I clawed my way through ninety-nine rounds of the Marchetti family’s death trials to become his bride — and in the hundredth, my fiancé put a bullet in my chest to crown someone else. They call it the Queen’s Gauntlet. Every time Dante Marchetti collects ten girls, he runs an elimination. Whoever survives moves on. Whoever wins all one hundred rounds becomes his wife. I’m the one who made it to ninety-nine. I’m tough enough. I played every sick game he threw at me without making a sound. He started looking at me differently — something close to awe. He paraded me through the Five Families, made every soldier and capo call me Madonna. I was about to win it all. Then, twenty minutes before the final round, I see him outside the private room — pressing Anya Rossi against the wall, kissing her like she’s oxygen. “Fifth chamber’s the live round.” “Got it.” My heart seizes. Something invisible wraps around it and squeezes until I can’t breathe. But I don’t get time to think. The game has already started. I watch Anya draw the rigged order — second shooter. My stomach drops through the floor. If I keep playing, I lose. That’s a certainty. I take a slow breath and look up into Dante’s calm, unreadable eyes. “Wren-bird.” He swirls the whiskey in his glass, voice dripping with warmth and adoration. “Still want to play? You know I’d never let you lose a game like this.” The room erupts. Whistles. Catcalls. The made men lounge around the table, trading looks between him and me, voices thick with amusement. “Boss always favors his Madonna. This round’s pointless.” “New girl thinks she can challenge the Madonna? She doesn’t even know who Dante’s heart belongs to.” “Be smart, sweetheart. Fold now and you walk away with your dignity.” Across from me, Anya is shaking head to toe — but she sets her jaw. “I’m not folding. I’m playing.” I catch it. That flicker in Dante’s eyes. Admiration. “Interesting.” His lips curl into a lazy smile, and he turns to me. “Then let’s make it quick, Wren-bird. I’ve got something new for us tonight.” Disgusting. He’s already rigged this for her. He’s already chosen. And he’s still putting on this devoted-lover act for me. My chest goes numb. Ice-cold. I lift my chin and meet his gaze. “Let’s start.” I want to see it. I want to see if this man — the one who keeps swearing he’ll never let me lose — actually has the stomach to watch me take the fall. The revolver hits the table. The room goes quiet. I draw first slot. I pick up the gun, press the muzzle against my own chest, and pull the trigger. Click. Empty. The room exhales. Someone laughs. Bets start flying. Dante’s eyes soften, just barely. “Wren-bird. Don’t worry. I’ll always bet on you.” Anya’s turn. Her hand trembles — prettily, perfectly — and she pulls. Click. My turn again. Third chamber. Still empty. But my heart is hammering now, because I heard what he said. Fifth chamber. Fifth. That’s mine. My whole body starts to shake. My eyes burn. My vision blurs. The slip that gave me first shot — he arranged that too. He set me up to take the bullet. Anya fires the fourth — knowing she’s safe — and lets out a delicate little whimper of fear. The men jeer. “Just quit, sweetheart! Get on your knees and kiss the Madonna’s ring — the Boss might let you walk!” “Kid, these rounds aren’t real bullets, but they still hurt like hell!” Anya doesn’t back down. She slides the gun across to me. My heart is in my throat. I stare at Dante. Waiting. Stop this. Stop this right now. He just watches. There’s even a faint smile on his lips. He doesn’t lift a finger. Seconds drag. His brow creases, just slightly. “Wren-bird. Don’t be scared. The winner is always going to be you.” My mouth twists — bitter, broken. I raise the gun to my chest with trembling hands. BANG. The round slams into me. Specialty rubber — not lethal — but the pain explodes white-hot through my ribs and I can’t breathe, I can’t — Anya screams. “Oh God — I’m so sorry — I didn’t know it would be like this —” Every face in the room goes pale. They all turn to Dante. The rule is simple. Whoever takes the bullet loses. The winner becomes his bride. “Boss, this —” Dante rises. Slowly. He looks down at Anya, voice glacial. “It’s fine. A loss is a loss.” Then he bends, scoops the trembling girl into his arms, and lifts her clean off the floor. His movements are steady, absolute. His gaze sweeps the room. His voice cuts like a blade. “Wren. You lost. I’m disappointed. But the only Queen in my heart is you.” In his arms, Anya flinches — then shoots me a look of pure triumph. A sharp pain stabs through my chest. My lips curve into something cold. He carries her toward the door. Steady. Certain. He doesn’t look back at me. Not once.
The second his back disappears through the door, my tears finally break. This game was never fair. Whoever he wants wins. That’s all it ever was. I wipe my face pick up the wine glass on the table and drain every last drop. Outside, I press my hand against the burning ache in my chest and dial a number with shaking fingers. “You wanted to get married. The answer’s yes. Seven days. I’ll be there.” Back at the penthouse, I swallow four painkillers. Ninety-nine rounds have trained my body to handle pain. But tonight, for reasons I can’t name, everything hurts worse than it ever has. I stare at the photograph on the wall — the one that appeared just weeks ago. Our engagement portrait. Me in white silk, him in black, his hand resting low on my waist. He took me to shoot it after I cleared round ninety-nine. I’d laughed and asked if that was cheating his own game. He scoffed. “My game. My rules. And you’re the only reason I ever break them.” Now he’s broken them for someone else. And he stood there watching me take a bullet like a fool. He doesn’t come home that night. I see everything in the videos Anya sends me. Dante has her pressed up against every surface of his most lavish penthouse. Their marks are everywhere — the walls, the sheets, the floors. The rare South Pacific black pearl he flew halfway across the world to buy for me last month — it’s caught between his teeth now, dragging slowly over her skin while she breaks, screaming his name. His face — raw, savage, consumed with want , is something I’ve never seen. Not once. Not for me. Miss Bellamy, you can see how addicted he is to me. Be smart and walk away. I stare at the message until my fingertips go white. I will not let myself cry again. The night I met Dante Marchetti, my grandmother was dying. Heart failure. The hospital was going to discharge her because I couldn’t pay. I was twenty-two, broke, and out of options. He walked into that waiting room like the angel of death in a five-thousand-dollar suit. Paid Gran’s bill in cash. Then he handed me a black card — an invitation. He looked at me the way a wolf looks at a rabbit. Smiling. “It’s just a game, sweetheart. Play it well, and everybody wins.” Even outside the Five Families, you heard the stories. Dante Marchetti was twisted. Years ago, the woman he loved sold him out to a rival. He never trusted love again. He built the Queen’s Gauntlet to watch women tear each other apart for the chance to sit beside him — to prove how far they’d go, how low they’d crawl. I took the card anyway. I needed the money. I needed Gran alive. Inside the game he called himself the King. He sat on a black leather throne and watched women bleed for his crown. I clenched my teeth and survived ninety-nine rounds. Bungee jumps with frayed cords. A sealed coffin with a live python. Seven minutes underwater without air. Live cockroaches shoved into my mouth. Every trial that made other women scream and shatter — I took in silence. One round was a skydive. My competitor slashed my arm with a blade and ripped the only parachute off my back. The plane was over open ocean. I was bleeding, falling soon either way. The earpiece crackled, and Dante’s amused voice came through. “You’ve won forty-some rounds, Wren-bird. Didn’t think you’d end up here. Any last words?” I closed my eyes. “Wire Gran’s medical bills before they cut her off.” His low laugh filled my ear. I jumped. They pulled me out of the Atlantic. I woke up in the ICU. Later, he came to my room. His eyes were hollow. “That round’s yours. I changed the rule mid-game — the winner is whoever’s more reckless.” A bitter, self-mocking smile. “You want out? A hundred million. Walk away clean. Right now.” He looked, for the first time, lonely. Something inside me tore open. I didn’t answer. I just reached up and pulled him into my arms. His face changed in a heartbeat — wild, unguarded joy. He cupped the back of my head and kissed me like a drowning man. “Wren. You’re mine now. From this second on. I’ll give you everything.” He bought me a brownstone. Ten percent of the family’s legitimate holdings, in my name. He walked me into every Family event with his hand at the small of my back and made every soldier and capo kiss my ring and call me Madonna. When the woman who’d betrayed him years ago crawled back into a banquet — weeping at his feet, humiliating me in front of the room, begging him to take her back — he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a wine bottle and cracked it across her skull. His men dragged her out. She was taken to the docks and never seen again. He stood there with blood on his cuffs and said: “Anyone else want to insult my Queen? Step up.” He spoiled me so completely that everyone believed it. Every capo. Every heir. Every woman watching from the sidelines. Even me. I believed I was the one. The special one. The woman who could make Dante Marchetti believe in love again. Until tonight. Until I finally understood — it was never anything but my own delusion.
I sit alone in the dark penthouse all night, phone off. At dawn, the lock turns. Dante walks in. His suit reeks of someone else’s perfume. The bite marks on his throat are obscene. He sees me frozen on the couch and pauses — then drags a hand through his hair, irritated. “Wren. Don’t tell me you sat here all night waiting for me.” My voice comes out raw. “Do you want to shower?” He stiffens. He takes in my white face, my bloodshot eyes, and his brow creases. He tosses his jacket on the chair. But there’s a flicker of something pleased behind his eyes. He walks over and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, gentle. “I know. You’re upset because you lost.” “The rule is the rule, baby. Hundredth round. Anya won. By rights, I should be marrying her.” He pauses, pulls a pink diamond ring from his pocket — easily worth a million — and presses a slow kiss to my throat. “But you’re mine. So I’m giving you one more chance. Another round. Win back your crown. That’s a privilege I don’t give anyone else.” “So next time, sweetheart — win.” Win. The word is so absurd I almost laugh. I had a fifty-fifty shot. He took the crown off my head with his own hands and placed it on Anya. The rules were written in black and white — the hundredth-round winner becomes his bride. Anya won. This pink diamond is nothing but a bone he’s tossing me. Something shifts in his eyes — a glint of challenge. His lips curl. “What’s wrong, Wren-bird? Not happy? You used to fight like a wildcat for me.” He’s so certain I’ll cry. So certain I’ll scream and beg, just like every woman before me. I just lift my eyes. My voice is flat. Like I’m talking about someone else’s life. “No. I don’t care.” “Dante. As of right now, I’m out of the game.” The smile freezes on his mouth. The playful warmth in his eyes stays — but underneath, something murderous flickers. “You quit? Say that again.” I hold his gaze. Steady. “Dante. Your game. I’m done playing it.” “I’m leaving you. I won’t make a scene. You can have Anya, with my blessing.” His breath catches. His hands snap to my arms — and right then, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He answers. Whatever they tell him turns his face white with rage. “If you so much as touch her, I will end every last one of you!” He hangs up. His grip locks around my wrist — hard enough to grind bone. “Ow — Dante, what are you —” “In the car. Now.” His voice is ice. “Look what you’ve done.” He drags me out. I stumble, nearly fall. He shoves me into the back seat without a word. He drives like a man possessed. Jaw locked. Eyes dead ahead. He doesn’t explain a thing. The car stops at an abandoned warehouse by the river. Inside, Anya is on the concrete floor. Hands bound behind her back. Blood at the corner of her mouth. Dante crosses the room in three strides. He cuts her loose and pulls her against his chest. His eyes are red. Red. “Anya. Baby. Don’t be scared. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She sobs into his shirt — then lifts her head and looks at me with wide, frightened eyes. “Miss Bellamy — if you don’t want me near him, I’ll leave, I’ll disappear — but why would you have someone beat me…” I take a slow breath. I look only at Dante. “Dante. I didn’t do this. Do you believe me?” He scoops Anya up, bridal style, shielding her completely. And those narrow, cold eyes turn on me with undisguised disgust. “She’s an orphan! She doesn’t make enemies. Who else would touch her — except the woman who’s jealous she lost?” “Lose with grace, Wren. The second you start playing dirty, you’re the one who can’t handle the game.” I clench my fists so hard my nails break skin. “Dante. I told you. It wasn’t me.” “Dante, it’s okay,” Anya whimpers, voice barely a breath. “I don’t blame Wren. She just… she loves you too much.” He laughs — short, cold — and turns for the door with her in his arms. He snaps his fingers at the soldiers behind him. “The new Queen has been hurt by the old one. The old Queen needs to be punished.”
The four soldiers don’t hesitate. They wrench my arms behind my back. “Sir. How bad?” Dante glances at me, then bends his head toward Anya, voice silk. “The punishment is for my new Queen to decide.” Another knife in my chest. After every single elimination round, he handed me — me — the right to punish the loser. Every time, I just told them to leave. Walk away. Start over. I never made anyone bleed. Now Anya puts on her sweet, harmless face ， and her mouth curls into something cruel. “Dante, baby, I don’t really know your old rules. Just… whatever the punishment used to be, do that.” He gets it instantly. He turns to me, searching my face for something — anger, jealousy, anything. All he finds is dead silence. It enrages him. He pulls Anya tighter and forces the words through his teeth. “You heard the Queen.” They drag me into the compound. Down to the basement. They press me face-down on the stone floor and use a leather strap soaked in salt brine. On the other side of the wall, in the bedroom, he and Anya lose themselves in each other, all heat and desperation. Her moans and my screams braid together through the plaster, rising and breaking, until the whole house throbs with it. My back splits open. My heart breaks worse. I think of that day in the ICU. The kiss. The promise. He’d wanted to shut the Gauntlet down right then — pull me out, end it all. But the Family heirs had hundreds of millions riding on the bracket. The game wasn’t his alone anymore. They wouldn’t let him stop it before the final round. He’d held me in that hospital bed, eyes red, arms shaking, and whispered into my hair: “Wren. I promise. From now on, every single round — I will never let you lose.” And I believed him. I fought for him. I outsmarted, out-bled, out-survived every contender they threw at me. Some of them tried to kill me with rigged equipment. With knives. With poison. I won anyway — because I loved him. Every woman who cheated against me ended up exactly where I am right now. Pinned down. Beaten. Listening to him fuck the next one through the wall. It was always going to come to me eventually. He finally let me get hurt. They go all night. Somewhere near dawn, Dante steps out in a black silk robe. I hear his voice, distant, bored. “Call the family doctor. Patch her up. Don’t let her die.” Then I’m gone. I wake on the couch. His jacket is draped over me. The housekeeper’s face is blank, professional. “You’re awake. Mr. Marchetti took Miss Rossi to the victory dinner. He said to get yourself cleaned up and join them.” My voice is sandpaper. I grab my bag. “Tell him I can’t. My grandmother’s surgery is today. He knows. He arranged it.” He found Gran her donor heart himself , my prize for clearing round ninety-nine. Two soldiers grab me. “What are you — let go of me — I need to get to the hospital — Dante knows about Gran’s transplant today!” They don’t care. They yank a dress over my shredded back. They don’t let me bring my phone. They throw me in the SUV. I can’t breathe. He used to come with me to see Gran every single month. And today he’s at a champagne dinner celebrating a stolen crown for a girl he rigged the game to win. The ballroom is full of capos and their daughters. Dante is at the center with Anya glued to his side. I’m in a backless dress. The strap marks across my shoulder blades are visible to every person in the room. People whisper. His eyes darken. He walks Anya toward me, his hand on her hip. “Wren. Today is Anya’s coronation. As the former champion, you should congratulate her properly. You walked in empty-handed. Are you trying to humiliate her?” Anya bites her lip, all wounded innocence. “Maybe she just thinks I shouldn’t have won. After all — she had the first ninety-nine.” I cut her off. I look only at him. “I quit the game. I owe her nothing. Dante — Gran is in surgery right now. I’m leaving. Let me through.” Surprise flickers in his eyes. Then it ices over. “It’s a celebration. You bring up something this dark on purpose?” I press my hand against the ache in my chest. “What do I have to do for you to let me leave?” “What do you have to do?” His eyes glint. He kisses Anya in front of me, slow and deliberate. “Let my new Queen name the price.” She pretends to think. Then she grins. “Have Wren strip naked. Kneel in front of me. And bark like a dog. Three times.” The breath leaves my body. And then I hear him laugh ,soft, amused. “Done.”
I stare at him. “Dante. What if I refuse?” He laughs once. Cold. “Sweetheart. Since when do you get to say no to me?” He flicks a glance at the crowd behind him. That’s all it takes. They erupt on cue. “You heard the Madonna! On your knees,you filthy dog !” “You lost everything down to your panties , and you still think you can negotiate?” These are the same men who called me Madonna. Who bowed when I walked past. Who kissed my ring. Now they’ve turned like wolves, every last one of them falling in line behind Anya. My chest crushes inward. The pain goes numb. There’s a wall of soldiers behind me. I can’t run. Dante is unhinged enough that fighting will only drag this out longer — and Gran is on an operating table right now. Dignity is a luxury I can’t afford. “You’ll keep your word. After this, I leave.” I choke the words out. I undress. I get on my hands and knees on the polished marble. The room sucks in a breath. “Woof.” Laughter explodes around me. I feel tears slide down my face. “Woof.” Someone kicks me in the ribs — I don’t even see who. “Woof.” Dante’s voice cuts the room cold. “Enough.” “Get her out of my sight.” I grab my dress off the floor, yank it on crooked, and stumble out barefoot. It’s pouring outside. I don’t know when the rain started. I flag down a cab with shaking hands and tell him the hospital. Fast. Please. I sprint through the lobby. I burst into Gran’s room. She’s not there. I tear through the hallways like a madwoman — and then I see it. The OR doors swing open. A gurney rolls out. There’s a white sheet over the body, and one hand has slipped out from under the cloth. On her wrist is the silver bracelet I gave her for her seventieth birthday. Every drop of blood in my body turns to ice. “Gran!” I throw myself onto the gurney, screaming. The surgeon exhales, exhausted. “I’m so sorry. We did everything we could. She kept asking to see you one last time. We tried calling — we couldn’t get through. We had no choice but to proceed without you.” I don’t hear the rest. The room spins. I hit the floor. When I open my eyes, I’m in a hospital bed. A nurse adjusts my IV, her face tight with worry. “Honey, I know you just lost your grandmother and it’s awful. But you have to take care of yourself now. You’re pregnant.” The words hit me like a slap. “What?” My voice cracks. “I’m — I’m pregnant?” “Three months along. You really had no idea?” I press my hand against my belly. A tremor runs through me , something alive, something small, underneath my palm. I go cold all over. Once, I dreamed of this. Dante’s child. A home. A real life. It came now. Now. When the man I built my world around doesn’t love me anymore. The door opens. Dante walks in carrying half a cake on a plate. “Wren, you embarrassed me today.” His voice is flat with contempt. “Anya’s sweet. She thought you might be hungry. She saved you cake.” I look at the mangled thing on the plate — pawed at, half-eaten, barely recognizable. It’s not food. It’s a slap in the face. “You’re not even with your grandmother. You’re here, faking sick to get my attention?” “Get out!” I hurl the water glass at his head. He dodges. His eyes go pitch black. “Ungrateful. You’re not half the woman Anya is.” He slams the door behind him. I break apart. I sob until there’s nothing left inside me. For the next few days, Dante parades Anya across the city. Diamonds dripping from her throat and wrists. Yachts, rooftop parties, flashbulbs chasing them at every turn. Cameras everywhere. I bury Gran alone. The day we put her in the ground, the sky splits open and the rain doesn’t stop. While I’m standing graveside in the mud, Dante is at a charity gala downtown, presenting Anya with a flawless museum-grade diamond in front of the press. I go back to the penthouse. I pack one suitcase. I walk out. I rent a tiny studio across town. He calls. I pick up. “Where the hell are you?” “Dante. The game is over. We are nothing to each other.” He finds me the next day. He looks around my studio — the peeling paint, the narrow bed, the bare lightbulb — and his nose wrinkles like he smells garbage. “You’re living in this hole? Cute.” A mocking smile. “You’re playing hard to get.” “It’s none of your business. Get out.” His eyes flatten. He nods at the men behind him. They grab my arms before I can move. “Let’s go. Anya wants to take you somewhere fun.”
I fight. I lose. They drive me to a private estate outside the city. Underground, the owner keeps a fifteen-foot golden python in a steel-reinforced cage and charges the ultra-rich to watch it feed. Live prey. Invitation only. Anya is already there, draped in couture, champagne in hand. “Wren, sweetie — the feeding show tonight is so boring.” Inside the cage, the python is coiled around a slab of raw, bloody meat, jaw unhinged, swallowing it whole. She tilts her head, all innocence, but her smile has teeth. “You survived ninety-nine rounds of the Gauntlet. A little snake should be nothing for you, right? Dante, baby — I want to watch her tame it.” My blood turns to ice. Deep in my belly, something flutters — the baby. As if even he can sense what’s coming. “Are you insane? That gets people killed!” Dante looks at my white face. Something flickers — just for a second. Regret. Maybe mercy. He leans close. His breath stirs my hair. His voice is low, almost tender. “You know what I hate about you, Wren? You’re so goddamn stubborn. Just bend. Once. Ask me to save you ， beg me ， and I’ll rig the game so you win.” “Last chance. One more round. Beg me, and it’s yours.” I look back at him. My eyes are dead. My mouth curves into a smile so bitter it tastes like ash. “Dante. The biggest regret of my life is ever taking your invitation.” His face contorts. Anya jumps in, right on cue. “How can you be so ungrateful? Dante is giving you a chance! If I were you, I’d be on my knees crying! If you won’t play, it just proves you never loved him at all!” Murder flashes through Dante’s eyes. He shoves me — hard — and forces three words through clenched teeth. “Put her in.” Hands grab me. The cage door clangs shut behind me. The python’s head lifts. Its tongue flicks the air. It starts toward me. “Dante — please — let me out!” My scream rips through my throat. “I’m pregnant!” The crowd outside is roaring — drunk, wild, deafening. They can’t hear me. He can’t hear me. Dante squints, like he’s trying to read my lips. Anya hooks her arms around his neck and breathes into his ear. “Baby, she’s having so much fun in there. I’m jealous. Take me to the back room…” His Adam’s apple bobs. He scoops her up and walks away without looking back. The python coils around my legs. It bites — once, twice — then starts to constrict. I can’t breathe. My vision goes purple at the edges. I hear my own screams like they belong to someone far away. “Oh my God — the snake’s gone berserk —” “She’s bleeding — there’s so much blood — someone call 911!” I wake in a hospital bed. A tearing pain in my pelvis. I rip the sheet back. My belly is flat. The baby is gone. A scream rips out of me as it hits all at once—Gran is gone, and with this baby, the last of my family on this earth is gone with her. Why? Why would he do this? Why would he take the last thing I had? “No!” The door swings open. Dante walks in, flushed, with fresh marks on his throat. The evidence of what he was doing while I was dying. He glances at me. Mocking. Bored. “I heard you got your period. That’s why you’re in the hospital?” “Come on, Wren. Through ninety-nine rounds, even at your worst, you were never this dramatic.” I take a slow breath. I drag myself out of the bed. Pain screams through every nerve in my body. I cross the room and slap him across the face with everything I have. “Dante Marchetti — I hope you rot in hell.”
The wildness in my eyes makes him freeze. He runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek. Something dark flickers behind his gaze. His hand snaps around my wrist. “I’ve been too easy on you lately, haven’t I?” His phone rings. His face changes instantly. “Anya — baby, hold on — I’m on my way, don’t be scared.” He looks at me, already halfway to the door. “Anya’s stomach hurts. I’m going to her. And that studio of yours — I already canceled the lease. Stay put.” He’s gone before I can speak. The door slams. I sit on the hospital bed for a long time. Staring at nothing. Then I pick up my phone. My fingers are shaking, but my voice is steady. “Before I come to you — help me stage one last performance.” “Make it convincing. I need him to believe I’m dead.” I hang up. A new message lights up my screen. Anya, curled against Dante’s chest, tracing circles on his collarbone with her fingertip: See, Wren? Even after you nearly died from a snake attack, all I have to do is say one word and he drops you to come running to me. He doesn’t love you. He never did. You almost lost your life for him and he still picks me every single time. You’re pathetic. I grip the phone until my knuckles go white. Tears hit the screen and blur the words. There are guards outside my door. I can’t run. I can only wait. Every time I close my eyes, the nightmares come. Ninety-nine rounds of hell. Dante’s cold, empty stare. Gran dying alone on an operating table, calling my name. The baby I never got to hold. The next day, Dante brings Anya to visit me. “Wren, sweetie, are you feeling better?” Anya pouts, all wounded innocence. “Dante really does care about you, you know. Even after everything, he still wants to give you a fair rematch.” “But if you won’t play… it just proves you don’t really love him. That you never wanted him at all.” I turn my head. I look at both of them. Calm. “Fine. I’ll play.” Dante’s eyes flash bright — just for a second. Anya stiffens. She wasn’t expecting that. Hatred ripples under her sweet face, but her voice stays sugar-soft. “Of course I want a fair fight. But this time, I set the rules.” Dante strokes her hair, indulgent. “Of course. You earned that right when you won the last round.” Where he can’t see, her mouth curves into something venomous. “Last time we played the gun, and you lost. That must have killed you.” She tilts her head, mock sympathy. “So this time — we play the gun again. Sound fair?” My expression doesn’t change. I nod. “Fine by me.” “Then it’s settled.” Her eyes are full of calculation, but her smile is radiant. “Dante, baby, let’s go set everything up. Let her rest.” Something tugs at Dante — a flicker of unease he can’t name. But before he can think, Anya hooks her arm through his and pulls him out the door. The next night. They drive me to a cliff above the open ocean. A small table. Two chairs. A black revolver in the center, its barrel gleaming cold under the moon. Anya and I sit on opposite sides. The soldiers lead us to our places. Dante’s Bentley rolls up behind us. He steps out, slow, deliberate, and settles into a leather throne his men have placed at the cliff’s edge. A soldier stands beside him holding a bottle of champagne. “After this round,” he says, voice low, eyes drifting between us, “I’ll announce my engagement to the winner. Right here. Right now.” “Begin.” Anya plays modest. “Wren, sweetie — I’ll let you roll for first shot. Fair and square. Odd number, you go first.” I don’t hesitate. I roll. Odd. First shot is mine. I hear Dante’s breath catch. His knuckles go white around the arm of the throne. That reaction tells me everything. The bullet is in an even chamber. He rigged it for her again. Anya’s face goes pale. “Wait — no — best two out of three!” I almost laugh. I let her have it. She rolls again — somehow, both times landing odd. She steals first shot back. “Looks like I go first after all.” Dante doesn’t intervene. His voice is flat. “Get on with it.” Anya gives him a slow, seductive smile. She picks up the gun, presses it to her own chest, and pulls the trigger. Click. The gun slides across to me. I pick it up. I weigh it in my palm for just a second — and a cold laugh escapes my lips. This isn’t the same prop from last time. It’s heavier. The balance is different. This gun is real. And the bullets inside it are real too.
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