In the underground casino, my ex-fiancé Don Dante Castellano threw the card in my face.

His arm was around Sabrina—his first love—and his eyes were ice as they shoved me toward the table.

"Your father owed mine a life. The thing in your belly isn't mine." He pressed the card flat against my cheek. "The daughter pays the father's debt. Tonight you're the living chip on that table."

The paternity test was fake. The child was his.

I knew. He didn't believe me.

That night, with a gun pointed at my head, I took off all my clothes in front of everyone.

Two years passed.

Two years later, in Vegas, he saw me again.

I was in a red silk dress with a gold chain around my neck, the other end of the chain held by a yellow-toothed gambler.

"This bitch is cheap. Bark for me, and all these chips are yours."

I picked up the chips, practiced. "Woof. Woof."

Sabrina pressed her face into his chest, covering her nose. "Dante. This is disgusting. Let's go."

He didn't go.

The veins rose along his temple. He was staring at the bruises on my knees. Then he kicked the gambler across the room.

He bent down and took hold of my chin. Hard.

"Sienna. Money, and you'll do anything at all?"

He was close enough that I could smell him.

Soap. Two years, and still the same soap.

I closed my eyes, opened them, pulled my mouth into a smile for him. "That's right, boss. Pay up and I'll cooperate with whatever position you want. Care to buy a round?"

I tilted my face up and pulled out the practiced, obliging smile.

He froze where he stood.

His eyes were locked on the bruise across my knee.

I'd earned it the night before, kneeling three hours on crushed gravel for a gambler with particular tastes.

Dante's chest rose and fell, hard.

He bit down on his back teeth and kept staring at the bruise.

Once, years ago, I'd tripped at his front step and scraped the skin off my knee. He'd crouched in front of me, cupped my ankle in his hand, and blown very seriously on the red patch.

I'd looked down and seen the top of his head. He told me if he blew on it, it wouldn't hurt. I don't know whether it worked. What I know is that his palm under my ankle was warm.

I lifted my eyes and found him in the crowd.

Same hands. Resting on Sabrina's shoulder now. Not moving.

Around us, the wolves started laughing.

"She's cheap, Mr. Castellano, but she listens! That's the thing about her!"

"Yeah—throw her a few chips and she'll crawl like a dog. That's a deal right there!"

Sabrina wrinkled her nose and fanned the air with a gloved hand. She tucked herself back against Dante's chest.

"Dante, why even look at trash like her? They say she's killing herself in the casino to keep some dirty little side piece in rent."

"She's filth. Don't let her dirty your eyes."

The side piece wasn't just a story.

Two years ago, when I was carrying Emily, I'd gone to Dante's once to tell him about the baby. I never made it inside. Down at the curb, I ran into the man Sabrina had arranged.

A man I'd never seen in my life, walking out of my building's stairwell with a scarf wrapped around his hand. My scarf. One I'd left at Dante's place. How he'd gotten it, I don't know.

Dante was downstairs too.

He saw.

I tried to explain. He didn't give me the chance. He asked the man one question. The man answered. I couldn't hear it.

Dante turned around and walked back upstairs. He didn't look back.

Two days later, the fake paternity test landed in his hands.

After that, he didn't come looking for me—not because he couldn't. Because he didn't need to. What he'd seen on the street and what was printed on that report added up to the same thing.

He shoved Sabrina off him, hard.

She stumbled two steps. Shock bloomed across her face.

Dante walked straight to the cashier's cage.

The server's tray shook as he got close.

He leaned down and picked up a black chip between two fingers. His shirt cuff was white under the chandelier. The knuckles holding the chip were rough with calluses—the kind you get from years of handling a gun, or cards. Cold, hard, quiet.

A black chip in the Vegas underground meant no-limit obedience. Half a million dollars.

Sabrina came around from his side. She took the chip between two fingers, weighed it in her palm, and dropped it onto the carpet at my feet.

"Let me set the terms."

She leaned down to my ear, voice soft as a secret.

"Take the red dress off. In front of every man in this room. Half a million is yours."

She straightened up beside Dante and looked up at him.

"You don't mind. Do you, Dante?"

Dante said nothing.

He had a cigar between his fingers. Unlit. He was looking at me.

The whole floor went quiet.

In the shadows by the wall, the floor manager—Marco Benetti—had his fist clenched around a radio.

Two years ago, the night I was thrown into the game, Marco had been on this same floor. Afterward, he never asked me anything about it. Once in a while he found a way to look out for me a little. That was all.

But Marco was staff. He didn't have the standing to stand up to Dante in front of the house.

I dropped my eyes to the black chip at my feet.

Half a million.

Enough.

Emily's medication for tomorrow was covered.

I looked down at the red dress.

And thought of another dress. White. The one I'd worn the day he took me to the beach.

The wind had been strong. The dress kept lifting. He'd stepped behind me and pressed my hem down, mouth at my ear. Don't let them see.

Back then I'd thought he'd hold the hem for me forever.

I reached back and pulled the zipper down.

The red dress slipped off my shoulders and pooled at my ankles.

What the chandelier lit up was my back—a map of puncture marks, crossed over and over. Bruises left by years of selling blood past the legal limit to pay for milk and medicine.

The casino had been loud a second ago. Now it was silent.

Dante went rigid where he stood.

The unlit cigar dropped out of his fingers.

His eyes were nailed to the marks on my back.

The yellow-toothed gambler swallowed.

He rubbed his hands together and reached for the scars.

"Combat-damaged. That's more my type—"

Dante grabbed an ice pick off the gaming table.

He seized the gambler's wrist and drove the pick down through his palm, pinning his hand to the felt.

"AAGH—!"

The scream tore through the hall. Blood sprayed across the chip layout.

Dante stripped off his suit jacket. He came at me in long strides and wrapped it tight around my shoulders.

He said nothing. Not one word.

He turned his head and roared at the bodyguards behind him.

"Take this piece of shit's eyes out!"

"Clear the floor. Now."

The enforcers drew their weapons and started herding the crowd. The hall went to chaos—screaming, men begging.

I pulled the jacket closed around me. Bent down, and from the pool of blood at the yellow-toothed gambler's feet I picked up the black chip.

I wiped the blood off it with the hem of the jacket.

Then I lifted my head to Dante.

"Mr. Castellano. Paid in full."

I held the chip up between us.

"This chip—can I take it to the cage for cash. Now."

Dante's eyes locked on the clean black chip in my hand.

His chest rose and fell. His breathing was heavy.

"Cash?" he said. A cold laugh.

He reached out and caught a fistful of my hair.

Pain shot across my scalp. My head was forced back. I was looking straight into his eyes.

The scar at the corner of his eye was still there. Four stitches. He'd taken the bottle for me when we were both seventeen.

My gaze landed there for less than a second and moved away.

"Half a million to keep your side piece? Sienna. When did your appetite get this filthy?"

It wasn't a question.

What he'd seen in that stairwell two years ago and the report he'd held in his hand afterward—together, they'd already closed the case.

He dragged me by the hair through the casino, up to the private floor on the top level.

Sabrina lifted the hem of her dress and followed, a cold smile on her mouth.

The top floor was one wide hall. At its center stood a transparent, blast-proof tank, filled with water kept at freezing.

At the bottom of the tank, waterproofed chips covered the glass floor. Denominations from ten thousand up to five hundred thousand.

Dante stopped at the tank and let go. I hit the carpet in front of it.

He crossed to a leather sofa and sat. Didn't have anyone light his cigar.

Sabrina sat beside him and tipped her face up at the tank as if it were a piece of art.

"Dante, I heard there's three million in that tank."

She turned to look at me. A light smile.

"Sienna, you said you'd do anything. Hold your breath and go get it. Whatever you come up with is yours. Live or die, that's on you."

She turned her face to Dante. Softer now.

"A fun game. Isn't it?"

Dante didn't answer her.

He looked at me, knuckles braced on his knee. He didn't say yes. He didn't say no.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

The hospital's final notice.

Emily has developed severe sepsis. Without a three-million-dollar surgical guarantee deposit by eight tomorrow morning, we will be forced to remove her breathing tube and discontinue treatment.

I stared at the message.

Three million.

I looked up at the tank.

His jacket was still around me. Still damp.

There'd been a winter once when the rain caught us at a crosswalk with no awning in reach. He'd pulled off his coat and held it over my head, and the rain had run off his hair onto his shoulders, soaking him. I told him to come under with me. He said if he came under he couldn't keep me dry.

I looked up at the man on the sofa.

I wasn't getting that back. I'd already lost him.

I couldn't lose Emily too.

I pushed myself up off the floor, climbed the metal ladder beside the tank to the top, and jumped in.

The cold hit hard enough that my whole body shook.

I kicked down fast. The water pressure crushed my eardrums. I opened my eyes and forced myself to keep them open against the sting, and I grabbed the high-denomination chips off the floor of the tank.

Ten thousand.

Fifty thousand.

Five hundred thousand.

I stuffed them inside my bra.

My calves started to cramp. Every kick was agony.

Outside the tank, Dante stood behind the blast-proof glass, eyes fixed on me underwater.

He watched my face turn blue. He watched blood start to leak from my nose and mouth under the pressure, watched it drift into pink threads in the water.

The fingers holding his cigar started to shake.

He stood up. Took one step forward. His fist was closed.

Sabrina walked up and wrapped a hand around his arm.

"Dante." She pressed close, voice low. "It was my game. The rule is whatever she brings up, she keeps. If you go in there and save her now, who's ever going to respect you again?"

"Besides—the paternity test is in black and white. That kid was never yours. What exactly are you heartbroken over?"

Dante didn't look at her.

He lifted her hand off his arm. Didn't speak. His jaw locked.

He forced himself back down onto the sofa.

He clenched the timer in his palm. The knuckles went white.

One-thirty.

One-fifty.

Underwater, my vision was going. My lungs had nothing left.

But I couldn't die.

Emily was waiting for me.

Outside the tank, Dante was on his feet again.

He didn't say anything. Just stood there, eyes on the tank.

Sabrina gave his sleeve a small tug. He yanked his arm away.

The timer cracked inside his fist.

In the instant before his other hand came up to strike the blast-proof glass—

I kicked off the bottom.

A hard break of water.

I came up gasping, dragged myself over the edge, and hit the carpet. Lay there on my side heaving up bloody ice water.

I forced myself onto my knees.

On my knees in front of him, I touched my forehead to the carpet three times.

"Thank you, Mr. Castellano. For my life."

I didn't wait for an answer.

Dragging a wet trail behind me, I ran for the elevator.

The cashier's cage on the ground floor of the casino.

Marco had cleared the other staff out in advance. He stood behind the counter himself and took me in, dripping.

He watched me pull the blood-smeared chips out of my soaked clothes. Something moved in his eyes. He didn't ask.

He counted fast and clean.

"Three million, exactly."

He hit the keys and cut me an unnamed Swiss bank card.

He reached under the counter for a dry towel and pushed it to me. Then he leaned toward the bulletproof glass and dropped his voice.

"Sabrina's men are waiting for you at the front and the side corridors."

He nodded at the passage to his left.

"Take the staff fire exit. No cameras."

He slid the card through the tray.

"Don't let this show. Go save her."

I took the card.

I pressed it flat against my chest and bowed to him.

"I won't forget this."

I didn't stay.

Dante could come down any minute.

If he saw me at a man's counter, saw that man count chips for me, hand me a towel, lean in to whisper—

I knew exactly what he'd think.

I turned and ran for the fire exit.

I was almost at the corner of the parking garage level when I saw her.

Sabrina was at the bottom of the stairs, blocking the way.

Couture gown. Arms crossed. Two bruisers flanking her.

"You think that money's going to keep your little bastard alive?"

She laughed, a small bright laugh. "Sienna. You were born a jinx."

"You killed your mother. Now you're going to kill your little bastard too."

I didn't answer her. I tried to go around.

The two bodyguards stepped in and sealed the way.

I stopped fighting.

For two years I'd been burning myself up in the casino and quietly digging into what happened to my father. What I'd found wasn't much. A dealer who'd vanished. A marked card nobody could account for. And a night nobody was willing to talk about.

Every thread ended at the same wall.

Sabrina crossed to me on her heels, one step at a time, and leaned in to my ear.

"Want to know why your father jumped off that roof?"

My body went stiff. I stared at her.

"Me."

"I paid the dealer. He slipped the marked card into your father's sleeve."

She paused. The corner of her mouth lifted.

"But a marked card alone wasn't enough. You know his temper—he only believes evidence. A marked card would've made him hate your father. It wouldn't have been enough to put you on that table."

"So I did one more thing."

"Remember the private OB clinic you went to when you got pregnant? The director of their lab—I'd already paid him off."

She raised a finger and ticked it slowly.

"The paternity test he delivered to Dante said exactly one line. No biological relationship. The seal was real. The format was real. The signature was real."

"I was right next to Dante the day he opened that report. He read it. Folded it. Put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. Didn't say a single word."

She reached up and patted my cheek.

"And from that day on, he didn't show his face again. I didn't have to lift another finger."

"The only way I get to sit in the Donna's chair is if you're in the mud."

I stared at her.

Two years.

I'd known someone set me up. I couldn't find the proof. I couldn't open my mouth. I'd been swallowing it.

"It was you."

I heard myself roar it.

I threw myself at her and clamped both hands around her throat.

"You killed my father! I'll kill you! I want your life!"

I used everything I had. My nails sank into her skin.

She went down under me against the stair railing.

But she wasn't fighting back. Her eyes had flicked up toward the fire door above us.

She'd timed it.

The instant the fire door was pushed open from outside—

Sabrina snapped her own couture diamond necklace off her neck and smashed it onto the concrete step.

Then she threw herself backward and slammed her head into the wall.

"AAH—"

A scream.

"Dante, help! Sienna's crazy! She's trying to kill me for my necklace!"

The fire door swung open. Dante's silhouette appeared in the greenish emergency light.

He took in the scattered diamonds on the floor. The woman under my hands, bleeding scratches across her throat.

He came down the stairs in long strides and his boot came up and caught me in the shoulder.

The kick threw me sideways. My head slammed into the iron railing. A dull thud.

Blood ran down my forehead into my eyes.

I grabbed a fistful of his trouser leg.

"It was her! She set up my father, and your father too!"

I pointed at her. My voice was raw.

"She broke the necklace herself! Dante, believe me. Once. Just once."

Sabrina sagged against the wall, sobbing. "Dante, I was so scared… she'd do anything for money…"

One of Sabrina's men stepped forward.

He hauled me off the floor and patted me down, head to foot.

A few seconds later, he pulled a single loose diamond from the pocket of my soaked jacket.

It was the one Sabrina had dropped in while I was attacking her.

He held the diamond up to Dante.

Dante looked at the stone.

And then, with something very ugly in his face, he looked at me.