The air in the VIP cabin was stifling, a claustrophobic mix of forbidden cigar smoke, the metallic tang of expensive gin, and the electric tension of a firing squad. There were six of us at the obsidian table: a Russian oligarch whose knuckles were scarred from a lifetime of violence, a silent tech heiress with eyes like glass beads, Lucian, Julian, myself, and a man whose face was obscured by a silk mask—the ghost at the table.
"The game is 'Blind Man's Poker'," Lucian announced, his long, manicured fingers drumming a rhythmic, hypnotic beat on the felt. "One card to each player. You do not see your own card; you only see the cards of your opponents. You bet on the strength of your own hand based on what you see around you. It is a game of pure perception. Or," he added, a cruel smile touching his thin lips, "pure deception."
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. This was the ultimate test of everything Josephine had taught me. I couldn't rely on my hands; I had to rely on the micro-movements of Lucian's pupils, the way the oligarch's jaw tightened, and the reflection of the world in the eyes of my enemies. I had to figure out the card stuck to my own forehead by reading the fear and greed of others.
The first round was a massacre of nerves. The tech heiress folded within minutes, losing a hundred thousand without a word. The Russian pushed in half a million, his face a granite mask, his breath smelling of aged vodka. Julian sat beside me, a pillar of frozen stone, his dark eyes never leaving Lucian's face.
"You look nervous, Isabella," Lucian said, leaning across the table until I could see the broken capillaries in his eyes. "Your pulse is thumping in your throat like a drum. Are you afraid your husband has overplayed his hand? Or are you realizing that you're the smallest fish in a very large tank?"
"I'm not nervous, Lucian," I lied, my voice steady only because I was using the grounding technique Jo had taught me—focusing on a single point of light in the crystal chandelier until the rest of the room became a manageable blur. "I'm just impatient. I was told the Syndicate had giants. So far, all I see is a man who spends more time talking than playing."
I glanced around the table. Lucian's card was an Ace of Diamonds. The Russian had a King. Julian had a Jack. If I had anything lower than a Jack, we were finished. Our million would vanish into Lucian's coffers, and my father would be executed before sunrise. I looked at Julian. He was staring at my card. His pupils were slightly dilated—a sign of adrenaline. Was it fear for our failure, or a silent signal?
Then, I saw it. In the high-polish finish of the obsidian table, reflecting the cards like a black mirror, I saw the ghost of a shape. My card. It was black. A Ten? No, the curves were different. A Queen. The Queen of Spades.
My talisman. The card of the widow, the strategist, the survivor.
"I raise," I said, my voice cutting through the silence like a blade. I reached into Julian's bag and slid the entire million-dollar voucher into the center of the table. The movement was so sudden, so reckless, that the Russian oligarch actually gasped.
Julian's head snapped toward me, his jaw clenching. This wasn't the plan. We were supposed to play the long game, to bleed them slowly. But the 'Siren' inside me had finally woken up. I knew Lucian held an Ace—the highest card visible—but I also knew he was a narcissist who couldn't stand the idea of being out-bluffed by a woman he considered a piece of jewelry.
"All in?" Lucian's eyes flared with a dark, manic delight. "You're betting your life, your husband's career, and your very soul on a card you haven't even seen? That isn't gambling, Isabella. That's a very public suicide."
"Call, or fold, Lucian," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, lethal whisper. "Unless the Syndicate is shorter on cash than the rumors on the docks suggest. Is the big bad wolf afraid of a girl?"
Lucian's smile vanished instantly. The silence in the cabin became a vacuum, the only sound the distant, rhythmic groaning of the yacht's hull against the waves. He looked at my card—the Queen—and then at his own Ace. He knew he had the mathematical advantage. But he was looking for the trap. He was looking for the 'why' behind my confidence. He was paralyzed by his own suspicion.
"I call," Lucian whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and greed.