Page 18 of Devil’s Gambit

BELLA

The city slides past the limousine windows like a fever dream painted in neon and shadow.

Manhattan at night, dressed in its finest jewelry—streetlights strung like diamonds, windows glowing amber in towers that scrape the sky.

I press my fingers against the cool glass, watching my reflection overlay the blur of wealth and promise outside.

My breath fogs the window slightly. In the reflection, I catch Dante watching me, his face half-hidden in shadow, half-lit by passing streetlights. The interplay of light and dark across his features feels like a metaphor I'm too nervous to examine.

"Almost there," Marco calls from the driver's seat, his voice carrying that perpetual note of amusement, like life is a joke only he understands.

Sofia sits beside him in the passenger seat, her posture rigid.

The limo turns, and suddenly the world explodes into light.

The Ashford Foundation gala is being held at the Blackthorne Mansion, a Gilded Age monument to excess that somehow survived into our century of glass and steel.

Tonight, it's transformed into something from a fairy tale.

Every window blazes gold. Strings of lights web between ancient oaks.

A red carpet flows down the steps like fresh blood.

And the cameras. God, the cameras.

"Showtime," Dante murmurs.

The limo glides to a stop, and the cacophony hits even through the bulletproof glass. Photographers shouting, cameras clicking like mechanical insects, the din of Manhattan's elite performing charity for an audience.

A valet opens my door, and the night air hits me—cool, tinged with exhaust and expensive perfume, a particular cocktail of smells that is New York dressed for a gala. My heel touches the red carpet, and the cameras swing toward us like predators scenting prey.

"Mr. Caruso! Over here!"

"Dante! Who's your date?"

"Is this the new Mrs. Caruso?"

Dante's hand on my lower back is steady, grounding.

He guides me up the carpet, stopping at precisely the right angles for photos, his smile calibrated to suggest wealth without ostentation, power without threat.

I try to match him, but mine feels too young, too eager.

Not the practiced ennui of old money but the desperate brightness of someone trying too hard.

In the blast of flashbulbs, I’m exposed, every secret written on my skin to read.

"You're amazing," Dante whispers against my ear, his breath warm in the cool night. "Just breathe."

No one asks about the Inferno. No one mentions shootings or territory wars or women won in poker games. To them, Dante Caruso is simply a successful casino owner, a businessman who donates generously to cancer research. The devil wearing Armani, hiding in plain sight.

Behind us, Marco's laugh carries over the crowd, playing his part perfectly—the charming younger brother, all easy smiles and harmless flirtation. Sofia moves like a shadow at the edge of my vision, her eyes never leaving me even as she maintains appropriate servant distance.

The mansion's entrance is a mouth ready to swallow us whole. We pass through doors that have welcomed Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, into a foyer that makes Dante's wealth look modest.

The interior assault on my senses is immediate and overwhelming.

Crystal chandeliers cascade from coffered ceilings, throwing light that fractures into rainbow prisms against champagne flutes and diamond necklaces.

The air is thick with competing perfumes—Tom Ford and Chanel and a custom eau de parfum that probably costs more per ounce than gold.

Beneath it, the subtler scents: furniture polish on mahogany, the slight must of old money, champagne fizzing into the atmosphere.

The crowd moves like a single organism, beautiful and poisonous. Women in gowns glide past on heels that click against marble like expensive typewriters. Men in tuxedos that fit like second skins cluster in corners, their laughter rich and hollow. Everyone holding champagne. Everyone lying.

How many of them are like us? I wonder, watching a silver-haired woman air-kiss someone's cheek with practiced insincerity. How many criminals are here playing dress-up, washing blood money clean with charity donations and small talk of summer homes?

"The Commission," Dante says quietly, his hand steering me toward a cluster of older men near the grand staircase.

They could pass for grandfathers. Kind faces, silver hair, the comfortable paunches of men who enjoy good wine and better cigars. You'd never guess they decide who lives and dies in New York's underworld.

The tallest one turns toward us. His gray hair is thick and healthy, flowing back from his forehead in waves.

A full beard frames his face—the kind of beard that belongs on a ship's captain or a tenured professor.

His face is grandfatherly in the truest sense, with laugh lines that suggest years of smiling.

You'd trust this man with your children.

You'd never suspect those gentle hands have ordered more deaths than most serial killers.

"Dante." He extends his hand, his smile warm as fresh bread. "So good to see you."

"Domenico." Dante shakes his hand with the right amount of pressure, the perfect balance of respect and strength. "May I present Isabella, my wife."

Domenico's eyes turn to me, and despite his benign appearance, I’m being evaluated, weighed, and measured. His gaze lingers on the fading mark on my neck, the particular way I stand close to Dante, the microscopic tension in my shoulders.

"Mrs. Caruso." He takes my hand, bringing it to his lips in an old-world gesture that should be charming but feels like being marked. "What a pleasure. Though I must say, I'm hurt not to have been invited to the wedding."

The words are a test. There was no wedding, and everyone here knows it.

But I've been trained for this, years of performing for Sal's associates, playing whatever role kept me safest. A small smile curves my lips.

"It was very small," I say, my voice pitched to carry the right note of new-bride contentment. "Just family in Tuscany. The same church where my grandmother was married."

The lie flows smooth as aged wine. I even add a little touch—reaching for Dante's hand like I can't help but touch him, the gesture of a woman still dizzy with new love.

"The same place you married Salvatore, no?" Domenico's voice stays grandfather-gentle, but the trap is there, waiting.

I don't flinch. "The same town. Different church. I wanted something... untainted."

"Of course." His laugh booms across the foyer, drawing glances. "And when can we expect little Carusos running around? You can't keep that bloodline to yourself forever, Dante."

Before Dante can answer, I study Domenico's face more carefully.

His eyes don't quite match his smile, his laugh coming a beat too late.

I know this look—I've worn it myself for two years, perfected it in mirrors while preparing for Sal's business dinners.

It's the face of someone who's lied so long they've forgotten what truth looks like.

But I recognize it because I am it. Takes one to know one, as they say.

We're two actors spotting each other across a stage, both knowing the other is playing a part but unsure who's the better liar.

Something shifts in me, a decision crystallizing. If we're both lying, then the only power is in admitting it first. In controlling the narrative by destroying it.

I step forward slightly, my smile sharpening into something with teeth.

"I should clarify something." My voice drops, intimate but carrying. "Since everyone seems so interested in our relationship."

The surrounding conversation quiets. Other Commission members drift closer, sharks scenting blood in the water. Domenico’s eyes tighten ever so slightly at the corners.

"Yes, Dante won me in a poker game." I drop the words like stones into still water, letting them ripple. "Sal sold me. Clean and simple. Like a watch or a car."

Now Domenico's mask does slip, for a heartbeat. The grandfather disappears, and cold surprise flashes underneath. He didn't expect truth in a room built on lies.

"So, you might think I'm a whore he's keeping," I continue. "A prize. A decoration. But what we have is mutual. Consensual. Real in ways you men might not understand or expect."

I step closer to Dante, let my body language tell its own story—the way I angle toward him without thought, the unconscious synchronicity of our breathing, the particular tension that speaks of nights spent learning each other's geography.

"We're serious about each other. More serious than most of the marriages in this room, I'd bet. After all, how many of these wives chose their husbands versus their husbands' bank accounts?"

Domenico laughs again, but it's different now. Appreciative. Like I've passed some test I didn't know I was taking. The grandfather returns, but I can see the calculation behind it now—the way he's reassessing, recalibrating.

"Bene, L'amore vero!" He claps his hands together. "Just like in the old country, no? When men were men and women were—how do you say—forces of nature."

The other Commission members join his laughter, the tension breaking like a fever. They drift away to other conversations, other evaluations, leaving Dante and me in a pocket of relative quiet.

"What the hell was that?" Dante's voice is low, controlled, but I hear something underneath. Not anger. Something more complex.

"I started with lies," I admit, watching Domenico disappear into the crowd.

"The wedding story, the romance. Then I realized—a man like that?

He's been lying longer than I've been alive.

He'd see through any story I could spin.

I could see it in his face, the same warmth I used to wear for Sal's associates. "

"So, you told the truth."