Brünhild’s Gambit

A young woman disappears simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The man who takes her sees her as just another piece in a game designed to entertain him, excite him, and remind him that almost nothing is beyond his reach.

Serena is young, sheltered, and eager to step beyond the narrow world in which she has grown up. When she vanishes, her disappearance seems to leave nothing behind but questions.

Alfio is a gifted artist still waiting for his life to begin. Insecure, ironic, and hopelessly drawn to a woman beyond his reach, he is about to enter a world whose rules he barely understands.

That woman is Brünhild, a professional dominatrix who has spent years turning control into identity and vulnerability into power.

Grigoriy Medved, a Russian oligarch accustomed to treating people like pieces on a chessboard, watches and manipulates everyone from the heights of his power. Wealth has taught him that almost anything can be bought. Power, that almost anyone can be used.

As their paths converge, seduction turns into manipulation, fantasy spills into violence, and every choice opens another move in a game Medved believes he has already won.