Page 179 of Queen of Volts

“Whobetterthan me?” Enne demanded.

“Even if you have people swooning over your romance once again,” Harrison told her, “just as many are still wary of your reputation. I’m sorry—I believe in you, and I know how much this means to you. But even in this position, there’s only so much I can do.”

Enne slumped into her seat. “Without the city’s money, it’s impossible.” Just another story for herself stolen away from her.

“You know,” Grace said slowly, “there are lots of ways of getting money. You see this new currency some thickhead came up with? Paper! Ha! It’s like they’re asking for some North Sider to counterfeit it.”

Enne’s eyes widened, shocked at Grace suggesting something criminal in front of Harrison. But a smile played at Harrison’s lips. He stood up.

“I think I best be going. You’re no doubt planning a nightmare for my administration, and I can’t go incriminating myself so early in my term.”

Before he exited, Enne swore she saw Harrison wink.

“Can we actually do this?” Enne asked Grace.

“This is the City of Sin. We can do whatever we want,” she answered.

Though Enne knew she could’ve fit in wherever she wanted in New Reynes—the North or the South Sides—shehadalways made a far better gangster than she had a lady. And revitalizing the Ruins District felt...right. If the world would never see Enne as anything other than a criminal, then Enne was not opposed to criminal measures.

“Careful, this could really sully my new reputation, having a gangster for a girlfriend,” Levi said, smirking. “But I think I know a few Irons who might be interested in new employment.”

“And the gangs have all been dissolved,” Grace pointed out. “It’s like the North Side isaskingfor someoneto take advantage of it. It might as well be us, really.”

Enne’s heart sped up. Barely three weeks ago, she’d convinced the City of Sin that she was nothing more than a lovestruck teenager. Before that, she’d been one of its most notorious street lords in almost two decades. And before that, just a girl, lost, naïve, in way over her head.

But the City of Sin wasn’t finished with her yet.

“Do you have a deck of cards?” Enne asked Levi. “Or a coin? Something to—”

“Of course I do. Who do you think I am?” Levi asked. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a deck of classic playing cards, and Enne slid them out of the packaging. “What are you doing?”

“A black card means doing this is too dangerous, because it is—we know it is. And I’ll find some other way to fix the Ruins District. I’ll keep playing the good girl until the world really sees me that way.”

Grace snorted. “That’s a game you’ll be playing for a long time.”

“A red card,” Enne continued, “means we play it as Sinners.”

Enne glanced at the card, careful to keep the suit hidden from Levi and Grace beside her, to mold her face into the neutral countenance that suited any lady or gangster. Because the point of this gimmick wasn’t to let the powers of fate make Enne’s decisions for her—it was to remind herself of the greatest lesson of New Reynes.

It didn’t matter what cards you were dealt.

The City of Sin was a game, and the only way to win was to stack the cards in your favor.