Chapter 8
"Because if you didn't hate me, you wouldn't have fought me," Dante said softly, leaning forward.
The heat of his presence filled the empty space between us, intense, desperate, and suffocating.
"If you knew the truth, you would have done exactly what you're doing right now," he whispered. "You would have tried to play the martyr. You would have tried to be Bernardo Rossi's brave little soldier and take the fall. I couldn't let you do that. You were meant to live, Elena. You were meant to take that eight million, get on a private Gulfstream waiting at Midway, and wake up in Palermo with the sun on your face and no mobsters knocking on your door."
He reached out. His fingers hovered for a fraction of a second before touching the side of my face.
His skin was rough, calloused from triggers and knife grips, but his touch against my cheek was so gentle it made my knees ache with longing. His thumb wiped away the salt of my tear with agonizing slowness.
"Let me carry this, *piccola*," he whispered, his thumb resting against the corner of my lips. "Chicago was always a graveyard anyway. I was born in the dirt; I belong in the dirt. But you... you never belonged in this dark."
Every fiber of my being rebelled.
The Rossi blood in my veins—the stubborn, venomous fire that had kept my ancestors alive through centuries of Sicilian blood feuds—ignited into an inferno.
He thought he could orchestrate his own execution and hand me a coward’s ticket to safety. He thought he could break my heart five years ago, save my life in the shadows, and then leave me alone in the world with eight million dollars of blood money and the ghost of his sacrifice hanging over my head like a noose.
"No," I said.
I pulled my face away from his hand.
Dante’s brow furrowed, a flicker of irritation cutting through his exhaustion. "Elena, don't be a fool. The tribunal will be here in twelve minutes. Show the cards."
"I know what you're holding, Dante," I said coldly, pointing my chin at his hand. "You're holding kings and queens. Two pair."
Dante froze.
"I saw the reflection in the brass bezel," I continued, my voice steadying, hardening into steel. "You took one card blind, hoping you'd catch garbage so you wouldn't accidentally draw a monster. But you already held kings high. You thought two pair was enough to beat whatever scrap I had, but weak enough to look like an honest defeat if I hit a miracle."
Dante’s jaw tightened. "It doesn't matter what I have. What do you have?"
I didn't answer.
Instead, I looked down at my three sevens.
If I turned over three sevens right now, three sevens beat two pair.
If I showed them, I would win the Black Sovereign Treaty. I would inherit the four-billion-dollar debt. I would sit in the victor's chair when the tribunal broke through the blast doors, and Dante would be forced into omertà exile by syndicate decree.
I would die. And Dante would live.
*That was my play.*
For a fraction of a second, the sacrificial instinct roared in my chest. I could flip the cards right now. I could take the execution, repay him for saving my father, repay him for keeping me alive, and end this five-year nightmare with a single flick of my wrist.
*Show the three sevens. Take the crown. Let him live.*
My hand moved toward the three cards.
"Don't do it, Elena," Dante growled, reading the intent in my eyes with terrifying speed.
His chair scraped harshly against the slate as he surged forward, his towering frame casting a massive, suffocating shadow over the table. The warmth vanished from his eyes, replaced by the lethal, commanding terror of an Underboss.
"If you have a hand that beats me, you muck it," Dante snarled, his voice dropping into a harsh, ragged command. "You throw it in the discard. You let me take the pot."
"You want me to fold?" I challenged, meeting his furious gaze without flinching. "Under Section Seven, an intentional fold in the Sovereign Suite without showing down is an automatic forfeiture of bloodline! If I fold, the Commission executes both of us on the spot for disrespecting the Treaty!"
"Then play a lower hand!" he roared, slamming his open palm against the black marble. The crystal decanter rattled against the sideboard. "Play whatever garbage you have and let my kings take it!"
"Why?" I screamed back, standing up so abruptly my chair skidded backward. "So you can play the tragic hero? So you can get shot in the back of the head while I sip espresso in Sicily, knowing the man I loved died because I was too weak to stop him?"
The word hung in the cold air, echoing off the limestone walls like a gunshot.
*Loved.*
Not past tense. Present. Living, bleeding, and raw.
Dante stopped. His chest rose and fell in heavy, ragged pants. The dark fire in his eyes flickered, stunned, defenseless for the first time in his life.
Marco and Luca looked away, stepping back into the shadows of the alcove, giving their Don the last shreds of privacy he would ever have.
"Elena..." Dante whispered, his voice cracking slightly.
"You don't get to die for me, Dante Moretti," I said, my voice dropping into a fierce, unwavering whisper. "I spent five years wishing you dead, and now that I know you bled for every breath I took, you think I'm going to let some faceless commissioners put a bullet in your head? Not a chance in hell."
I reached for my three sevens.
I was going to flip them. Three sevens beat two pair. The treaty would be mine. The death would be mine.
Dante saw my fingers descend.
He didn't try to grab my wrist. He knew the syndicate rules: physical interference at the Sovereign Table resulted in instant disqualification and summary execution of the aggressor.
Instead, Dante looked down at his own hand.
And then, with chilling, horrifying clarity, I saw the truth.
Dante hadn't just drawn one card blind.
When Marco had dealt him that fifth card, Dante had looked at the brass reflection behind him—the same reflection I had used.
He knew exactly what was in his hand.
With deliberate, agonizing slowness, Dante picked up his fifth card—the card he had claimed was a queen—and slid it back into his fan, exposing the true indices of his hand for a single, fleeting second beneath the lamplight.
It wasn't two pair.
King of diamonds. King of hearts. King of spades. King of clubs.
Four kings.
Four of a kind.
A gasp tore out of my throat, freezing the blood in my veins.
He didn't have two pair. He had four kings. An invincible, astronomical monster of a hand. A hand that would obliterate my three sevens without even breaking a sweat.
He had held four kings all along.
He had intentionally angled his cards in the brass mirror to make me *think* he had two pair, so I would feel confident enough to bet my ancestral ring and stay in the hand!
