Reborn, I ignored my mafia king husband’s calls and texts. I spent days drinking with pretty boys. On the eighth morning, I found Kaelen at my door. “Which part of you did that man touch?” he growled. “My hand,” I giggled. “How else would we roll dice?” “Cut off his hands,” he ordered his men. I pushed past him. “Do whatever.” In my past life, I was his queen for eight years. I won him the city’s underworld casino and stood by him as he rose to power. But he became obsessed with Stella, a fragile shuffler girl he protected. I discovered he’d changed my marital status to “Divorced” to shield her. When I confronted him, he coldly said, “You’re the queen. Why sweat the small stuff?” I slapped Stella publicly. That night, Kaelen had my brother Leo’s legs shattered before my eyes. “This is your lesson for touching what’s mine,” he sneered. I begged until Leo bled out. Then I collapsed. I woke back on the day I found my status changed. This time, I sold my jewelry, bought a ticket, and planned to escape with my brother—away from Kaelen’s gilded cage. … 1 After seeing my status online, I took my papers to the city clerk’s office for confirmation. “Ms. Galler,” the clerk said, not looking up from her screen. “Our system shows your marriage was officially dissolved.” Hearing her voice, I knew my past life had been terrifyingly real. The date of the dissolution was my birthday. That day, thinking Kaelen was just busy, I had booked out the highest rotating restaurant in the Canaan district, complete with a private fireworks display. I waited from sunset to sunrise. He never showed. He was busy, all right. Busy signing a different piece of paper, erasing my existence from his. I shook off the memory. When I got back to the casino, Kaelen’s black Maybach was parked at the curb. In my last life, I had run up to the car, screaming questions at him. He, afraid Stella would see, had kicked me into a dark corner before she could even get out. This time, I melted into the shadows of a nearby pillar. The driver’s door opened and Kaelen emerged. He walked around to the passenger side and opened the door himself, an act of patience and care I had never witnessed before. A girl in a pale blue dress stepped out, looking timid and out of place beside the gleaming, opulent car. It was Stella. Kaelen shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over her thin shoulders, his arm circling her waist as he guided her toward the casino’s grand entrance. “Kael…” she hesitated, stopping. “I have nothing left but you… I can’t afford to lose this bet…” He turned and pulled her into a tight embrace, his voice holding a gentle certainty I had never heard directed at me. “What are you afraid of? From now on, you’re the mistress of this place. No one else deserves that title.” His voice dropped lower. “And if you don’t like it here, I’ll find you a quiet place, build you a resort of your own to play in…” The same men who used to bow and respectfully call me their queen now bent at the waist for Stella, their voices loud and fawning. “Welcome, Ma’am!” They escorted the terrified, fawn-like girl into the glittering hellhole. I pressed a hand to my stomach, a sharp pain lancing through me. Only after they had all disappeared inside did I stumble out of the shadows. I wiped away a tear, my eyes hardening into chips of ice. I went to the hospital alone and scheduled an abortion. The doctor frowned, looking at the ultrasound screen. “Ms. Galler, you have a complicated medical history. You haven’t been able to conceive for seven years. If you go through with this, you may never be able to get pregnant again.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “I’m divorced. I don’t want my child to be born without a father.” As the cold liquid entered my veins, my consciousness began to drift. In the haze, I saw the old Kaelen, his ear pressed to my belly, laughing and saying our son would be a master of the tables, that he’d have to teach him to read cards from the cradle. I saw him calling a fortune teller to pick the most auspicious name. I saw him holding me, promising that as soon as he found a successor, he’d take me and our child away from the casino, and we’d travel the world… Then, all of it shattered into dust with the memory of his voice: “Only you deserve to be the mistress of this casino.” When I came to, I dragged my hollowed-out body to my brother’s hospital room. This time, Leo had only suffered minor injuries on his last job. He would recover quickly. I wasn’t going to be a fool again. I contacted a black market broker and paid a premium for two tickets to a third-world country, leaving in three days. Going through official channels was too risky; Kaelen would know instantly. I then called my one trusted subordinate, gave him a stack of cash, and told him to arrange for Leo’s discharge, secretly. With everything in place, I finally allowed myself to relax. I hailed a cab, giving an address a few blocks away from our villa. It was a habit born of paranoia—in our world, you never let anyone know exactly where you lived. I had just stepped out of the cab when a hand clamped over my mouth from behind, dragging me backward. I fought, kicking and twisting, breaking free for a split second before another man swung something hard and sharp into my back. An explosion of pain. The warmth of blood soaking through my shirt. I didn’t have to guess. It was one of Kaelen’s rivals. He had conquered so much territory, the line of people who wanted him and his dead was long enough to stretch from the casino to the docks. I tried to reach for the knife in my purse, but my arm was twisted behind my back, and my phone was ripped from my hand and smashed on the pavement. “Stay still, bitch!” the man holding me snarled, dragging me toward a waiting van. Just as despair began to set in, a familiar black Maybach turned the corner from the main road. It was Kaelen’s car. With my last ounce of strength, I screamed, thrashing wildly to get his attention. The car hesitated, slowing down. He saw me. He had to have seen me. But in the next second, the Maybach accelerated, speeding past the intersection without a second thought. Through the window, I saw him pull Stella into his arms, turning her face away from the scene, shielding her eyes. As if I wasn’t his wife being dragged away to be tortured and killed, but just some ugly street brawl, unworthy of staining her innocent gaze. All the fight, all the hope, drained out of me. The pain and the cold washed over me in a final, crushing wave as darkness consumed me. 2 I woke up in a private hospital room. The door was ajar, and I could hear hushed voices from the hallway. “Boss, her injuries are serious this time. If she finds out about Miss Stella…” It was Kaelen’s private doctor. He was cut off by Kaelen’s cold, sharp voice. “Watch your mouth. Your job is to fix her. Nothing else.” He paused. “Zoe’s been in this game for years. There’s no dirty trick she hasn’t seen or pulled herself. She’s a master at it.” “Stella is different. She’s a blank page. She can’t compete with Zoe.” His voice dropped even lower. “When she wakes up, if she starts making trouble, go get her brother. He’s the only family she has left. She won’t risk him.” I gripped the bedsheets, my teeth sinking into my lower lip until I tasted blood. The night I won him the Canaan, he had held me and promised, “Zoe, from this day on, in this city’s underworld, no one will ever touch you again.” The same promise, the same protection. But the person he was protecting had changed. I, who he once treated as a treasure, had become a venomous, dangerous woman to be guarded against. Footsteps approached. I closed my eyes, feigning a slow awakening. “You’re awake.” Kaelen tossed a file onto the bed. “We found out who it was. That Thai loan shark whose hand you crippled for cheating last year.” “Sign this settlement agreement. In exchange, they’ll give up their control of the East District.” The East District. The last clean piece of territory in the city, a coastal area with no casinos, no gray-market industries. I remembered what he’d told Stella: “I’ll find you a quiet place, build you a resort of your own to play in…” So my blood and pain had been bartered for the land to build his new love’s golden cage. “Kaelen,” I asked, my voice hoarse, “when did you make this deal?” Was it in the moment he saw me being dragged away? Or had he planned it all along, paving a road for his sweetheart with my blood? His brow furrowed, clearly irritated by my question. I stretched my lips into a semblance of a smile and said no more. The answer didn't matter anymore. Perhaps to placate me, he stayed with me for the next two days, handling his business from my room. But his phone never left his hand. At meals, he’d take pictures of his food and send them to someone, a gentle smile on his face I had never seen before. Looking at his profile, my mind drifted back eight years. I didn't meet him in a casino. I met him in a dark alley. He’d been caught cheating, surrounded by seven or eight men with machetes. He was about to lose an arm. I had just won big and was feeling generous. I paid off his debt and took him back to my apartment. Later, my father in another country was killed by drug lords over a massive gambling debt. They came for me to settle it, a dirty needle pressed against my vein. It was Kaelen who burst in at the last second and saved me. By then, he had taken over a small casino. He made me the unseen “Queen of the Cards” behind the golden tables. For him, I devoured one casino after another, bled one rival after another dry. I knew my hands were stained with things that could never be washed away. But if the whole world thought I was dirty, he shouldn't have been one of them. After I was discharged, Kaelen used the excuse of being busy and never showed up again. I was leaving the next day. While he was gone, I returned to our penthouse above the casino and emptied the safe of my passport and other essential documents. As I stepped out of the elevator, my legs gave out and I stumbled forward. I braced for the fall, but a pair of delicate hands caught me. “Are you alright?” The voice was soft, laced with a cautious kindness. I looked up into Stella’s clear, innocent eyes. She was wearing a dealer’s uniform, but it still looked alien on her. She didn’t recognize me. She thought I was just another gambler who’d lost everything. “I’m fine, thank you,” I said, straightening up, eager to leave. But she didn’t let go. Instead, she gently pulled me toward the staff break room. “You look terribly pale. You should rest for a bit.” For some reason, I didn't refuse. She poured me a glass of warm water and took a bag of dried mango and a piece of bread from her locker. “Have something to eat. Don’t be too sad about losing. Your family is probably waiting for you at home.” When I didn't speak, she hesitated, then pulled a few bills from her pocket and pressed them into my hand. “This is for a cab… I wish I could help with your ticket, though.” My throat felt tight. I wanted to scream at her, Stay away from Kaelen. That man has no heart. His gentleness is poison coated in honey. But the words died on my lips. If she knew who I was, she would confront him. And then, I would be the one to blame. I had one day left. I couldn't gamble my brother’s life, or my own. I accepted her kindness, thanked her, and hurried out the back door. I had just stepped over the threshold when something cold and hard pressed against my temple. A gun barrel. I whipped my head around. Stella was lying unconscious on the hallway floor. Before I could react, the butt of the gun slammed into the back of my neck, and the world went dark.
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