A light rain had started outside Spade Casino. Ava opened her umbrella and held her temper for three seconds before snapping, "What is wrong with those people? Who told them you'd always turn back?"

I watched the neon ripple in the puddles. "I did. Every time I went back."

Ava fell silent and tilted the umbrella farther over my shoulder.

Back at the hotel, after a shower, I picked up my phone out of habit and saw Vivian's latest post sitting at the top of my feed.

Nine photos.

In the first, she sat on Spade Casino's rooftop terrace while Luca stood behind her, blocking the wind. In the second, she held a cue, and Luca leaned over to adjust her angle. In the third, the casino manager delivered a custom chip marked with a V while someone joked that she looked like the real lady of Spade. The rest showed Luca watching an old movie with her, playing arcade basketball, and drinking mocktails at the bar.

I had wanted to do those ordinary things with him. Luca always said arcade games were noisy, movies were childish, bars were crowded, and none of it meant anything. I thought he disliked lively places. It turned out he only disliked them with me.

The comments were full of teasing.

[You two look like family.]

[The way Luca looks at Vivian? So spoiled.]

[Some people should really learn their place.]

I stared at the photos for a long moment, then laughed and liked the post.

Less than a minute later, Luca called. I didn't answer. His messages came one after another.

[What is that supposed to mean?]

[Eliana, how long are you going to keep this up?]

[Vivian posted a few photos. You liked them on purpose to embarrass everyone?]

Once, I would have explained. I would have asked why he always noticed Vivian's embarrassment but never my pain. Now I only set the phone face down.

A while later, Luca sent another message.

[Your father's cue case is still in my private room at Spade. If you really want to end this, come take it yourself.]

That cue was one of the few things my father had left me.

Fine. I would go once.

No one stopped me at the rooftop lounge. The door was open a crack, low laughter slipping through it. My father's old leather cue case lay on the coffee table, right where everyone could see it. I pushed the door in.

"Surprise!"

Confetti rained from the ceiling. There was no serious conversation waiting for me, only Luca on the sofa with a glass of water, completely sober, while Vivian leaned beside him with a sweet little smile.

Nico pointed his phone camera at me. "See? Told you she'd come. Mention one sentimental toy, and she runs."

Someone shoved a cardboard sign toward me.

[Stop sulking. Come home.]

Vivian clapped lightly. "Don't be mad, Eliana. We just wanted to prove a point."

I stood in the doorway and felt the last warmth in me go cold. "What point?"

"That you can say you're leaving all you want, but if Luca gives you one reason to come back, you will." Nico grinned. "I lost the Warehouse Three bet, but I won this one."

I looked at Luca. He wasn't laughing, but he hadn't stopped them either. He set down his glass and frowned as if I were the one making the room uncomfortable.

"Eliana, don't make this ugly. Nico doesn't know where the line is, but since you're here, sit down."

Even then, he thought the only problem was that Nico had gone too far. Even then, he believed offering me a seat could erase the humiliation.

I walked to the table and reached for my father's cue case. Before my fingers touched the latch, something pale and smooth slid from beneath the leather strap and dropped across my wrist.

For a second, my body forgot how to breathe. The small white snake coiled against my hand, cool and alive, and the room blurred into the old memory of a locked storage room, boys laughing outside the door, something moving in the dark near my ankle.

I jerked back so hard I hit the cabinet behind me. My shoulder cracked against the edge, and my breath came in short, ugly bursts.

Vivian rushed over and scooped up the snake as if it were a ribbon that had fallen from her hair. "Oh my God, Snow slipped out. Eliana, relax. She's a corn snake. She doesn't bite."

Nico laughed under his breath. "She looks like she saw a ghost."

Luca stood, but instead of coming to me, he looked at Vivian first. "Did you know she was scared of snakes?"

Vivian hugged the snake to her chest, eyes wide and innocent. "No. You know Snow is harmless. I wouldn't have brought her if I knew Eliana was this afraid."

Luca turned to me with a helpless frown. "Eliana, it's not venomous. Vivian didn't mean it. You're shaking over a pet."

Something in me went very still. He had seen my face go white and my hands tremble, but the first person he protected was still Vivian.

I picked up the cue case with fingers that barely obeyed me and placed the lake house key on the cabinet by the door. "Here's your key."

Luca's expression shifted. "Do you have to do this?"

"I don't have to do anything anymore. I'm done."

The room slowly quieted. Vivian lowered her voice until she almost sounded sincere. "Eliana, I admit I can be sharp, but Luca and I grew up together. If a harmless snake and a few photos are enough to break you, how are you supposed to survive as part of the Moretti family?"

I looked at her. "Why would I want to survive as part of the Moretti family?"

Vivian froze. I didn't wait for her answer. I turned and left.

"She looks really mad this time."

"She's acting. Isn't she always?"

"Luca, let her cool off for two days."

I had only gone down one flight when the door on the upper landing opened. The stairwell was dim, washed in the cold green glow of the exit sign, and I stopped in the shadows with my father's cue case pressed against my chest. Vivian's voice floated down first.

"Are you really not going after her?"

Luca answered after a beat. "Let her calm down."

"You're that sure she'll come back?"

"She will," he said. "She has no family in Chicago and no one else to rely on. She's just sick of your games right now."

My fingers tightened around the cue case handle.

Vivian was quiet for a second, then laughed. "Then what if she finds out about ten years ago?"

Luca's voice sharpened. "Vivian."

"What? It's been forever." She sounded amused. "What if she finds out you only chased her because you lost a card game on opening night at Spade? You had to go after the hardest woman in the room, that orphan research fellow with no family and no backing."

The cold in my chest spread until I could barely feel my hands.

"Didn't you say women like Eliana were the easiest to fool? Give her a little warmth and she'll grab it like a lifeline."

"Enough."

For the first time that night, Luca sounded truly angry. "That was ten years ago. No one mentions it again."

"Why not?" Vivian snapped. "You really did fall for her later, didn't you? So what? If the beginning was a joke, that doesn't make everything after fake."

Luca said nothing.

Suddenly, years of small humiliations lined up and clicked into place: why Luca refused to let me meet the real Moretti elders in our first year, why his friends always looked at me with that knowing contempt, why every time I couldn't take their jokes anymore, he only said, "That's just how they are. Don't take it to heart."

In their eyes, I had never been a woman Luca chose seriously. I was a chip on a table, a dare he accepted after losing a hand, and I had mistaken the punchline for love.

Beyond the door, Vivian lowered her voice. "Don't blame me for being blunt. She liked my photos tonight because she wanted you to coax her, right? A woman like that only needs you to turn around and crook your finger. She'll come back."

Luca didn't deny it. He believed I would come back.

I went down the stairs one step at a time. At the front desk, I put a note into an envelope and asked them to give it to Luca later.

[Everything has been returned. Don't contact me again.]

The receptionist recognized me. "Miss Lowe, should I inform Mr. Moretti now?"

"Tomorrow is fine."

I didn't want to see Luca chase me out, and I didn't want to hear him explain that it was all in the past. Outside the casino, I called Caroline.

"Can I go to New York early?"

She paused only a second. "Of course. The research residence isn't ready, so you'll stay near the institute first. Earliest flight is six tomorrow morning. Can you make it?"

I checked my watch. 1:17 a.m. "I can."

On the way back to the hotel, I blocked Luca, then Nico, Dante, Vivian, and everyone else in the Moretti circle. At the end, I saw Luca's first message to me from ten years ago.

[Are you free tomorrow night? I'd like to take you to dinner.]

Back then, I had just finished a field study on North Dock security for the Morettis' legitimate expansion. Because I refused to soften a risk finding, a small-time captain cornered me outside Spade Casino. Luca stepped in, put his coat over my shoulders, and said, "Don't be scared. Not everyone in Chicago is rotten."

I thought that was the beginning of my rescue. It turned out to be a task he accepted after losing a card game.

I deleted the message.

The hotel room was silent. I packed, checked out, and took a cab to the airport. The terminal glass reflected my pale face, but I didn't cry. Maybe when the heart truly dies, tears stop coming.

Before boarding, an unknown number sent me a message.

[Eliana, Luca is looking for you. Where did you go?]

I powered off my phone. As the plane lifted, Chicago's lights fell away beneath me. North Dock, Spade Casino, the lake house--all of them shrank into blurred points of light.

I had finally left the game.