High Stakes (Empire Of Chance #2)
Chapter 1
One
F allon
The soft, eerie lilt of my voice reciting the rhyme reverberates through the cramped, shadow-filled room, barely above a whisper. My father used to sing this to me as a child when I caught fireflies.
“In the dark where shadows creep,
Little Firefly takes her leap,
Wings aglow, she dances light,
Unaware of the Spider’s sight.”
Little did he know those words held a different meaning for me back then. Now, I no longer have fireflies to whisper to in the dark—only silence and the growing weight of the darkness, which seems to deepen every day.Each syllable is a fragile thread connecting me to my past. Back then, fireflies weren’t just bugs in a jar. They were my only light in the pitch-black—a tiny, flickering hope in a world filled with fear. Even as a little girl, I learned darkness was more than the absence of light. It was alive, moving, breathing. Feeding on my terror.
Dad called me "Firefly." The memory tugs at something deep inside me, the way I used to chase those tiny sparks through the warm summer dark. If only he knew what they truly meant to me. How I used to comfort my baby sister, whispering stories of tiny lights fighting spiders while we were trapped in that windowless room where sunlight was a myth, and silence came from my only friend, a baby too sick even to cry.
The memory stings. Suddenly, I’m back in that place—or maybe I never really left. Maybe I’m still that scared little girl, hiding from shadows and soundless monsters. Years of therapy convinced me I had moved on. But Leone has forced me back into the dark, and now I know the truth: I never escaped. Trauma doesn’t disappear; it waits. It waits for someone like Leone to drag it back to the surface. He showed me that even the trauma I tuck away can resurface and how even a grown woman can still be scared of the boogie man. Leone is proof that monsters are real. They don’t hide under the bed or lurk in closets. They wear human faces. Only it's not the figment of my imagination that scares me now, it's knowing the boogie man does exist, and he wears the face of a man now, one I gave my hand to.
I've learned monsters know your name, hold your hand, and pretend to love you.
The room around me is as suffocating as Grandma’s old walk-in closet. The air is heavy and stale, filled with the bitter tang of despair. My hands are cuffed to the steel chair. The cold metal bites into my wrists, leaving raw, bloody welts. My fingers have gone numb.
I’m still in the same room where everything changed. A week has passed, or so I think. My only sense of time comes from counting Leone’s visits, each one dragging me further into this nightmare.
The dim light filtering beneath the door is the only light here, but even that feels cruel. It casts flickering shadows on the floor, teasing me with movement in the stillness. My eyes flutter closed, but I can’t block out the memory of that night. It plays on repeat, vivid and merciless.
I still hear the gunshot. See the flash of light. Feel the way the air shattered, along with my resolve.
Leone’s voice, sharp and cold, has carved itself into my mind:
“You gambled with lives; now watch me take them. Maybe now you’ll understand—the house always wins.”
The bang that followed still echoes in my ears. It wasn’t Sienna or my father who fell. It was Marcel. Relief tangled with guilt in my chest—relief that it wasn’t them, horror that it was someone.
Sienna’s sobs filled the room, her horror raw and guttural. The same cries I heard later when Leone threw her to his men. What he made me watch that night still has my hands trembling. My father’s face, twisted in rage as they dragged him away, is forever etched into my memory.
And now, I wait. For what? I don’t know. Rescue feels impossible, escape even more so. The only thing I can do is sit here, remember, and try to survive.
As I sit tied to a chair in this dark room where nightmares aren’t just made but lived, I realize the game is far from over, and I’m holding a losing hand. Leone’s steps approach—a slow, menacing cadence signaling his daily visit. The door creaks open, light slicing through the darkness, casting long shadows which reach for me like the fingers of a ghost.
He never says anything which is sometimes more maddening because I miss sound. My head drops as his footsteps come closer, the sound of a drumbeat to my rising panic. I brace myself, each breath a shard of glass in my lungs as past and present horrors collide. He is the nightmare in both, only now he’ll also star in my future ones, too.
He stops in front of me, holding a plate. No words are spoken; the silence is deliberate, a method to keep me submerged in the psychological aftermath of that horrifying night.
A chair scrapes across the concrete floor, the harsh sound making me wince. Leone sits before me, spearing something with a fork. After a week, with the stench of Marcel’s decomposing body lingering in the air, my senses are nearly obliterated. Leone’s breathing never changes, proving how unaffected he is by death and its stench. The metallic scent of Marcel’s blood still clings to my skin, thick and sticky. My skin itches and burns from the waste dried on me; it’s all I can smell and feel, burning like acid.
Leone brings the fork to my lips, and I press them tightly shut. I refuse to eat, not from lack of hunger, but because it’s the only shred of control I can cling to. Taking food from him feels like submission. More practically, I dread adding to the humiliation of soiling myself. The dried urine on my skin burns intolerably. The fabric of my dress, stiff and crusty against my skin, scrapes painfully with every slight movement, the sequins cutting into my flesh.
Leone hasn’t allowed me to bathe or use the bathroom since I’ve been chained here—a cruel method to strip me of dignity along with freedom.
Wetting myself was humiliating enough; eating and risking more filth is something I can’t face. My refusal only fuels Leone’s frustration. He grips my face, fingers digging into my hollow cheeks, forcing the fork between my teeth. I muster what little energy I have and spit the food back at him.
He remains silent, his expression unreadable. He wipes his face and angrily throws the plate, making me flinch. It shatters against the wall beside me, sending sharp echoes around the room. I whimper. The glass of water teeters on the table’s edge, always just out of reach, but there to tease me. Leone catches it just in time. My lips, dried and cracked, ache for a taste of water —the only thing I’ve accepted, knowing I need it to live. I can last longer without food.
Leone holds the glass to my lips. For a moment, I think he might relent. Then, with a cruel smirk, he tips the contents into my lap. The cold water soaks through my clothes, adding to my misery. I wince as it stings my chafed thighs.
“You don’t want to eat? Then you don’t drink, either,” Leone snaps, his voice breaking the silence for the first time since that night. He turns and leaves, the light from the hallway briefly illuminating the space before he slams the door, plunging me back into darkness.
The moisture on my tongue from the glass is gone almost immediately, leaving an arid dryness. Desperate for relief, I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood. The coppery taste provides a fleeting reprieve, but it leaves a foul aftertaste. My body trembles from the cold and dampness, and the overwhelming stench of decay fills the air. Marcel’s rotting body is grotesque and what Leone ordered Milo to do to his corpse haunts me.
Once again, I’m left alone in the dark, with only the echo of Leone’s footsteps fading into the distance and the soft drip of water from my saturated dress. Every minute stretches into eternity. Every sound is a potential sign of more torment or fleeting hope of rescue I know will never come.
And as the hours stretch into another night, I’m unsure how much longer I can hold on, or even if I want to. Time doesn’t exist here, only the endless stretch of silence.
I'm half asleep when something tickles my wrist. I freeze. The sensation moves up my arm—a spider. My breath catches as it crawls closer. Each tiny step feels magnified, its weight far greater than it should be.
I try to tell myself it’s just a spider, and it’s more scared of me than I am of it. But panic grips me as my breathing quickens. The fear tightens its hold as it ventures closer to my shoulder. I freeze, breath caught in my throat, unable to move.
It reaches my neck. My skin crawls. My chest tightens, and my breathing becomes shallow. I don’t move. I don’t scream. Thrashing will only make it worse, so I stay still, my thoughts spiraling into the horrors of spiders crawling into ears, or up noses. The idea nearly makes me scream, but I know no one would hear me. If they could, they’d have come the first two nights I was here, when I did nothing but scream.
The spider skitters across my cheek, its legs brushing my skin. Tears slip from my eyes, but I stay still, my body locked in terror. As the minutes tick by, I’m not sure what’s worse—waiting for its bite, or knowing in this place, I’m as powerless to control the small creatures as I am to escape the monsters who walk on two legs. The spider moves closer to my eye, and a tear slides down my cheek. Please don’t bite me.
I start humming. It’s the only way to keep my panic at bay.
“In the dark where shadows creep,
Little Firefly takes her leap…”
The rhyme steadies me, pulling me back to Grandma's cabin. I don’t know if that is worse or not, but right now it's a distraction from the tiny legs moving across my skin. At least I know the ending of my memories, the spider’s actions are yet to be seen. For a moment, the darkness recedes, replaced by the hum of crickets and the glow of fireflies.
“Wings aglow, she dances light,
Unaware of the Spider’s sight.”
I focus on the memory, letting it wrap around me and draw the darkness away.
Flashback
The night was warm, the kind of summer evening when the air buzzed with life and the sky was dotted with stars, twinkling like a thousand fireflies. I was small enough that the backyard felt like a vast, magical forest, and the shadows along the edges of the trees seemed mysterious, full of adventures I knew I’d never go on.
I remember the grass beneath my bare feet—cool and soft, cushioning every step as I darted around the yard, chasing the flickers of light dancing in the air. Fireflies were everywhere, tiny lanterns flitting through the dark, and I was determined to catch them.
“Come on, Firefly, you can do it!” My father’s voice floated through the night, filled with laughter as I chased them. I could hear the smile in his voice, making me giggle and try even harder to catch one in my jar.
I was his “Firefly.” He always called me that when we played this game, as if the lightness in my steps and the joy in my heart made me one with those glowing bugs. And he was the Spider, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. I loved our little game—until I had to go back inside, back to her.
I could hear him now, his steps slow and deliberate as he pretended to sneak up on me. “Watch out, Firefly,” he teased, his voice dropping to a mock-threatening growl. “The Spider’s coming to get you!”
I shrieked, reaching out to catch a firefly that had ventured too close. My fingers clasped around it, feeling the gentle tickle of its tiny wings against my skin. I squealed, holding up my prize to show him.
As I tried to take a step, I felt his hands on me, swift and sure, as he swept me off my feet and spun me around. “Got you!” he declared, his laughter ringing out as he pulled me close, his arms warm and strong around me.
I squirmed and giggled, trying to escape, but he held me tight. “Now the Spider’s going to bite!” he warned, his fingers digging into my sides, tickling me until I was breathless with laughter.
I remember how safe I felt in those moments—how his arms shielded me from her—and the sound of his laughter, which was like the sweetest music.
As I reflect on it now, a bittersweetness colors the memory. Those days are gone, lost to time and the harshness of reality. I can still see his smile, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed, the way his love wrapped around me like a blanket on those warm summer nights. But the warmth of those memories is now tinged with cold, a reminder of the darkness when he had to go to work. Of when he left me with her.
I was his Firefly, and he was my Spider. And even now, when the nights are long and the darkness feels too heavy to bear, I find myself wishing I could return to those days—just for a moment. Back when the world was full of fireflies, and the only thing I had to fear was the tickle of his fingers and the sound of his laughter echoing through the night.
Now, the Spider has taken on a new meaning. Its bite is no longer a tickle. It’s poison—venom so paralyzing I can only watch as the Spider devours me whole.