Chapter 4
To put the Treaty on a poker table was madness. It was betting an empire on the turn of a card.
Dante was already there, shedding his suit jacket and tossing it carelessly over the back of an armchair. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his crisp white shirt, rolling the sleeves up over his forearms with casual, predatory precision.
The pale light caught the raised, jagged line of a bullet graze along his right wrist—a scar I had watched a street medic stitch without anesthesia six years ago in an abandoned warehouse on 22nd Street, back when he had pulled me from a burning car after an Irish ambush.
I had cried that night, pressing my face into his bloodstained collar. He had stroked my hair with those same fingers, promising me that as long as he had breath in his lungs, no one would ever touch a hair on my head.
*Lies,* I reminded myself savagely, banishing the memory before it could soften the ice in my chest. *He survived. My brother didn't. He became the Underboss, and my father became a cripple.*
"Sit down, Elena," Dante said softly.
He didn't look up as he poured himself another finger of amber scotch from a crystal decanter on the sideboard. He poured a second glass, pushing it toward the empty seat across from him.
"I don't drink when I'm working," I replied, remaining standing.
"You're not working," he murmured, his gaze finally lifting to find mine. His eyes were fathomless pools of obsidian in the dim room, stripping away the armor of my composure until I felt naked under the emerald silk of my dress. "You're fighting for your life. Have a drink. You'll need the nerve."
"My nerve is intact." I took the chair opposite him, sitting with my spine straight, refusing to lean back into the luxurious leather. "State the terms, Dante. Let's finish whatever execution you have planned."
Dante let out a low, dry chuckle that vibrated deep in his chest. "Always so eager for the blade. If I wanted you dead, Elena, you wouldn't have made it down the staircase."
"No," I countered, resting my palms flat against the chilled marble. "You don't want me dead. You want the Rossi territory signed over without federal scrutiny, and you want me on my knees, bound by Commission statute as a captive ward. Isn't that the real play here?"
At the edge of the room, near the brass-plated door, Luca—the ancient consigliere—flinched visibly. His gnarled fingers gripped his rosary so fiercely that his knuckles were stark white. His lips moved in a frantic, soundless whisper of Hail Marys.
Dante ignored him completely. He gestured to the folio on the pedestal.
"That document contains the deed to the entire Chicago riverfront, all sixty-four berths of the South Side deepwater port, and the absolute proxy seat of the Commission," Dante said evenly. "Everything my father built. Everything your father tried to burn down."
"And what are you asking me to put against it?" I asked, my voice steady despite the hammer of my pulse. "My eight million wouldn't buy a tenth of that treaty."
"Your eight million," Dante corrected, leaning forward on his elbows, bringing his face into the warm pool of lamplight between us, "and the remaining five percent of the Rossi shipping charter. Your ancestral seal."
A cold sweat pricked the back of my neck.
My father’s five percent. It was the last thread of legitimacy our family held. Under Illinois maritime law, whoever owned that charter controlled the foreign import manifests. Without it, the Rossi name ceased to exist in the eyes of the port authority.
"Winner takes everything," Dante said, his voice dropping into that hypnotic, lethal cadence that made every nerve in my skin tingle. "The money. The harbor. The sovereign seat. One hand of five-card draw. No limit. No house rake. Just you and me."
"And if I lose?" I pressed, leaning in until the scent of his skin—cedar, gunpowder, and the dark sweetness of clove—filled my head. "What happens to the loser, Dante? Under Section Seven?"
Dante looked at me for a long, agonizing moment. A shadow passed behind his dark eyes—something heavy, suffocating, and terrifyingly gentle.
"The loser loses everything," he said quietly. "Their name. Their titles. Their debt. Everything is stripped away."
"And their freedom," I added, staring him down. "Under the wardship clause."
Dante didn't confirm or deny it. He simply reached out and picked up a fresh, foil-wrapped deck of black Kem cards from the center of the table. He broke the tax seal with the edge of his thumb, the snap of the paper sounding like a dry bone breaking in the quiet room.
"Marco," Dante called out without turning his head. "Deal."
Marco stepped forward, but his boots dragged across the slate floor as if he were walking up the steps of a scaffold. The mountain of an enforcer, a man who had ripped a rival lieutenant’s tongue out with pliers three months ago, looked like a condemned man being forced to shovel his own grave.
As Marco took the deck from Dante’s hands, I saw his broad, scarred fingers trembling.
*What is wrong with them?*
I glanced past Marco to the four senior capos stationed against the far wall. These were Dante’s most loyal killers—men who had backed his bloody coup against his uncle two winters ago. They didn't have their weapons drawn. They stood with their heads bowed, their eyes fixed on the black marble floor, looking like mourners at a state funeral.
Not one of them looked at Dante with pride. They looked at him with an unbearable, suffocating dread.
*They think he’s gone mad,* I reasoned, trying to fit the pieces together. *Dante is gambling the entire Moretti empire on a single card game against the daughter of his bitterest enemy. He’s risking everything on a sadistic whim just to prove he can dominate me. They’re terrified he’s going to lose their kingdom.*
It was the only explanation that fit the mob mindset. Mafia soldiers only feared two things: the federal penitentiary, and an Underboss who had lost his mind to obsession.
Marco cracked the seal, took the cut card, and began to shuffle. His technique was flawless—the rhythmic, mechanical riffle of a man trained in the backrooms of Atlantic City—yet the beads of sweat gathering along his hairline gave away the sheer terror churning behind his eyes.
"Five cards each," Dante said, tossing an eight-million-dollar marker into the center of the marble. "Your chips match the bet, Elena. Push them in."
I looked at the mountain of mother-of-pearl chips that represented my family’s redemption. If I pushed them in, there was no going back. If I lost this hand, I wasn't just broke; I would be an indentured prisoner under Commission jurisdiction, legally at the mercy of the man across the table.
"Afraid, *piccola*?" Dante asked softly, a faint, mocking curve touching the corner of his lips.
That word again.
Something feral snapped inside me. The Rossi pride—the same stubborn, venomous blood that had kept me alive while the men of our family died in alleyways—roared to the surface.
I placed my hands on the chip trays and shoved the entire eight million into the center, sending them crashing against Dante’s plaque with a sound like shattering porcelain.
