us all.’

‘Thank you.’ Sofia said, barely holding it together. Something about the cut-glass English accent of the man both appealed to her but made what he was saying terribly final. She had spent much of her time in Barcelona with an American who lived in London – Sam Houston – but this man was the real deal, and he sounded as English as crumpets and tea.

‘Do you live in Bulgaria?’ Sofia asked.

‘We do. My wife and I moved here after the recession and grew a travel business.’

‘Your wife doesn’t play poker?’

‘Not tonight. I’m Peter. Peter Serf.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ Sofia replied.

She wanted to watch his face for any signs that he might be showing a mistruth. The face could be read a hundred different ways, but something in his eyes caught her like a laser beam would distract a cat. She wasn’t attracted to him. It was something else, but she didn’t understand it. Whatever it was passed across his face like a shadow and was gone.

Ivan Angelov stood up and addressed all the players. There were four tables of eight. Sofia turned in synchronization with Peter Serf to face her Dad.

‘Good evening, everyone.’ Ivan said, swaying a little with the palm of one hand curled around the half full bowl of a brandy glass. ‘My son… Georgi. He died last night and was found by the river. Evidently, he drowned. I would like you all to raise a glass to him. He will be missed so much by us all, but especially by my daughter Sofia. Both Silvana and I are devastated that we will never see his smile again.’

Ivan looked choked. He could barely speak but took a swig of the brandy. Downed it in one swallow and felt the burn hit his throat. He carried on.

‘I want us all to play in his memory tonight. Drinking, without fear, and for fun. Whoever wins tonight will win money for Georgi’s favorite charity, the Children’s hospital in Sofia. I will double the top prize. Last week, it was…’

Silvana chirped up from behind Ivan, her hands tight to her sides.

‘Three thousand Euros.’

‘Acceptable.’ Ivan said, sitting back down with a mumbled ‘Shuffle up and deal.’

Sofia looked around the room, almost dizzy with the sick feeling that Georgi should have been there. More than ever, she was convinced that someone else in the room was the reason he was not.

She was right.

Next »

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.

---

Edited by Maury Orton and Shawn A.