In the VIP lounge of an underground casino, Maeve, the Falcone family's princess, had been plied with too much hard liquor.

Fueled by alcohol, someone goaded her into revealing the most shameless thing she'd ever done to win over the Don.

She swirled her glass, pointed at me dealing cards behind the table, and threw her head back with a laugh.

"Seven years ago, when Declan was in a coma after a shootout, I took his private phone. And I deleted the distress message that bitch sent him. Every last trace of it. Then I replied in his name: You're a burden. Go die."

"You'll never guess what happened next. That idiot stood outside the safe house all night in a downpour, like a stray dog. I almost died laughing…"

The room erupted in crude laughter.

Only the man enthroned at the head of the table remained silent. The crystal whiskey glass in his hand shattered with a sharp crack.

Blood mixed with the amber liquor, trickling over the veins on the back of his hand before dripping onto the carpet.

His murderous, bloodshot eyes were locked on me.

I calmly dealt the last hole card in front of him and offered a clean, white silk handkerchief. "Don Declan, you should wipe your hand. Blood on the felt is bad luck."

After all, some stains never wash out.

Seven years ago, I begged my boyfriend, Declan, to save my father's life.

When we met again, he was the youngest Don in the city, and I was just the woman dealing his cards.

Someone had dared his fiancée, the princess Maeve, to share the most shameless thing she'd ever done to win him over.

She pointed at me and laughed, boasting about how she'd intercepted my distress message to Declan, leaving me to wait all night in the rain for nothing.

Everyone laughed, except for Declan. Enthroned at the head of the table, his eyes were bloodshot. "Is that true? Why did you really leave me?"

I calmly dealt his hole cards. "Because you told me to go die."

The most exclusive underground casino in the city was booked for a private event tonight.

Word on the street was that a new Don, one who'd clawed his way up over a mountain of bodies, was back in town and holding court.

When the manager handed me the table assignments, his eyes held a hint of pity I couldn't quite decipher.

"Sienna, that lounge tonight… if you don't want to go, I can arrange for another dealer."

I tugged at the lapels of my low-cut dealer's vest and managed a faint smile.

"It's fine, sir. That's the highest-stakes table we have. The tips are huge. I need the money, you know that."

The manager sighed and said no more, only patting me on the shoulder.

As I pushed the chip cart into the VIP lounge, the acrid smoke of Cuban cigars mingled with the heavy scent of perfume, an assault on my senses.

It was the distinct smell of dirty money and stale fear.

The man I hadn't seen in seven years was slouched on the leather sofa at the head of the room.

He had changed so much.

The street rat I remembered, the one in a battered leather jacket with a bone-deep viciousness, was gone.

In his place sat a king who held the power of life and death over this underground empire.

He had his head turned, listening to someone report to him, a careless, cold smirk playing on his lips.

And nestled beside him was the mafia princess who'd stolen him from me all those years ago.

Maeve wore a deep V-neck couture gown, her body pressed against his solid chest. The pigeon's blood ruby on her necklace was almost blinding.

She swirled a glass of red wine, her posture arrogant, playing the part of the lady of the house.

"After Declan cleans out the South District, we'll have our wedding. A union of the two families."

A chorus of congratulations immediately filled the air.

"Our Don and his Princess. A true power couple."

"Don Declan is a legend in the entire underworld now. Maeve, you're a lucky woman!"

"Now that's true love forged in hardship. Not like that cowardly bitch who climbed into another man's bed to save her own skin. She can rot in the gutter for all I care."

A thug bellowed the profanity, and the air in the room instantly dropped to freezing.

All eyes, as if on cue, turned to me, shuffling cards behind the poker table.

I was a machine, numbly shuffling, cutting, and placing the ace of spades on the felt.

"Texas Hold'em, no-limit. Place your bets, gentlemen."

I pushed two hole cards across the green felt to Declan. The motion was crisp, flawless.

Declan finally looked up.

What kind of look was in his eyes?

Contempt. Disgust. And a bottomless hatred.

He didn't look at his cards, just stared at me through the haze of cigar smoke.

The wrist I used for dealing, sore from the long hours, trembled slightly.

"Sienna?" His voice was low and raspy when he finally spoke.

"I heard you ran off with a rival family's Capo. So, the old man got tired of you and kicked you to the curb? Now you're reduced to dealing cards in my casino?"

The room full of soldiers fell silent, waiting to watch their Don make his move.

Maeve covered her mouth in an exaggerated gasp, looking at me with feigned surprise. "Oh my god, it really is Sienna! How… how did you end up like this?"

"If you're that desperate for work, just say the word. Even though you abandoned Declan for money back when he was a nobody, I can still find a spot for you scrubbing toilets at my estate."

She deliberately stressed the words "abandoned Declan for money."

The men around us erupted in jeers.

"Serves her right. Look at the Don now, he runs half the city's underworld. And her? She's just a card-dealing machine."

"Once a whore, always a whore, no matter what cards she's dealing. Bet she'd earn a lot more in tips if she took off that uniform."

I listened to their crude taunts without expression, as if they were talking about someone else.

After seven years, I had learned to be an empty shell, hollowed out and devoid of feeling.

To escape the bounty on my head, I'd washed bloodstains off slum sidewalks and hauled crates in back-alley liquor warehouses.

I'd had guns pointed at my head by street thugs and been called a whore by gamblers who'd lost their last dime.

Dignity was a luxury, torn to shreds along with my father's life on that stormy night seven years ago.

I expertly shuffled and cut the deck, my hands moving with mechanical precision.

"Don Declan, your cards," I repeated.

Declan stared into my eyes.

He seemed to want to peel back my face and find a sliver of shame, a tear, anything.

But he was going to be disappointed.

There was nothing in my eyes but a deep, endless exhaustion.

My dead-eyed indifference finally enraged him.

He suddenly laughed, a cold sound, and threw a thick wad of cash onto the floor.

"You always loved money, didn't you?" Declan looked down at me, his eyes filled with a cold violence.

"Get out here. Kneel down and pick it up. It's all yours when you're done."

He was humiliating me in the most degrading way he knew how.

Seven years ago, he was a bastard with nothing, looked down on by everyone.

To buy me a decent dress, he'd once gotten two ribs broken in an underground fight pit.

Seeing him now, so easily tossing a fortune at my feet, I actually felt a flicker of relief.

He was doing better. It just had nothing to do with me.

Maeve leaned against him, giggling. "Oh, Declan, don't be so hard on her. She turned down the nanny job at my estate, but this is a lot of money. Sienna, hurry up and pick it up."

I had no choice. I needed the money.

I pushed away from the dealing table, walked over to his feet, and knelt down without a change in my expression.

One bill. Two. Three.

Just as my hand reached for the last bill, the sharp point of a stiletto heel slammed down on the back of my hand.

A sharp pain shot through my hand as the heel broke the skin, drawing blood.

"Oops, I didn't see you there," Maeve said, covering her mouth and laughing loudly, deliberately grinding her heel in a little deeper.

I didn't flinch. Didn't even pull my hand back.

I just knelt there calmly on the floor, waiting for her to move her foot.

Then, with my bleeding hand, I picked up the blood-stained bill.

I calculated how many days of food this would buy, how I could finally get my mother something decent to eat.

This was my life now.

I had no room for love or hate, only endless bills and debts I could never repay.

As for dignity, that was a game only the rich could afford to play.

"Thank you for your generosity, Don."

I tucked the cash away and stood up.

He saw my numb reaction. He saw my hands. The same hands that once gently tended to his wounds were now covered in calluses from shuffling cards, marred by a fresh, bloody wound.

Declan's pupils constricted, his expression hardening as if he were suppressing something.

But the moment was fleeting. He quickly reverted to his cold, ruthless self and kicked over the leather chair in front of him.

"Get out. Find a replacement."

Of course, I wasn't going to leave. For tonight's game, I needed the tips and my cut.

My mother's medical bills for next month were still unpaid, and the loan sharks were sending death threats again.

I went to the restroom and quickly rinsed the wound under the faucet.

I untied the silk scarf from my neck and wrapped it tightly around my bleeding hand.

Then, I pushed open the heavy doors and walked back into the lounge, back into the thick air of cigar smoke and violence.

When I returned, the card game had stopped.

After a few rounds of hard liquor, the group of mobsters had completely shed their pretenses.

Their true, depraved nature was beginning to show.

The atmosphere had devolved into a drunken game of Truth or Dare.

It was a cliché game, but fueled by high-proof alcohol, it never failed to rip away inhibitions.

Expensive, empty bottles littered the table. Macallan, Royal Salute, aged bourbon.

The liquor alone cost enough to buy me a basement apartment in the slums.

Maeve was clearly drunk.

Her cheeks were flushed, her body was practically plastered against Declan, and her eyes were hazy and feverish.

She was the absolute center of attention tonight, and the casino's biggest winner.

Her impending marriage to Declan, a strategic union that would make her the Don's wife, left her giddy and reckless.

"Here we go! Next round!" the family's Consigliere slurred, his tongue thick with booze.

"Let's see who's next."

An empty bottle spun across the polished black marble table, its rotation a sharp, grating sound.

Everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed on the spinning mouth of the bottle.

Slowly, it began to wobble to a halt.

Finally, the mouth of the bottle wobbled to a stop, pointing directly at Maeve.

"Whoa! It landed on our Principessa!"

"Truth or Dare?"

Maeve giggled, waving a hand adorned with red nail polish, her eyes glassy.

"Truth! There's nothing this lady is afraid to say!"

The Consigliere rubbed his hands together, a wicked grin on his face.

His gaze flickered between Maeve and me, clearly looking to stir up trouble.

"Alright then, let's ask something explosive. Maeve, to win over our high and mighty Don, what's the most shameless thing you've ever done?"

As he finished, a quiet fell over the room.

These were all criminals; every one of them had blood on their hands and secrets they couldn't afford to let out.

But it was a game, and the point was to get a thrill.

Declan, who'd been resting with his eyes closed, merely lifted an eyelid, not bothering to stop it.

In his mind, Maeve was spoiled and arrogant, but as the Principessa of an allied family, she was incapable of anything truly unforgivable.

Maeve let out a drunken hiccup, her gaze cutting through the crowd and locking onto me, standing in the shadows of the corner.

An incredibly vicious smile touched her lips.

The alcohol had numbed her reason, amplifying the jealousy and malice buried deep in her heart.

"The most shameless thing, huh…"

Maeve staggered to her feet. She raised a finger and pointed it directly at me, making no effort to be discreet.

"It was seven years ago, the day Declan was in a coma after being seriously wounded in a shootout…"

At the words "seven years ago," my hand jolted.

The edge of the tray dug into my knuckles, nearly causing me to drop the ice water on it.

In the main seat, Declan's body went slightly rigid.

Maeve, however, was on a roll, as if she were sharing a fantastic joke.

"Declan was out cold, and his phone was just lying there on the table. And what do you know, that's when this bitch, Sienna, sent a distress message."

"You'll never guess what it said. Hahaha! 'Declan, save my father. Please. The ransom is only a hundred thousand… I'll give you my life in return.'"

"Tsk, tsk, so pathetic, so pitiful."

"I was thinking, our Declan is destined to be a Don. Why should he be dragged down by the daughter of a common foot soldier? He was meant to rule the city's underworld with me, not be dragged through the mud by trash like that."

"So…" She paused, her eyes growing wilder.

"So, I did Declan a favor and replied for him."

"I deleted her message. Then I copied Declan's tone and replied: 'You're a burden. Go die.'"

"Hahahaha! You have no idea how funny it was. That bitch actually ran out into the downpour and waited outside our safe house all night."

"I was standing right behind the window, watching her get soaked like a drowned rat, watching her fall to her knees and sob in the mud. It was the most satisfying thing I've ever seen!"

"So, you see? I cut out the dead weight for the family. Without me, how could Declan have ever shaken off that dead weight? How could he be sitting on his throne today? Declan, you really should thank me…"

Maeve's triumphant laughter was cut short by a sharp crack.