Chapter 2 The Table

Valentina

They told me not to show my hand until the world asked for it.

So I show up instead.

The invitation is small—black card, gold script, no return address. It says what it needs to: An invitation to a private evening. Thursday. Eight p.m. No time for questions. No room for mistakes.

Perfect.

I wear the armor I plan to die in: a black dress that looks modest from a distance and dangerous up close. Sleeveless, a narrow neckline, hem that lets my legs do a little of the talking. Heels that click like the metered breaths I keep for tense scenes. My hair hangs in waves, practiced but loose enough to be forgiven. Makeup—sharp. Smile—optional.

The hotel concierge delivers a limo an hour before the game. The driver knows the route, the gate code, the men who will watch the door with expressions like trademarked brutality. I don’t need to know the names of his men. I only need to know where they sit in relation to him. A pattern. A rhythm. I study rhythm the way surgeons study pulse.

The car winds through a part of the city that smells like opulence and neglect. A row of black cars waits along a private lane behind a club with no sign. Two men in wool coats check my name, then their faces, then the card clutched in my hand, and they nod. They let me pass like I’m a quiet rumor.

Inside, the room is heavy with smoke and money. Crystal chandeliers drip light onto a table polished to a mirror. Men circle it like predators around a fresh kill. The air tastes like whiskey and old deals. There are women too—mostly ornaments. I count them like a spy counting windows. Two by the bar, three near the back. None of them look like threats. Most are trophies. Some are wolves in impractical heels.

And then, the table.

Matteo doesn’t sit at the head; he sits where the head needs to be noticed. He’s older than the photos—at 35 he’s the same age as my brother would have been, ten year older than me. And extremely handsome in person with a jaw that could carve statues. But his eyes are the problem: small, black, precise. They find things and keep them. They are used to taking inventory and calling the rest property. He sits with the casual arrogance of a man who’s never had to beg.

He laughs at something a man two seats away says. It’s the kind of laugh that says you’re safe if you bring him money and dangerous if you bring him heart.

I let the room take me in—smiles here, a soft nod there. It’s all an index I can read. They see the dress, the foreign jewelry, the ring finger bare. They get the story I am selling: an imported heiress with a curious appetite for danger. I am deliciously not a threat.

“Miss Rossi.” A man at the doorway—someone I’d been told would be at the game—makes the introduction smooth, as if he’s reading from a script. A name flutters across the table. Heads tilt. Matteo looks up. For a second, a cord of interest tugs through his gaze like a fishing line. He watches me as if assessing whether I’m bait or dinner.

Good. Let him wonder.

I sit two chairs down from the man everyone knows as his right hand. It’s a deliberate position—close enough to hear conversations, remove chips without suspicion, and close enough for hands to brush in passing. The rules here are unwritten but well understood: you make noise with your money, not with your mouth.

The dealer pushes a stack of chips toward me. I take them with fingers steady enough to thread through steel. Adrenaline tastes like metal on my tongue. My game starts before cards are dealt. I watch Matteo watch me. He’s appreciative of beautiful things. He likes to collect them and store them under his thumb.

Round after round, I play the part of the inexperienced gambler—just enough confidence to be interesting, enough risk to be watched. I fold sometimes. I push in a reckless bet once, raising eyebrows. Men try to bait me with bluster and silence, with alcohol and compliments and offers to “show me a better hand.”

I take everything. I lose some. I win a few small hands to keep the illusion honest. I laugh when they expect me to laugh. I cough where they expect vulnerability. I let one man make the mistake of thinking I am dizzy with the glamour of the room; I let him underestimate the knife hidden under my heel.

My plan is terrible, beautiful, simple: be herself at the table with the one caveat—lose the big hand on purpose when the moment is correct. A loss that means I can be noticed up close. A mistake that will let me stand in his orbit without the alarms that come with blatant intrusion. The path to Matteo is a mirror maze; I must let him see his reflection and not guess the hand holding the glass.

Midway through the evening, the stakes rise. Bottles are uncorked. Jobs and favors are whispered like confessions. Men bring up names—business, betrayals, old debts. Matteo’s laughter cracks once, quick and thin. He’s leaned back now, a marble statue with a cigarette. I watch him like a student watches the teacher’s hand.

And then he speaks my name.

“Rossi,” he says, slow enough that the syllables land like stones. “You’re new.” His voice is closer—curious, not hostile. “Tell me—where do you come from?”

A dozen little combustions happen around the table. Men listen. The room air changes, the heat of interest pooling in a slow burn.

I lean forward a degree, enough to catch the threads of his breath. The smile I give is the wrong kind for a woman at a table like this—it’s polite, courteous, with the right amount of teeth. I let him fill the silence with his ego.

“Europe,” I say. “Import business. I trade in linens and rare spirits.” I conjure a version of my life with the meticulousness of someone who’s practiced misdirection since childhood.

He studies me as if measuring how a knife will feel in his hand. “And what makes a pretty thing like you trade in that…work?” He taps a finger against a glass, the motion a casual sort of theft.

“Curiosity,” I say softly. “And opportunity.”

He snorts, amused. “Opportunity is a forgiving word for some. For others, it’s the end of something.”

“Depends on who controls it,” I answer.

He fixes me with that small black look that’s never satisfied. “And you. Who controls you, Miss Rossi?”

The table goes quiet, like the moment before a storm. Men lean in—this is the kind of personal that makes fortunes.

I let my fingers brush my chips in a way that looks indulgent and careless. Then I do what I’ve come to do: I fold a hand that could have won a small fortune. I stack my cards, push them away, and let the man to my left expose his. He wins. The table applauds—predatory, delighted.

Matteo’s eyes narrow. He notices the loss the way a hunter notices a rabbit that runs in circles and then sits back down, not out of fear, but because it wants to be watched. He doesn’t know why I folded. He only knows I did.

“Interesting,” he says, but it is not an insult. It is a mapping.

As the dealer calls for a brief intermission, Matteo gestures with his cigarette. “Miss Rossi,” he says again, an invitation wrapped as curiosity. “Join me for a drink.”

I accept. I rise.

As I pass him, our shoulders brush. The contact is a spark. It’s small. It’s meaningful. He smells faintly of cologne and blood and the arrogance of power. My heart does not jump. It notes.

We move to a shadowed corner, whiskey in hand. He studies me like a man considering a rumor.

“You belong to anyone?” he asks, direct and businesslike.