Page 9 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
I stepped back and picked at a strand of lint on my sleeve, doing my damnedest to look unaffected. When I finally returned my gaze to him, he didn’t look convinced. I spat out, “You can rewrite our history all you want, Damsel, but it won’t change our future.”
Taunting laughter rippled out of him, and he looked like temptation in his bespoke guanaco-woven suit and derisive sneer. “You don’t get it, do you? You being here changes everything.” He winked at me—freaking winked at me—and left, his soldiers trailing after him like well-trained lapdogs.
My mom had always taught me that life was a never-ending game of chess. And this game? It felt like he’d just claimed another piece.
Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.
Sun Tzu
Ten Years Old
One spring evening, when the rain had sunk the wheels of our town car a foot deep into mud and I’d run out of books to read in the house, I found Maman in her library, staring over a chessboard.
I liked all sorts of things other ten-year-old kids didn’t—books, debate, and speed math, for instance. Chess had never been one of them. Papà liked to play it in the cigar room when other mafiosos visited. A men’s game, he called it. I wondered what he would say if he knew Maman liked to play, too.
“Come.” She gestured to the spot across from her. “Sit.”
This chessboard was her throne, and it overlooked her empire. A floor-to-ceiling glass wall separated us from the beach. I always appreciated the wealth Papà took for granted. This view, most of all.
I loved this room. Loved everything about it, including the way my mom looked so out of place with her distressed style, which Papà complained made her look like a commoner. In Maman’s defense, there was nothing common about her.
I slid into the seat and hid a grin at Maman’s white Sonic Youth band tee. I wore the same one in gray. “Who are you playing with?”
“Everyone.”
That made no sense to me, but I pretended it did. “Doesn’t that get tiring?”
“Not if you know how to do it well.” A smile curved her lips, and despite the fact that she was the only woman in the Hamptons who sported band tees, loose jeans, and Chapstick (and only on the best of days), Maman was the prettiest woman in the world when she smiled. “Do you see this? The dark pawn is at e5, and the light pawn is at e4.” She moved the white knight. “And now the knight is at c3.” Here eyes met my mine, too serious for a cozy rainy day. “Do you know what this is?”
The infamous Vienna game.
Papà had shown this to me a few years ago when he caught me staring at one of the many chessboards he kept in the house. “The King’s Gambit is an aggressive attack. The opening of petulant kings trying to prove their worth.” Indignation coated his voice, and even at seven, I heard it. “The Vienna game is a delayed King’s Gambit. Slower play with the same result.”
Years later, I still remembered his words. “Papà said the Vienna game is the opening of kings who do not understand that patience is wasted time.”
Amusement swam in Maman’s eyes. “Your papà can be a fool at times, pretty girl.”
My jaw dropped. “Maman!”
I’d never heard anyone speak of Papà like this. He was the head of the Vitali, for goodness sake!
“Oh, hush, my love.” She winked at me. “You won’t tell.” Her thin fingers, weighed down by an enormous diamond ring, moved a piece on the board. “Your father can learn a thing or two from the Vienna game.” Maman met my eyes. “White plays quietly, and the dark king?” That unassuming smile filled her face. “The dark king never sees her coming.”
It was a lesson I should never have forgotten.
Self-deception is sometimes as necessary a tool as a crowbar.
Mosa Hart
Seventeen Years Old
The workers in the De Luca household liked to gossip in Spanish, which was close enough to my native Italian that I had an idea of what they said. Señor Damian, as the maids called him, came home more often than usual lately, and they blamed me.
I loathed the sense I saw in their logic.
If ever there was a cold war between two strangers, this was it. I’d stolen Damiano De Luca’s phone. That didn’t exactly set a remarkable first impression. He hadn’t confronted me about it, but I knew he knew.
After sending Maman an email and erasing my digital tracks, I slipped the phone on the floor by his bedroom door. Maybe he would think he had dropped it.
