When I Became the House’s Chip

I tilted my face up and pulled out the practiced, obliging smile.

He froze where he stood.

His eyes were locked on the bruise across my knee.

I'd earned it the night before, kneeling three hours on crushed gravel for a gambler with particular tastes.

Dante's chest rose and fell, hard.

He bit down on his back teeth and kept staring at the bruise.

Once, years ago, I'd tripped at his front step and scraped the skin off my knee. He'd crouched in front of me, cupped my ankle in his hand, and blown very seriously on the red patch.

I'd looked down and seen the top of his head. He told me if he blew on it, it wouldn't hurt. I don't know whether it worked. What I know is that his palm under my ankle was warm.

I lifted my eyes and found him in the crowd.

Same hands. Resting on Sabrina's shoulder now. Not moving.

Around us, the wolves started laughing.

"She's cheap, Mr. Castellano, but she listens! That's the thing about her!"

"Yeah—throw her a few chips and she'll crawl like a dog. That's a deal right there!"

Sabrina wrinkled her nose and fanned the air with a gloved hand. She tucked herself back against Dante's chest.

"Dante, why even look at trash like her? They say she's killing herself in the casino to keep some dirty little side piece in rent."

"She's filth. Don't let her dirty your eyes."

The side piece wasn't just a story.

Two years ago, when I was carrying Emily, I'd gone to Dante's once to tell him about the baby. I never made it inside. Down at the curb, I ran into the man Sabrina had arranged.

A man I'd never seen in my life, walking out of my building's stairwell with a scarf wrapped around his hand. My scarf. One I'd left at Dante's place. How he'd gotten it, I don't know.

Dante was downstairs too.

He saw.

I tried to explain. He didn't give me the chance. He asked the man one question. The man answered. I couldn't hear it.

Dante turned around and walked back upstairs. He didn't look back.

Two days later, the fake paternity test landed in his hands.

After that, he didn't come looking for me—not because he couldn't. Because he didn't need to. What he'd seen on the street and what was printed on that report added up to the same thing.

He shoved Sabrina off him, hard.

She stumbled two steps. Shock bloomed across her face.

Dante walked straight to the cashier's cage.

The server's tray shook as he got close.

He leaned down and picked up a black chip between two fingers. His shirt cuff was white under the chandelier. The knuckles holding the chip were rough with calluses—the kind you get from years of handling a gun, or cards. Cold, hard, quiet.

A black chip in the Vegas underground meant no-limit obedience. Half a million dollars.

Sabrina came around from his side. She took the chip between two fingers, weighed it in her palm, and dropped it onto the carpet at my feet.

"Let me set the terms."

She leaned down to my ear, voice soft as a secret.

"Take the red dress off. In front of every man in this room. Half a million is yours."

She straightened up beside Dante and looked up at him.

"You don't mind. Do you, Dante?"

Dante said nothing.

He had a cigar between his fingers. Unlit. He was looking at me.

The whole floor went quiet.

In the shadows by the wall, the floor manager—Marco Benetti—had his fist clenched around a radio.

Two years ago, the night I was thrown into the game, Marco had been on this same floor. Afterward, he never asked me anything about it. Once in a while he found a way to look out for me a little. That was all.

But Marco was staff. He didn't have the standing to stand up to Dante in front of the house.

I dropped my eyes to the black chip at my feet.

Half a million.

Enough.

Emily's medication for tomorrow was covered.

I looked down at the red dress.

And thought of another dress. White. The one I'd worn the day he took me to the beach.

The wind had been strong. The dress kept lifting. He'd stepped behind me and pressed my hem down, mouth at my ear. Don't let them see.

Back then I'd thought he'd hold the hem for me forever.

I reached back and pulled the zipper down.

The red dress slipped off my shoulders and pooled at my ankles.

What the chandelier lit up was my back—a map of puncture marks, crossed over and over. Bruises left by years of selling blood past the legal limit to pay for milk and medicine.

The casino had been loud a second ago. Now it was silent.

Dante went rigid where he stood.

The unlit cigar dropped out of his fingers.

His eyes were nailed to the marks on my back.

The yellow-toothed gambler swallowed.

He rubbed his hands together and reached for the scars.

"Combat-damaged. That's more my type—"

Dante grabbed an ice pick off the gaming table.

He seized the gambler's wrist and drove the pick down through his palm, pinning his hand to the felt.

"AAGH—!"

The scream tore through the hall. Blood sprayed across the chip layout.

Dante stripped off his suit jacket. He came at me in long strides and wrapped it tight around my shoulders.

He said nothing. Not one word.

He turned his head and roared at the bodyguards behind him.

"Take this piece of shit's eyes out!"

"Clear the floor. Now."

The enforcers drew their weapons and started herding the crowd. The hall went to chaos—screaming, men begging.

I pulled the jacket closed around me. Bent down, and from the pool of blood at the yellow-toothed gambler's feet I picked up the black chip.

I wiped the blood off it with the hem of the jacket.

Then I lifted my head to Dante.

"Mr. Castellano. Paid in full."

I held the chip up between us.

"This chip—can I take it to the cage for cash. Now."