Chapter 3 The Bet

Valentina

“No.” My answer is clean. Sharp enough to cut the silence between us.

“I belong to my choices.”

He smiles, not unkind. “Choices can be expensive.”

He lifts his glass. The amber light dances along the rim as he drinks, and for a moment, his face is all hard lines and firelight. But behind his eyes, there’s something colder. Calculating. Like a man assessing the odds of war.

The dealer calls everyone back to the table. Matteo glances at me once more before turning away, but not before murmuring, “Let’s see how you play when the stakes matter.”

The room shifts again. The smoke is thicker. The men are looser. But I’m sharper than ever.

I return to my seat and let the mask slip just enough to show interest—polite, playful, just enough to be remembered. The next few rounds I push a little harder. Risk more. I let myself win. A couple big hands. Nothing unbelievable, but enough to catch attention.

She’s getting bolder, they’ll think.

She’s chasing a rush.

She doesn’t know she’s being watched.

But I do. Matteo is watching everything. And I know I’m close now. Close to the hand that changes everything.

The cards come and go. Money shifts. Laughter spikes and dies like lightning behind the clouds. Then—

It happens.

A hand I didn’t see coming. It arrives like a whisper.

Two aces in the pocket. The flop gives me another. The turn—another.

Four. Aces.

I freeze, just for a breath.

This is it. This is the in.

I don’t know what’s coming—I never could—but something in my gut tells me this is the moment. The one I built my whole night around. Not a scripted plan. Not a rehearsed move. Just instinct. Fire-lit, gut-deep instinct.

The bets start low, and I bait the hook. A confident raise.

Matteo matches it. Then raises again.

I meet his eyes across the table, and the corner of his mouth ticks upward.

The other players fold, one by one, dropping off like ants from a blade. Eventually, it’s just me and him. Of course it is.

I match again. He raises. I match. He raises.

We climb the ladder until I’m almost out. My stack thins. My fingers tap once against the chips, then still.

I don’t have enough to match his last raise. Not unless I fold and walk away.

Matteo leans forward, elbows on the table. His hands steeple like a prayer made of knives.

“You’re short,” he says.

“I can see that,” I reply.

He tilts his head slightly. “But not finished. Not unless you want to be.”

The table is quiet. The room is watching now. The women, the guards, the staff—all of them pretend not to care, but they’re all listening. They know what it means when Matteo Genovese smiles like this.

He flicks his chip stack toward the pot. “Let’s make this interesting.”

I narrow my eyes. “How?”

He shrugs—elegant, amused. “You can finish the hand without folding. But you’ll have to bet something more valuable than chips.”

My voice stays calm. “Like what?”

He doesn’t blink. “Your life.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

“If you lose,” he says, casual as gravity, “you belong to me. Fully. Irrevocably.”

My breath catches in my throat. “Define ‘belong.’”

“Marry you,” he says, voice velvet-smooth. “Fuck you. Dress you up. Chain you down. Mount you on a pedestal. Keep you. Use you. Protect you. All of the above.”

I stare at him. The room tilts sideways for half a heartbeat.

He’s not joking.

“And if I win?” I ask.

He smiles like a man offering a poisoned fruit. “You walk away with everything on the table. A very generous fortune. Enough to keep you in silk and champagne for a decade.”

It’s insane. It’s theatrical. It’s criminal.

And it’s exactly what I need.

I glance at my cards again. Four aces.

There are only two hands in the world that could beat this. The odds are microscopic. Nearly impossible.

Which is exactly what makes it believable.

My eyes meet his. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly,” he says.

The room has gone silent now. I know what this is. A power play. A test. A temptation.

But also a trap.

And yet—this is the moment I asked for.

A chance to get inside his world without having to force the door open.

“I agree,” I say.

The words are quiet.

Final.

He leans back, slow and satisfied. “Good girl.”

The dealer gives a slight nod. With a practiced hand, he lays down the river.

Matteo doesn’t blink. He slides his cards forward face-up.

A straight flush.

Ace high.

The room doesn’t gasp. Not aloud. But the shock is there—thick, electric.

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

Four aces.

And he still beat me.

The weight of what I’ve just wagered lands like a bullet in my chest.

My blood doesn’t move. My thoughts go white.

I feel the loss.

Feel it like an avalanche, slow and devastating.

Then something else. A quiet, steady whisper in the back of my mind. A voice that’s saved me more times than I can count.

Adapt.

I straighten my spine. Blink once. Breathe.

Matteo studies me with the interest of a man who just acquired something rare.

“Well played,” he says. “Almost.”

I give him a faint smile. “You must be lucky.”

He grins. “I don’t believe in luck. Only outcomes.”

And I realize—this wasn’t luck at all.

This was precision. Timing. Intention.

He didn’t just beat me.

He planned to win.

I’ve walked into his web. Voluntarily.

But what he doesn’t know—what he’ll never suspect—is that I already know how to crawl through the wires.

I already know how to spin them back.