My heart does a full-body slam into my ribs.
“Shit,” Carter mutters.
“That’s Kenzo Robernero, underboss of the Societa Oscura mafia.” He steps back with the kind of fear I’ve never seen before. Why is he scared of him? “You stay the hell away from him. You hear me?”
I don’t answer because I’m wondering who the fuck he’s talking to like that for one and for two, I’m surprised by his nervous act. My throat is dry, not because I’m afraid. Actually, I’m… processing.
Carter takes a half-step back, his face the color of printer paper.
“This is bad,” he whispers, mostly to himself. “This is really, really bad—”
Why? Why is Kenzo such a problem?
I roll my eyes.
Kenzo hasn’t moved… or blinked. He stands there like a marble statue surrounded by wolves, wearing silence as a crown.
It’s one of his men who moves first.
Younger. Late twenties. Blond hair, messy and bloodstained with product and poor choices. A bruise puffs his left eye half-shut, and he wears it proudly, walking like he owns the sidewalk and pays in teeth.
The crowd parts for him, no questions asked and he stops in front of me, hands hanging loose at his sides.
“You Rebecca Ferez?” he asks, with a raised brow.
I tilt my head. “Depends. You selling something, or just here to show off that shiner?”
His mouth quirks, half-amused. “Yeah, that’s you.”
He jerks a thumb behind him.
“Boss says you owe him a conversation.”
I arch a brow. “Tell your boss I charge extra for mysterious summons and emotional trauma.”
Carter moves, shoulders rigid, stepping between us.
“Back off. She doesn’t owe him anything. She’s a lawyer. Assignment case. That’s it.”
The man’s smile barely twitches. He looks Carter over like he’s mentally filing him under non-threat.
Then, with a nod toward Kenzo, he says softly,
“You wanna explain that to him?”
I glance past the bruiser. Kenzo hasn’t moved.
He’s still watching.
And then—he smiles.
It isn’t a smile that belongs on a human face. It’s slow and surgical. I already know how this ends.
He turns his back and dismisses me.
I don’t even get to be a warning. I’m furniture.
Something about that hits harder than a slap. My spine stiffens, my sarcasm short-circuits and for the first time in years, I have nothing to say.
The bruised guy leans in.
“You’re on the clock now, sweetheart. Tick. Tick.”
Then he walks away—no flair or drama.
Just gone.
But the pressure stays. Like someone has looped piano wire around my neck and told me to breathe through it.
Carter turns to me, pale and serious.
“You need to leave tonight.”
I don’t argue or nod.
Something inside me whispers calm and cold: Too late.
Kenzo Robernero has seen me.
Marked me, and a man like that doesn’t chase.
He waits.
Until the silence is so thick you finally realize:
You were his the second he looked your way.
3 HOURS LATER
I stand outside the entrance of the Red Lounge, fingers dragging the zip of my jacket up and down. It keeps me steady. The money is in my bag, pressing against my ribs. $10,000. A lot of money—but still not enough to erase the numbers hanging over my dad’s head like a death sentence.
$200,000.
Debt like that doesn’t disappear—it grows teeth, waits, and devours.
They came looking for him the other day. No knock. No warning.
He wasn’t at the house, luckily. That’s the only reason he’s still alive. He always hides in hotels or underground shelters, but I get left to clean up his messes.
They kicked the door open and searched the house for him before they asked me the inevitable:
“Where is he?”
I told them the truth. “I don’t know.”
They gave me three days. Three days to pull $100,000 out of thin air.
It’s due tomorrow. Now, I’m here, trying to fix it.
I can already picture the game—the nervous shifts in posture, the tells no one realizes they have, the flickers of doubt I’ve trained myself to catch. This isn’t just poker, it’s survival.
Carter’s words echo in my head. “You listening?” he hissed. “Today. Four o’clock. You meet with Vito. Password’s ‘Orchid.’ Tell him Carter sent you.”
“Vito?” I repeated, my mind barely catching up.
“Vito runs the games,” Carter said fiercely. “He can help you—but he’s dangerous. Everybody’s dangerous now. You show up, win and disappear. Don’t look back.”
I just have to get this right by using confidence to my advantage. It’s the only currency that matters in a place like this.
I step inside the Red Lounge and Vito is already waiting, leaning back in a velvet chair, a cigar burning between his fingers. He’s dressed like old money in a black and gold suit.
This isn’t some dusty dive where people drown regrets in cheap whiskey. This is a place where power is measured in glances and silence.
I don’t belong here.
But I’m acting like I do.
Vito watches me, amusement flickering behind sharp brown eyes. He takes a slow drag from his cigar, then exhales like he has all the time in the world as I carefully walk across the polished marble trying not to slip on my back.
“You sure about this?” He asks when I reach him. His words scrape out, rough as stone, a slow drawl laced with something sharp—amusement, maybe, or the kind of knowing that makes people uneasy.
The tone alone sets the trap. He doesn’t have to say much. Just let the weight of his voice linger, let the sarcasm curl at the edges, watching me step forward like I’ve got solid ground beneath me.
I don’t.
And he enjoys that far too much.
I lift my chin, meeting his gaze. “It’s just poker.” I say it easily, and Vito chuckles, shaking his head as he flicks ash from his cigar. “Kid,” he lets the word stretch. “You say that like it means something.”
There’s a shift in his eyes—subtle at first, but his amusement fades.
Vito watches me like he’s already made up his mind.
“You ever play make-believe as a kid?”
He asks casually, but the way he asks me makes my stomach tighten.
I force a smirk. “You trying to psychoanalyze me?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Nah. Just wondering how long you’ve been practising.”
I tilt my head. “Practising what?”
He exhales slowly, squinting his eyes to stop smoke from drifting inside them.
“That act.”
I stiffen—barely—but he catches it anyway and taps his cigar against the edge of the ashtray, letting the silence settle between us before speaking again.
“My daughter used to do that.” His tone is quieter now, thoughtful in a way that makes me uneasy. “Stand stiff like she wasn’t scared. Kept her chin up even when the walls were closing in.”
I swallow hard and Vito leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, his gaze heavier now.
“You remind me of her,” he says. “Just another kid playing pretend, hoping the right posture keeps the wolves at bay.”
My pulse ticks up, but I force myself to stay steady and not let it show.
“Why do you want in?”
I pull the envelope from my coat and drop it onto the table. It lands heavily against the polished wood.
“Ten grand. I’m not here to play beginner tables.”
Vito doesn’t touch or glance at the money.
His focus stays locked on me.
“You know you’d be the first?”
The first?
I don’t react, shift or let uncertainty show.
But inside, I feel it. The slip of my armour.
Vito leans back, casual and unconcerned, like none of this matters. Grabbing a pen off the table, he rolls it back and forth before he presses it to paper, his strokes marking ink onto a thick contract in front of him.
It’s not a clean, legal contract.
Security details for a premise that needs covering—the kind of protection that doesn’t come with cameras or employee handbooks.
It’s business, handled without conversation or concern.
“First woman to sit at that table.”
His tone is indifferent, as if the statement isn’t meant to mean anything at all.
He exhales, watching the smoke coil into the air. “You think I know how they’ll react?” Another flick of the pen, his signature written with certainty. “I don’t.”
I cross my arms, settling into the posture I know works—the stance that makes men second-guess their assumptions.
“And that worries you?”
Vito chuckles. “I wouldn’t let my daughter walk into that room.”
His eyes sweep over me, weighing something deeper.
“So, tell me why I should let you.”
“Because I’m not your daughter.” The words snap out. My practised defiance.
Something shifts in his eyes. Not respect, but close, reluctant acknowledgement.
The pen pauses mid-signature.
“You lose; you owe. You understand that, right?” He raises an eyebrow.
I nod.
He sighs, finishing off the last stroke of ink before sliding the contract to the edge of the table.
“You walk in, play the game, and keep your mouth shut—”
“I know the rules.” I cut him off, my tone flat.
His jaw tightens.
“No. You know the rumours. This is real.”
He leans in slightly, whispering.
“No rules. No limits. Just the table.”
I don’t flinch.
I never do.
His eyes linger on me, searching for fear, a test. He’s already regretting meeting with me.
“You’re insane.”
I shrug, acting as if it’s nothing.
Vito stands, motioning for me to follow. I grab the envelope and stride beside him through the back door, down the narrow hall to an elevator humming in the guarded silence.
The doors slide open, and Vito doesn’t lead me in—he places his hand on the arch of my back and nudges me forward. It’s not rough; just enough pressure to remind me he thinks he’s in charge here.
I let him think it.
“You’ve got your seat,” he mutters, biting his lip. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”
I smile, sweet as sin. “Wouldn’t dream of it. But thanks for the pep talk, Dad.”
Vito doesn’t move right away. He watches me like I’ve just lit a match in a room full of gas.
“Coat,” he says, extending a hand.
I peel it off slowly, then toss him my bag for good measure. “Hold onto that, will you? I’d hate to get blood on it.”
He sighs like I’m already a disaster in motion, but he presses the button anyway.
I step into the lift with a flick of my hair and a spine made of steel. The doors close between us and his face disappears.
Good.
I turn, facing the mirror-polished steel wall. My reflection stares back, unreadable. Cold. Ready.
The envelope is stiff between my fingers, and my voice is steady when I whisper, “Get in. Win. Get out.”
The elevator dings.
Showtime.
I step forward like I own whatever hell waits beyond that black door.
The moment I push it open, my world changes.
Smoke wraps around me like a vice, thick and deliberate. Not the kind that wafts lazily… it lurks. Clings. Stakes a claim on your lungs.
Jazz hums from a gramophone in the corner, low and warped, like it’s been dragged through a nightmare. The kind of song that plays right before the killing starts in old movies.
Of course it does.
I blink against the haze, stepping further inside and then I see them as the door clicks shut behind me.
The suits.
Sapphire blue.
Not navy. Not royal.
Sapphire.
The kind of colour that’s a choice. A declaration.
And just like that, the air shifts.
They belong to him.
Kenzo.
The grey-eyed man who stared through me this morning like he already knew where I’d end up.
The same men from the courthouse. The ones who sit still while entire empires crumble around them.
Powerful. Silent. Dangerous.
