The Queen of Cards Walks Away

Since waking up in this second life, I let my mob boss husband's calls ring out. His texts went straight to the trash.

I spent my nights glued to VIP booths with my girls, drowning in a sea of eager frat boys panting like dogs for our attention.

On my eighth consecutive hangover, braless and stumbling up the front steps, I hit a roadblock. Zayne blocked the double doors.

A solid wall of muscle and tailored wool. "Where did the guy who bought you drinks touch you?" I giggled through the tequila haze. "My hands. Obviously.

The dice cup doesn't shake itself." A thick vein pulsed at his temple. He didn't look away from me as he addressed the heavy hitters waiting in the shadows. "Find him.

Take his hands." I let out a dry scoff and shouldered past him into the foyer. "Knock yourself out." In my last life, I bled for this marriage for eight years.

They called me the Queen of Cards. I rigged the tables, bled the competition dry, and won back the Canaan Underground Casino for him.

I dragged him from a streetlevel outlaw in the gutters to the uncrowned king of the syndicate. But the second he secured his empire, he threw me away. All for Willa.

The casino's shiny new dealer. Chapter 1 The girl's name was Willa. Sold to the underground like a piece of meat. Clean and fragile as a blank sheet of paper.

Zayne tucked her away in the VIP dealer lounge. He spent hours pressing her small hands over the decks, personally teaching her how to deal and read the chips.

I didn't suspect a thing until I hacked into the syndicate's core database.

Right there, glaring on the highdefinition monitor, my profile was updated. [ Marital Status: Divorced ] When I confronted him, Zayne didn't even look up from his desk. "Willa has nothing.

With a title, the bottomfeeders will stop circling her." He flicked his lighter. "Everyone knows you run this syndicate with me.

Why are you tripping over a piece of paper?" I stormed the VIP lounge. The crack of my palm against Willa's cheek echoed across the silent room.

That same night, my little brother, Asher—the kid who bled to build Zayne’s empire—was dragged into the alley behind the casino.

They shattered his kneecaps with a steel pipe right in front of me. "Inez." Zayne’s voice was dead flat over the sickening crunches. "Consider this a lesson for touching Willa." I slammed my knees onto the concrete.

I begged. I clawed at his trousers until my fingernails cracked and bled. Asher's face drained to ash. His chest stopped moving. He died right there on the wet asphalt.

A violent cramp tore through my lower abdomen. Hot, thick blood pooled between my thighs. The world went pitch black. My eyes snapped open. I was back.

Back to the exact day I discovered the altered database. This time, my throat stayed dry. I bypassed the screaming and the tears.

I fenced every diamond necklace and Rolex I owned on the black market and bought two oneway tickets out of the country.

I was going to grab Asher and vanish from the meat grinder named Zayne. I hit confirm on the flight itinerary.

After seeing the digital system change, I drove straight to the County Clerk’s office to pull the public records. "Ma'am, the system shows the final divorce decree was filed." The clerk slid the stamped paperwork across the glass.

The cold, embossed seal on the paper solidified the nightmare. My past life wasn't a hallucination. The filing date matched my birthday.

I had rented out the Canaan's rooftop revolving restaurant that night, thinking Zayne was just tied up with syndicate business. I ordered fireworks.

I waited from sunset until the skyline bled into the next dawn. He never showed. He was too busy signing his name on a piece of paper to erase my existence.

I pulled myself out of the memory. As I walked back to the casino's main entrance, Zayne's black Maybach was already idling at the curb.

In my previous life, I charged forward, screaming for answers. Zayne's head had snapped toward the passenger seat.

Before Willa could even unbuckle her seatbelt, he planted a heavy boot into my ribs, kicking me into the alley shadows. This time, I ducked out of sight.

I pressed my back against the cold concrete of a valet pillar. The driver's door popped. Zayne stepped out. He didn't wait for the valet.

He walked around to the passenger side and pulled the door open himself. The movement was painstakingly gentle. Foreign. A girl in a pale blue sundress stepped onto the pavement.

She looked like a trembling fawn caught in the neon glare of the casino marquee, utterly out of place. Willa.

Zayne shrugged off his tailored suit jacket and draped it over her narrow shoulders.

His heavy arm wrapped securely around her waist, guiding her toward the gilded double doors. "Zayne…" Willa dragged her heels, her voice wavering. "I don't have anyone left.

Only you… I really can't afford to lose this gamble." Zayne stopped. He turned fully toward her, pulling her flush against his chest.

His tone carried a solid, grounding warmth I had never been allowed to hear. "What are you scared of? You are the lady of this house now.

Nobody else gets that title." He smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. "If the casino life gets too loud, I'll buy a private island.

Build you a quiet resort." Chapter 2 The syndicate muscle, the same guys who used to walk two steps behind me with their heads bowed, now parted like the Red Sea for Willa.

They bent at the waist, their voices carrying a sickeningly sweet pitch. "Evening, Madam." They swarmed the trembling girl, escorting her into the gilded slaughterhouse.

I pressed my palms hard against my stomach. I held my breath in the shadows until the heavy brass doors clicked shut. I stepped out onto the pavement. No tears.

Just the sharp, metallic taste of dead weight dropping from my shoulders. I drove straight to a private clinic and paid cash for the abortion.

The doctor's brow creased as he stared at the ultrasound monitor. "Inez, with your medical history… you've spent seven years trying to conceive.

If we terminate this pregnancy, the uterine scarring might be permanent.

You likely won't ever carry a child." A dry, hollow laugh scraped the back of my throat. "I'm a divorced woman.

I won't bring a kid into a world with a ghost for a father." The cold IV fluid pushed into my vein. The clinic lights blurred out. In the chemical haze, a memory flickered.

Zayne pressing his ear flush against my flat stomach, his low laugh vibrating against my skin as he swore our kid was going to be a card sharp.

He used to say he’d teach the baby to read a deck before they could walk.

I remembered him paying off fortune tellers for lucky names, wrapping his arms around me in the dark, and promising that the second he found a successor, we were done.

We’d take the kid, pack our bags, and travel the globe. Then the hallucination snapped.

The memory of his warm hands shattered into dust, replaced by the echo of his voice whispering to Willa: Nobody else gets that title.

I woke up with a hollow ache radiating through my pelvis. I dragged my empty body out of the clinic and went straight to the recovery ward to see Asher.

My little brother had caught a bad break during a supply run, but the injuries were superficial. He'd heal.

In my last life, I watched him get beaten into a bloody pulp on the asphalt. Not this time.

I had already pinged a dark web broker, dropping a heavy premium for two untraceable flight itineraries out of the country in three days.

Zayne owned the TSA checkpoints and local PD; a regular commercial booking would flag his system in seconds.

I made a burner call to my last loyal fixer, wiring him enough crypto to quietly discharge Asher through the service elevator.

The tight knot at the base of my skull finally loosened. I hailed a yellow cab and gave the driver an intersection three blocks away from my safe house.

Standard operational security. When you run a syndicate, the list of people who want you in a body bag stretches from the strip to the harbor.

You never get dropped off at your front door. My boots hit the pavement. A heavy, leatherclad hand clamped over my mouth. I was jerked violently backward into the alleyway.

Adrenaline spiked. I bit down hard on the fingers, twisting my body out of the chokehold. I broke free, my boots slipping on the wet concrete. Two steps.

That was all I managed before steel swung from my blind spot and smashed into my spine. Whitehot agony exploded across my nerve endings.

The impact drove the air from my lungs in a wet gasp. Hot, thick blood soaked through the back of my shirt, sticking to my skin. I didn't need to guess. Retaliation.

Zayne had swallowed up too much territory too fast, and the fallout was coming to collect. My fingers scrambled toward the tactical knife in my purse.

A heavy boot stomped down on my wrist, pinning it to the asphalt. A second set of hands wrenched my arm behind my back, popping the shoulder joint.

My phone was ripped from my pocket and shattered against the brick wall. "Shut up and stay down!" A massive forearm locked around my throat, cutting off my oxygen.

They dragged my dead weight toward a rustedout cargo van idling at the curb. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. My lungs burned for air.

Then, headlights sliced through the alley gloom. A sleek, midnightblack Maybach took the corner from the main avenue. Zayne's car. Survival instinct flooded my veins.

I thrashed against the muscle holding me down, kicking at the van's bumper. I forced a ragged scream through my crushed windpipe. The Maybach's brake lights flared.

The heavy chassis dipped as the driver abruptly slowed down. He saw me. Chapter 3 But the Maybach didn't stop.

The engine roared, tires gripping the asphalt as the heavy car sped past the alley.

Through the tinted glass, I saw Zayne pull Willa flush against his chest, burying her face in his shoulder to shield her eyes.

As if the woman getting dragged into a van outside wasn't his wife. As if I was just a piece of filthy street trash unworthy of dirtying her gaze.

Every muscle in my body went slack. A bonedeep cold hijacked my nervous system. The world bled into black. I woke up to the smell of heavy antiseptic.

I was lying in a private suite. The heavy oak door was cracked open, and low voices bled through the gap. "Zayne, Inez took a massive hit this time.

If she finds out about Willa…" It was Marcus, the syndicate's private doctor. Zayne's voice cut through the air, cold as a scalpel. "Watch your mouth. Your job is to stitch her up.

Nothing else." "She's been in the mud for years. She wrote the playbook on dirty tricks." "Willa isn't like her. She's a blank slate.

She wouldn't survive a minute against Inez." He paused, his tone dropping into a deadly, calculated register. "If she wakes up and starts breaking things… go grab Asher.

That kid is the only leverage we have. She won't risk him." My fingers dug into the sterile white bedsheets until my knuckles popped.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, letting the metallic taste of blood flood my tongue. I remembered the night I handed him the keys to the Canaan Underground.

Inez, he had sworn, from this night on, no one in this city will ever touch a hair on your head. Same promise. Same absolute protection.

Just a different girl standing behind the shield. The woman he used to treat like royalty was now just a tactical threat he had to manage. Boot steps approached the door.

I fluttered my eyes shut, letting my breathing steady into the rhythm of someone just waking up. "You're up. We found them.

It was the Thai crew we busted for counting cards last month." Zayne dropped a manila folder onto my lap. "Sign this settlement agreement.

In exchange, they hand over the East District." The East District. The only coastal territory in the city still untouched by the syndicate. No casinos. No blood money.

My mind snapped to his promise to Willa: I'll buy a private island. Build you a quiet resort.

My busted spine and shattered ribs were just the down payment for his new pet's gilded cage. My throat felt like sandpaper. "Zayne.

When exactly did you broker this deal?" Did he negotiate it while I was being choked out in the dirt? Or did he plan on using my blood to pave her driveway from the very beginning?

A deep crease formed between his brows. His jaw tightened with clear impatience at the question. I let out a dry, rattling breath and closed my eyes.

The answer didn't matter anymore. Maybe it was his twisted version of guilt, but for the next two days, Zayne set up his laptop on the hospital sofa.

Yet his phone stayed glued to his palm. Halfway through lunch, he’d snap photos of his food, a soft, easy smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he hit send.

A smile I hadn’t seen in half a decade. I stared at the sharp line of his profile, the sterile room dissolving into a memory from eight years ago.

We didn't meet at a highroller table. We met in a gutter. He had been caught rigging a lowstakes poker game.

Half a dozen guys had backed him into a blind alley with machetes, ready to hack off his arm. Chapter 4 I had just cleaned out a highstakes table.

I paid his bounty in cash and dragged his bleeding body back to my apartment. Later, my father racked up a fatal gambling debt and a cartel pushed him off a roof.

The cartel dragged me into a warehouse to settle the ledger.

The tip of a dirty syringe was millimeters from my vein when Zayne kicked the steel door off its hinges and pulled me out. He had just taken over his first smalltime casino.

He turned me into the invisible Queen of Cards. I rigged the tables, swallowed rival territories, and bled every competitor dry. I knew the grime on my hands would never wash off.

But even if the rest of the world looked at me like dirt, he had no right. After I was discharged, Zayne never showed his face.

He sent a text claiming he was tied up with syndicate business. The flight was tomorrow.

I slipped back up to the casino's penthouse while he was gone, cracking the master safe to grab my passport and a few clean IDs. Stepping out of the elevator, my knees gave out.

I pitched forward. I braced for the hard marble, but a pair of thin arms caught me under my shoulders. "Are you okay?" The voice was soft, laced with a cautious kindness.

I looked up. Straight into Willa's clear eyes. She wore the standard dealer uniform, but she still looked out of place. She didn't recognize my face.

She thought I was just another broken gambler who had lost everything on the floor. "I'm fine. Thanks." I straightened up, needing to bolt. But she didn't let go.

She pulled me toward the employee break room. "You look terrible. Come sit down in the back for a minute." For some reason, I let her pull me.

She poured me a paper cup of warm water and pulled a bag of dried mangoes and a roll from her locker. "Eat something. Don't beat yourself up over the money. Just go home.

Your family must be waiting for you." I stared at her in silence.

She hesitated, dug into her uniform pocket, and pressed a few crumpled bills into my palm. "For cab fare… I can't help with a flight ticket, though." It felt like swallowing glass.

I wanted to tell her to run. To stay as far away from Zayne as possible. That the man didn't have a heartbeat, that his kindness was just arsenic dipped in sugar.

I swallowed the words back down. If she found out who I was, she would blow up on Zayne. He would trace the blast radius right back to me. I had twentyfour hours left.

I wasn't gambling Asher's life on her. I gripped the cash, muttered a thanks, and fastwalked toward the staff exit. My boot cleared the threshold.

Cold steel pressed hard into my temple. A gun barrel. I whipped my head around. Willa was already slumped unconscious on the hallway floor. I tightened my fist to strike.

A rifle butt smashed into the base of my skull. Lights out. When my eyes snapped open, the stench of mildew and rust flooded my lungs.

Willa and I were ziptied to metal chairs in an abandoned warehouse. Willa choked back a sob in the dark. "Who are you?

Why did you take us…" Chapter 5 A guy with a jagged scar down his cheek slapped Willa hard enough to snap her head back. "This is on your fiancé!

Zayne swallowed the West District and choked out our supply lines!" The West District crew.

The same territory Zayne had just secured using my forged settlement and my broken spine as leverage. Good for me, they didn't know my face.

Willa, however, had been paraded around on Zayne's arm all week. She was a walking bullseye. I rolled my wrists in the dark.

My thumb flicked, extending the microblade hidden beneath my acrylic nail to press against the heavy zipties. When you survive in the gutter, you never walk around unarmed.

Scarface assumed I was just a broke gambler caught in the crossfire. He spat at my boots. "Tough luck, bitch. Make a call to your family.

Five million in cash, and you walk." Tears streamed down Willa's pale cheeks. "I'm so sorry I dragged you into this. But don't be scared. My fiancé runs this city.

He'll come for us!" The sheer, blind faith shining in her eyes when she mentioned Zayne was suffocating.

I kept my mouth shut and sawed harder at the thick plastic binding my wrists. Scarface pulled his phone away from his ear. He violently kicked over a rusted oil drum.

The metallic crash echoed through the warehouse. "Motherfucker! Zayne's dodging the calls?

Guess we need to send him a gift in a box to wake him up." He snatched a hunting knife off a crate.

His eyes dragged over Willa's stomach like a filthy rag. "We saw you walk out of that clinic. You're carrying his bastard, aren't you? Perfect.

Let's carve it out and FedEx it to him." My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. She was pregnant. Zayne's kid.

Willa seized up, the blood draining from her face until she looked like chalk. "No!

Please… don't touch my baby!" The other men in the room chuckled, stepping forward and reaching for the hem of her uniform. Snap. The ziptie gave way.

I exploded from the metal chair. My elbow connected solidly with Scarface's jaw, sending him stumbling back.

I ripped the hunting knife from his grip, sliced cleanly through Willa's bonds in one fluid motion, and shoved her firmly behind my back. "Kill that bitch!" Scarface roared, clutching his bleeding mouth.

Six heavy hitters closed the circle, steel pipes gripped tight in their fists. I knew how to fight. But my ribs were still fractured, my spine battered from the alleyway ambush.

Against six cartel thugs, the math wasn't in my favor. Cold steel swung through the air, cracking brutally against my shoulder. Whitehot pain drove me to my knees.

I tucked my chin, curling my body into a human shield over Willa in the corner, absorbing the sickening thuds as heavy pipes rained down on my back. Scarface ran out of patience.

The harsh clack of a slide racking cut through the noise. He leveled a Glock straight at my face. "Die, you dumb bitch." He squeezed the trigger. Boom.

The warehouse loading doors blew off their hinges. Automatic gunfire chewed through the drywall. Zayne flooded the room with his hit squad. He didn't even flinch at the crossfire.

He tore through the chaos straight toward us, dropping to his knees and ripping Willa out from behind me, burying her against his chest. "Willa. I've got you.

I'm here." Willa let out a single, broken sob against his shirt. The adrenaline crash hit her all at once. Her eyes rolled back, and she passed out cold in his arms.

Zayne scooped her up like fragile glass. He carried her out to his idling bulletproof SUV, gently buckling her into the plush leather seat. Then, he turned back around.

He walked toward me. "Inez." His voice was absolute zero. "Why are you here?" I braced a hand against the bloodstained concrete, dragging my shattered body upright.

I met his dead, interrogating stare and let out a dry, rattling laugh. "Are you investigating me?" The back of his hand slammed into my jaw.

The sheer force swept my feet out from under me. I hit the floor hard, the metallic tang of fresh blood instantly flooding my mouth. "I knew it. You set this up.

You arranged this whole kidnapping to scare her off, didn't you?" I spat a mouthful of red saliva onto his polished boots.

My voice was pure gravel. "No." Chapter 6 Zayne hauled a bleeding thug off the concrete by his collar.

He jammed the barrel of his Glock directly against the man's temple. "Who signed the check?" The thug spasmed.

His bloodshot eyes darted toward me, latching onto a desperate, fabricated lifeline. "Her! It was her! She paid us cash to wreck the girl…" The air evacuated my lungs.

Ice water flooded my veins, freezing the blood in my chest. A dry puff of air escaped Zayne's lips. Bang. He didn't blink. He dropped the dead weight to the floor.

He closed the distance between us, his heavy combat boot stepping squarely down onto my fingers. Tendons popped. A wet, jagged scream tore out of my throat. He crouched over me.

His voice dropped low, carrying a terrifying, hollow rhythm. "These hands… they used to be so loyal.

Why are you using them to destroy the only woman I love?" He slid a tactical knife from his belt. The steel caught the dim warehouse light. "I told you, Inez.

You don't touch what belongs to me." The blade flashed downward. My diaphragm seized. The cold steel drove clean through the back of my hand.

The crunch of shattered bone echoed as he pinned my palm directly into the concrete floor