Page 1 of Ace of Hearts

Prologue

Levi

March

Saint Petersburg, Russia

“No!” I snarl, struggling like a demon. “Let her go! She didn’t do anything!”

Powerful arms lock around me, but I’m still shouting, tears streaming down my cheeks, the muscles of my face contorted in panic. They can’t do this. They’ve got no right to take her away from me, not like this, not now. I need her, just as she needs me.

She won’t last ten seconds in the place where they’re taking her. I’m the only one who can protect her. I always have been.

But this time, I’ve failed at my duty.

“I’m the guilty one!” I bellow again, desperate now. “Stop! You’ve got the wrong person!”

Roaring with anger, I ram my elbow into the stomach of the policeman who holds me, free myself, and run to her.

Everyone’s shouting, and someone tries to stop me, but I manage to reach her and throw my arms around her frail shoulders.

Those delicate, familiar shoulders I rode on a hundred times when I was small.

Shoulders that carried all the worries I could never help her bear . ..

It’s all my fault. I sob despairingly into her hair like I’m a child of five and not a teenager, begging her not to abandon me. I know she’d hold me tight if her arms weren’t handcuffed behind her back.

“Levi, don’t cry. It’ll be all right, my angel.”

“You need to let her go, boy.”

No. No. But there’s nothing I can do. Three police officers pull me backward so hard that I fall to my knees, my shoulders trembling. My mother smiles at me from a long way off. She isn’t crying. In fact, she’s completely calm.

“Don’t do anything stupid. Do you understand?” she says firmly. “Stop crying. We’ll see each other soon. I love you.”

I shake my head, unable to hold back my tears. People I’ve never seen before are taking her by the arm and leading her away. She looks at me one last time, then turns her back to me. I feel as if all the light inside me were going out as the best part of me walks away and disappears.

What am I supposed to do now? I’m still in shock. I’m trembling like a leaf, unable to get up even when my uncle comes and stands next to me. He pats my shoulder and tells me to be a man, then takes me back home with him. I’ll have to stay there until I’m old enough to make my own way.

He offers no words of comfort, nothing to reassure me. He acts as though nothing happened, as though my mother won’t rot in prison for having killed my father.

Mom, why did you do it?

After the terrible day of the trial, I hardly ever see her.

I’m allowed to visit or call her only once a month.

She always tells me everything’s fine, and that she’s even made friends with some of the other women in the prison.

I don’t believe her, but I pretend to. And when it’s my turn to tell her about my life, I do the same: I lie.

I say I’m doing well at school, not drinking too much, and not staying out late.

I wish that were true, but how else am I supposed to deal with all the feelings that prey on me night and day?

I want to die.

People keep telling me to get on with my life, not to skip school, to make my mother proud. Instead, I’m growing into an angry teenager. Angry with my father, my mother, myself. But most of all with one man. Because we always need someone to blame for our problems, don’t we?

I see his face in the newspaper a few weeks after the incident. He’s more well-known than I thought: an entrepreneur who made a fortune before he was forty (a hundred million euros, no big deal) from a music-streaming app. But he’s also been photographed in casinos and at poker tournaments.

I stare at the page: a report about an interview he gave to Italian television. I begin to boil with rage as I read the journalist’s questions to him about the “tragic death” of my father, a top poker player. Tito Ferragni, my father’s rival and great nemesis, gave the following reply:

“It’s unfortunate, naturally ... Who could have seen that coming? But you know what they say: One man’s loss is another man’s gain. We must live while we can! And there’s nothing standing between me and victory now.”

I sit there, open-mouthed and indignant, staring at the Russian translation of his comments.

How dare he say such a thing? He couldn’t have cared less about what happened.

My father dedicated his life to that rivalry.

It meant everything to him. Far more even than my mother and I ever did.

But Tito hasn’t got a scrap of honor or loyalty.

He’s just thrilled that he has a better chance of winning now that my father’s dead.

He started it. He was the one who betrayed and humiliated my father.

All our problems began with him. Everything’s his fault.

It’s because of him that my childhood is ruined, my father’s dead, and my mother will be in prison for ten long years.

And he’s not even ashamed to say such things on television .

.. while he remains free and unpunished, rich even, and admired by everyone around him.

Gazing at the article, I make a silent vow: No matter how long it takes, no matter what it costs me, I will make Tito Ferragni pay.

And after all, I have nothing left to lose now anyway.

“ Shall I repeat the question, Monsieur Ivanovich?”

I shake myself out of my waking dream, suddenly aware of the group of journalists crowding around me as I stand outside my hotel.

I curse myself for allowing my mind to wander back to that dark period of my life at a moment like this, in front of a crowd of people.

I knew when I left my hotel room that they would be outside waiting.

In fact, I told Thomas to get them to come.

I need them to pass on a message for me.

I stand lost in thought, holding the back door of the taxi open. I’m no longer the seventeen-year-old boy I was when my father died. My resentment and my thirst for revenge remain, but the feelings are quieter, tamer. I’ve become patient and calculating where I once was impulsive and hurried.

“I’m sorry. What were you saying?” I ask politely.

“The World Series of Poker starts in two months, and you’ve already said you’ll be playing.

You came second in the Main Event last year, so everyone’s going to be watching you at the tournament.

You’re making a name for yourself faster than anyone, even your father, has before. What can you tell us about your goals?”

I pretend to reflect as the winter wind of Saint Petersburg whips at my coat.

In fact, I’ve been waiting impatiently for someone to ask me this.

I think back to the words Tito used in that interview, to how happy he looked at the idea of no longer having a rival.

But most of all, I think about the first time I met him, six years ago.

I was twenty-one, and I’d just spent all my savings on the tournament entry fee: ten thousand euros.

I didn’t have a single cent left. When we finally found ourselves at the same table, I made sure to shake his hand.

He seemed amused by my nerve—or my stupidity—and when he asked if I was a fan, I replied exactly as I’d promised myself I would a few years earlier, stumbling over the English words.

“I’m the one who’ll bring you down. Levi Ivanovich. Remember that name.”

I smile, remembering how quickly his arrogance melted away. He recognized my name immediately, of course—the same one as his old friend, now dead. Tito still didn’t see me as a threat, though. Not yet.

“To tell you the truth ...,” I say now to the camera as someone holds a microphone toward me, “this is going to be my last year at the WSOP.”

Eyes widen in surprise, and the reporters all move closer to ask for more details. I raise my hand for silence. I take my time, fixing the camera with a stony look, hoping that somewhere in the world, in Venice or wherever he may be, Tito Ferragni is watching me and wetting his pants.

“I’ve decided to retire from professional poker.”

There’s a murmur of surprise. I revel in their astonishment, feeling drunk with excitement. The trap is well and truly set .

“Already?”

“But you’re so young! Why now?”

One journalist catches my attention when he asks with a puzzled look, “What happened to that young man full of ambition we all know so well? I remember your first year at the Main Event. You said, and I quote, ‘I won’t stop until I’m number one.’”

I nod calmly. “True. And as I’ve decided this is my last year, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

“Are you saying you’re going to win?”

He knows the answer, but he wants to hear me say it. I don’t hesitate for a second—it’s not my style.

“Exactly.”

My inner voice sniggers and tells me I’m an arrogant asshole. I can’t deny it.

“You seem very confident. Tito Ferragni, your main rival at this point, and your father’s rival in the past, has also confirmed he’ll be playing ...”

“Tito is very good, but he’s sadly lacking in originality. And what with his rocky marriage and his failing business, he’s showing his age!” I say. And then I add, certain that he and he alone will recognize the words, “But you know what they say: One man’s loss is another man’s gain.”