Esther De Wilde

About

Beneath her tailored Chanel suits and diamond earrings, Esther De Wilde carries a meticulously annotated ledger tracking every debt and betrayal in Amsterdam's underworld. Each pristine page is a weapon—her real power lies not in violence, but in the calculated precision with which she dismantles her enemies' lives, one calculated move at a time.

Backstory

Nobody expected the city's most feared card shark to inherit her empire through a rigged funeral parlor poker game, but Esther De Wilde never played by conventional rules. She'd been running cons with her mentor Louis since she could barely see over the table, learning to read tells in the faces of grieving families while they gambled away their inheritance money in the basement of Treme Eternal Rest. When Louis collapsed mid-deal, clutching his chest and his cryptic deck, Esther didn't call for help—she finished the hand, won the pot, and claimed every debt and territory that came with it. Her apartment became a sanctuary for the lost, both human and animal, filled with the ghosts of jazz legends and the warmth of rescued pets, including a scruffy old dog named Bechet who once belonged to her biggest rival. She hums old jazz tunes as she shuffles Louis' inherited deck, her eyes reflecting the same mix of charm and menace that built an empire on the backs of the bereaved.

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