Ochoa Borrero Manuel, A Dangerous Addiction

A DANGEROUS ADDICTION

Written By Manuel Ochoa Borrero

It was a normal Thursday in Los Angeles. Damien woke up at 9:00 am and got ready for his class of budget analysis. He studies business at UCLA, but Damien is not smart at all. He is the typical white rich boy from Beverly Hills, that the only thing that he does is waste his parent’s money. He is about 6-foot-tall, blue round eyes, circular face, black hair and he is in very good shape since he is a gym addict. A lot of people say that he looks like a young Bradley Cooper.

Damien Specter is from a very rich family, his father is the owner of the most famous nightclub in the whole West Coast, The Night Beats VIP Club. His mother is one of the most important lawyers of the biggest lawyer’s firm in L.A. His parents are divorced and Damien lives with his father, he doesn’t talk to his mother anymore because she has another family and he hates them.

Damien was organizing his 21 st birthday party, which was scheduled the next day and it would take place in his father’s nightclub, but his father had no idea of this event. Earlier that day his father traveled to Las Vegas to go to a meeting and he would be there for two days, so it would be the perfect time to do his party.

The other day, Damien sent a lot of invitations to his birthday party at The Night Beats. The rumor of this big party spread out very fast. Damien’s father found out about this and he got very mad, but he didn’t say anything to Damien, he planned to go back to L.A to give Damien a lesson. Later that night, Damien’s father went back to L.A after canceling his meeting. The first thing he did was to go to his nightclub before the party started. As soon as he arrived, he talked to all his team of the nightclub.

“Alright people, I know that today is Friday, but we are going to close the club for the night”, he said.

“But why boss?”, complained his main bodyguard.

“Listen, my son organized his birthday party for today in this club without asking me”, he explained. “So, I am going to close the club for today to give him a lesson, go home, you all have the night off”.

About two hours later, Damien arrived at the club with some of his friends. They noticed that the club lights were off and no one was outside, they went to the back door because Damien had the key to go in, but as soon as they opened the door, Damien’s father was inside and he shouted, “Everybody gets out, except you Damien”.

After all the young adults went out, Damien and his father sat down in the main office.

“What the hell was all that?”, Damien said.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you explain to me what were you doing with your friends at my club?”, his father said.

“That is not of your business dad”, Damien mumbled.

“What did you say to me, Young boy? Remember that I’m the one in charge of you”, his father shouted.

“You didn’t have to talk like that to my friends”, Damien said.

“Do you think that this is a joke? Why did you organize your birthday party at my club without asking me?”, his father asked. “You know that if you told me this about a week ago, we could have gotten a good deal”.

“I didn’t want to have a deal with you. You always want to make everything a deal, you never do me a favor”, Damien replied.

“Okay, that’s it. You are drunk and I’m tired of your insolence young boy! I’m going to take you home and we will finish this conversation later, but for now, you are grounded until the next spring break”, his father said firmly.

A week later, Damien’s father was outside the city again and Damien escaped out of his house. His friend, Harry,

picked him up in his car and they decided to do something different that night. They always wanted to go to a casino and since they were already twenty-one years old, Harry told Damien that they should go to the Hollywood Park Casino located in Inglewood, and Damien agreed. It was a long night and Damien won about $75.000 by playing poker. Harry wasn’t lucky like Damien, he lost $10.000. The next day Damien convinced Harry to go back to the casino since he won a lot of money last night, but Harry didn’t want to gamble. Damien started to go frequently to the casino and he became good at playing poker. After some weeks, Damien began to go to gambling instead of going to his university classes and the gym, but Harry wasn’t going with him to the casino anymore.

After some months, Damien earned a lot of money in the casino, he escaped every night from his house to go gambling in some different casinos in L.A like the Hollywood Park Casino, the Dealer Dolls and the Lucky Lady Casino and went back home the next morning. One day his father received a phone call from Harry.

Harry told him everything that Damien was doing every day and that he was very worried about his friend. As soon as he hung up the phone, he went to Damien’s room to confront him, but when he arrived Damien wasn’t there, he tried to call him but Damien didn’t answer his phone. When Damien got back home his father talked to him and they had a big discussion and it ended up with Damien leaving the house. The next day, Damien used the money that he earned in the past months in the casinos to buy himself an apartment near Venice Beach. He spent almost all his money buying the apartment.

After some time living by himself, Damien decided to go to a clandestine poker club, that is close to his new apartment.

He found out about this poker club by a man that he met some weeks ago in the Lucky Lady Casino called Vladimir.

He got $100.000 and in this club, the minimum bet is fifty thousand dollars. After a couple of minutes, Damien lost his money and he went to talk to Vladimir that was in, sitting with some other people in one corner of the club, he was surprised when he saw all the money that those people had on top of the table. Vladimir saw Damien and he stood up and went to talk to him.

“Damien! I’m very glad to see you here”, Vladimir said.

“Hey Vladimir, this is a nice place, but I don’t think that is better than a casino”, Damien said.

“What are you saying? This is where real men gamble, Vladimir said.

“Well, I’m sure this is not like the casinos, this is a higher league. I’ve already lost everything and I have been here only twenty minutes”, Damien replied.

“Everything? Already? Don’t worry, I can borrow you some money and you can pay me later”, Vladimir exclaimed.

“Really? Thank you, Vladimir. I promise that I’m going to pay you as soon as I get my money back”, Damien said.

A few hours later, Damien lost all the money, he borrowed from Vladimir and he didn’t know what to do. He asked Vladimir if he could borrow him some more money and Vladimir accepted but he told Damien that he needed the money before the night ends. Damien lost again and decided to tell Vladimir that he needed some time to get the money back, which Vladimir agreed but he told Damien that he had two days to pay him back and if Damien does not pay him, he would send some people to kill him. Damien went out of the club very afraid and confused.

The next morning, Damien found out that the clandestine

poker club belonged to the Russian Mafia that ruled a big part of the city and that he was in big trouble. He thought that he could go ask his father to borrow the money to pay what he owes, while he sold his apartment, but it was a lot of money, he lost two million dollars that night.

Damien went to the Night Beats VIP club hoping to find his father there. He was very nervous, the last time that he saw his father was the day that he left the house, he didn’t know what to say to his father, but he was desperate. When he arrived at the club the guard didn’t let him go in and he told Damien that it was a strict order but Damien complained that he needed to talk to his father urgently. The guard called his boss and he told him to let Damien in but only for five minutes.

Damien went in feeling very afraid of what his father would say. He knocked on the door of his father’s office and after he heard; “come in”, he opened the door. His hands were sweating and he felt very frightened, his father was the only one who could help him get out of this situation.

“So, look who’s back, I have got to be honest with you, you took long enough, I thought you would come back the next day that you left. What do you want?”, his father said.

“Hey, Dad, I’m sorry that I left that day but now it is not the time to talk about that, I need your help”, Damien replied.

“You need my help? Why? I thought you were independent and that you were gaining money by gambling”, his father said.

“Dad, I spent almost all my money in an apartment that I bought, but later I went to a clandestine poker club I borrowed a lot of money from some dangerous people and lost it all. Now, I have one day to pay everything that I owe, or instead, they will kill me, I promise to pay everything as soon I sell my apartment”, Damien said while he had a lot of voice cracks.

“Oh god, what I’m going to do with you? How much do you owe?”, his father asked.

“Two million dollars”, Damien Replied

“Alright, I’m going to help you son, but after this, you are going to come back home”, his father said.

“Thank you so much dad”, Damien said.

That night, Damien went to the clandestine poker club to pay Vladimir, but when he arrived some men told him that Vladimir wasn’t there and that he had to go to a certain address that they gave him. He had to go to Compton. When he arrived at the address it was an abandoned factory that looked very scary, the guards, who were outside, took him to Vladimir, and he found himself in a big room with a lot of black trash bags.

“Do you have my money?”, Vladimir said.

“Here it is. You can count it if you want”, Damien replied and he threw the bag with the money near Vladimir. “Can I go now?”, Damien asked.

“No”, Vladimir shouted.

“I lent you that money because I thought that you would win a lot and give me a commission, but you lost it all and I needed to use that money to pay for my boss. I got into a lot of trouble and I’m going to take you to see my boss and then I will kill you”, Vladimir said, while he took his gun out.

Vladimir took Damien to a room inside the factory that had a chair and some torture equipment. He told Damien to sit down that he was going to call his boss. Damien was very scared, he thought that by giving the money the trouble was going to be over. His life was passing through his mind, he started crying remembering all the good moments that he spent with his father while the time passed.

After one hour Damien heard some voices approaching the room. He thought he was getting crazy because one of the

voices sounded exactly like his father’s. The door opened and a lot of Russian men entered the room but the last one to enter was wearing a very expensive suit, he was smoking a cigar and had big glasses. He looked very familiar to Damien, that guy that looked very important in the Russian mafia was Damien’s father. “Dad?”, Damien mumbled.

“Damien?”, his father said. “Vladimir, this is the one that you lent the money?”.

“Yes boss, but he already paid it back, we can kill him now and no leave any traces”, Vladimir said.

“Vladimir, this is my son”, Damien’s father said.

“What? I’m sorry boss, I didn’t know that you had a son”, Vladimir said.

“Everybody, get out, I need to talk to my son”, Damien’s father said.

After this, all the bodyguards went out of the room.

“Son, I got a lot of things to explain, but you are very lucky to be alive. I didn’t know that the one that lent you money was Vladimir”, Damien’s father said.

“Dad, I’m very happy to see you. I thought my life was over, can you tell me why are you the leader of the Russian mafia?”, Damien said.

“It’s a long story son, that I would tell you later, but for now I can tell you that this is the reason why your mother left me and it’s also the reasons of the amount of money that I have, the night club is a way to keep the money legal”, his father said.

“Ok dad, let’s get out of here”, Damien said.

The next day, Damien and his father went to have dinner in a restaurant in Hollywood Boulevard. Damien’s father planned this dinner to apologize to his son for living that secret life and for being very strict with him. Also, he apologized for

doing everything he told Damien not to do. He told Damien that he retired from the Russian mafia and Vladimir is the new leader, he sold the night club and he wanted to help Damien to live a normal life. Damien forgave his father and decided to stop gambling and went back to study at UCLA. They both wanted to have a new life and be very united.